Because of AI and social media, young people are as ignorant and idiotic as we are.

We live in the same old fearmongering: the new "idiot box" is now the computer, the mobile phone, and artificial intelligence. Every time a technological breakthrough occurs, doomsayers suddenly appear predicting the end of the world, or at the very least, absolute chaos for those poor future generations who will grow up enslaved by a small screen. Since ancient times, every innovation has been received this way: from books to talkies, to television, and now, social media.

It's true that you can become addicted to social media, that you can be scammed online, and that artificial intelligence opens the door to dangerous uses, starting with the corporate theft of other people's creative work. But, on the one hand, there is always the individual option to voluntarily renounce the use of this new technology ; on the other, to claim legitimate intellectual property rights over any creative work and fight for a fair legislative framework.

In any case, it's patently false that today's youth are ignorant, lazy, and stupid because of the internet, social media, or artificial intelligence . For the simple reason that young people, and the human species in general, have always been notoriously ignorant, lazy, and stupid. One degree more or one degree less in a given era isn't going to make much of a difference in the overall decline.

Of Grumps and Spring Onions

It's obvious: in their "mature" years , human beings become a bunch of grumps, complainers, and critics of the generations that follow them. They embrace a practical reactionary approach, also motivated by the fear of being outdated.

As a kid, I found it funny how my parents and grandparents didn't understand the current musical tastes: that those rockers don't sing shit, that they all need a microphone and not like before when they sang straight, that the lyrics can't be understood, that what is understood is nonsense, long live music with a small orchestra, that there's no one like Gardel (they were right about that). Now I see exactly the same reaction from guys my age (in their fifties) criticizing reggaeton or any related style: that they can’t be understood, that the lyrics couldn’t be simpler, that it’s all pachum pachum , that they sing sleepily (the new “they sing drugged”)… Those who yesterday were waggling their fibulas happily muttering “a uan ba buluba balam bamboo”, today complain about Rosalía’s “ motomami ” or Bad Bunny’s “me las vo' lleva a toas pa' un vi ai pi” (a song that my very feminist thirty-something wife dances to fervently) and accuse their lyrics of being simple… Yes, of course, this is said by those who since their younger years were defenders of compositional and lyrical complexity.

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The same thing happens with technology: you see kids glued to a screen, watching videos or asking ChatGPT how much two plus two is, and the alarm bells go off. Are they becoming morons? Well, the answer is no... and yes. No and yes, in the sense that there has always been a moron component in youth, innate—and therefore understandable—due to their lack of life experience, which can be reduced with age through education, especially if self-taught, or exacerbated if they never break those consumer habits again. The moron of our time spends his days watching soccer games or Jorge Javier Vázquez shows; the one of today spends his days sharing silly AI cartoons or assimilating American moralizing through hundreds of YouTubers telling banalities or laughing mercilessly at a poor adulterous couple caught in public at a concert.

What I'm getting at is that ignorance and stupidity have always been the general tone of every era and society. In my class, there weren't too many Pythagoreans, or even restless spirits, and attention deficit disorder was as rampant as it is today: anyone who wasn't jerking off with one hand under their desk would concentrate for an hour on inscribing "Gerardito was here" on the blackboard. We didn't have TikTok , but we did have flies. And the power and attractiveness of a fly to distract a child is incredible: we could spend an entire morning absorbed in watching them buzz by or sharpening their legs perched on the window.

How many of us children read comics, popular articles, or books outside of class ? Well, not many, as few as we do now. Smart students, or at least curious students, those who were interested in more than one subject, who showed an inclination toward some hobby outside the background noise of Dad's transistor radio, who surprised with their erudition in some particular and unique subject, were very few; as always, the exceptions. Not to mention what one considers culture or not: what for many is a waste of time ( being addicted to video games , for example) could lead to a model of social, economic, and even intellectual success: becoming a highly successful programmer and pioneer in his field. You never know who the local hero will be, perhaps the one most often rumored to be wasting his time on inane activities. As is now the case with this entire virtual world. From the million "idiots," a genius always emerges.

And when it came to undisciplined behavior, no one could beat my generation. Our favorite sport was to take it out on the teachers themselves: I remember that during our journey through public education, we made two of them cry. The first was an English teacher who became hoarse from screaming for us to shut up and pay attention… and who ended up sobbing to the momentary bewilderment of the students and their subsequent merciless laughter, the final blow to the depressed adult who made the mistake of showing weakness. The second was a sociology professor, confronted by the reality of the cruelty of the masses when he realized that his paeans to human solidarity only aroused apathy and indifference.

Life goes on, right?

Will we return to analog punishment?

With the alarmist voices about the risks of new technologies , I sense the same old danger: that, by pretending to be modern and disguised with progressive labels, these voices fall into the same retrograde trap as those who complained decades ago about violence in video games or continue to complain about the harmful effects of pornography. Totalitarians disguised as social workers!

I wouldn't be surprised if, going even further, these doomsayers rush to recommend banning the daily use of cell phones or the internet itself (a ban I consider entirely legitimate if only one applies it to oneself) and, to defend the recovery of sensorially "physical" life, they begin by recommending walks in the countryside and end by advocating convincing parents to re-adopt physical punishment as a corrective for their offspring: a good smack, they'll say, is the best antidote to the drug of virtuality. "And how a slap used to wake us up to the dangers of self-absorption!" the crazy ones will reason. "Ah, when parents hit us, that certainly made the new generations smarter and more knowledgeable about life! Because if a smack doesn't shake you out of stupidity, nothing will..."

Watch out, some crazy group like this will soon arrive.

Asshole without a net (or nets)

But let's be honest: what right do we have to complain about gullible youth ? In my case, I'm also an idiot, just like most of my contemporaries, and I promise you that internet use has nothing to do with that idiocy.

For as long as I can remember, I've remembered doing stupid things , no matter how many books I've read and how little I expose myself to the devilish networks. Just last week, I ruined a new and expensive blender my neighbor gave me for my birthday: he told me to wash it first to remove any dust from the packaging, and I put the whole thing under running tap water. Now that it's not working, I spend my time mashing strawberries in a mortar and pestle, mimicking the whirring sound of the blender with my mouth ("brrrrrrmmm brrrrrrmmm!") so my neighbor can hear me from his apartment and be happy.

I don't know, I suspect you can't be much bigger of an idiot than me. And I swear I'm barely an internet user, I don't have a TikTok account, and I've never even checked GTP Chat!

So let the kids be the ones to play and natural selection do its job...