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17 / 08 / 2004
Carles Feixa, anthropologist: “The internet should not create generation ghettos”
The “141 Questions” at the Forum (99): “The dot.com generation: a reality or another label?" Anthropologist Carles Feixa, specialist in the study of youth cultures, expressed the opinion that "the dot.com generation reflects the changes in a society that has other forms of communication". He wondered why there is such an expression of rejection towards text messaging "when perhaps a new form of communication is happening", and he said that the challenge of the 21st century "is to reach a situation where in theory everybody has access to the new technologies". With regard to the education of the future, he emphasized that "we will have to learn to unlearn" so that acquired knowledge does not condition us forever.
More information about 141 questions - @ Generation: a reality or an other label?
Carles Feixa (1962), professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Lleida and specialist in youth culture studies, was at the Haima Stage to emphasize that, “the dot.com generation, by definition, is ageless and as such should not create generation ghettos”. He supported the need to ensure that nobody, of their own volition, should move away from the new technologies and mentioned the "cross-generation” concept, which attaches more importance to the life experience of someone than to their age: "the university of the future would have to be a place of learning that is thoroughly cross-generational” he reasoned. Also, he talked about a new type of generational interaction: "Now the educators are no longer always adults; today small children teach the older ones how to use a mobile phone or a remote control”.
After admitting that, as happens in Japan, some adolescents run the risk of limiting their world to a closed room, he declared that, "the digital environment encourages a game in the street". He said that to avoid cases "of introspection and solitude" it would be good to come up with new technologies that required interaction. Anyway, he assured that the immense majority of the young people who surf the Internet, use the messenger and have mobile phones, "also play sport, have fun at weekends and go to the Forum to discuss the problems of the world". For Carles Feixa, "the dot.com generation reflects the changes in society that now has other forms of communication". In relation to this, he wondered why there is such an expression of rejection towards text messaging "when perhaps a new form of communication is happening" and, immediately afterwards, he recalled the involvement of young people in the last general elections: "the use of the new technologies caused an electoral turnaround unprecedented in the western world", he pointed out.
Carles Feixa has described as highly positive the fact that "the dot.com generation affects all nations", because the Internet has spread all around the world and, at the same time, has meant that the challenge awaiting us in the 21st century "is to succeed in providing theoretical access to the new technologies for everyone because, to set an example, in San Francisco alone there is more Internet access than there is in the entire African continent". Once again, in the field of learning, he went on to say that, faced with a barrage of information, we should "teach people how to search and select, rather then simply use search engine programs, which are constantly changing". He also mentioned that "we should learn to unlearn" to avoid acquired knowledge permanently conditioning our way of thinking.
In terms of controlling the information that circulates on the Net, he pointed out the effectiveness of the education and values being taught, which enable young people to find what best suits them: "Rather than banning or censuring, it might be a good idea to know what we're talking about and be more informed on things. It's all about finding shared interest and forms of dialogue", he concluded.
Carles Feixa is resident professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Lleida. He has specialized in the study of youth cultures, carrying out research in Catalonia and Mexico. He has also carried out work as visiting researcher at universities in Mexico, Paris, California (Berkeley) and Rome. He has published several books, among which are La tribu juvenil (1988), La joventut com a metàfora (1993), De jóvenes, bandas y tribus (1998), El reloj de arena (Mexico, 1998), Generació @ (2001), Grafitis, grifotas, okupas (2002), in addition to various articles in magazines including DeJuventud, Estudios sobre las Culturas Contemporáneas, Societés, Journal of Mediterranean Studies, Social Anthropology, etc. He forms part of the advisory council for the magazines Nueva Antropología (Mexico), Nómadas (Colombia), and Young (Helsinki). At present he is vice-president of the Sociology of Youth Research Committee, of the International Sociological Association and member of the international research networks Eurogang, Consortium for Culture and Generation Studies and Rede de Estudios sobre a Infancia e a Juventude na America Latina.
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