Lonnie,
I see the mental health crisis as being quite pervasive and would consider this observation to fall mostly under the mental health crisis, although it clearly also connects to the meaning and digital-globalization crises. My primary question would be: Are we seeing an aggregate shift in the mental health of the elderly? I have not seen data along those lines. When I look I see definite, strong aggregate data pointing to a rise in mental health problems in the youth. There is also good data that the general and mental health of "lower class" whites has dropped (see here https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/casetextsp17bpea.pdf).
So, your point is well taken and your reflections are exactly what I hope the Digital Identity Problem formulation does, which is provide a macro-level frame to see the situation we are in and then start to line up many different patterns in the world to raise our collective consciousness.
Thanks much for this reflection. I would be interested in looking over your dissertation if you feel like sharing it.
Best,
Gregg
-----Original Message-----
From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Lonny Meinecke
Sent: Saturday, August 24, 2019 1:03 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Digital Identity Problem
Thanks Gregg!
We might add, as well, a 5th aspect (or subcategory of item 4). There is an identity crisis and self-worth crisis among the senior community, as we find ourselves expected to keep up with a rate of cognitive growth (a selective, amensal growth so to speak) that easily outstrips our evolutionary capacity (the rate of our commensal growth so to speak). The need to memorize so many passwords associated with fleeting products and industries, to intuitively navigate so many different "interfaces" (using so many different browsers, each trying to avoid the other's copyrighted design while establishing a single standard), make sweeping gestures that magically summon hidden items behind glass screens… and so forth.
I am seeing a recurrent "repertoire" of new expressions of anguish and anxiety on the faces of elderly persons exhibiting worried cognitive saccades as they like living rasters try to find the attentional button of the day. You can watch them as they sweep their heads like turrets from side to side and top to bottom - the growing fear of failure in their eyes - the collapse of self worth and admission of burgeoning cognitive "deficits" because they are expected to intuit what is not remotely instinctual. Curiously, G Stanley Hall said much the same 100 years ago about the plight of children (Search, 1901, p. 51-52).
Nearly every day I hear admissions of insufficient self-worth by persons I once admired, and not because their abilities have diminished but because the expectations of a digital world make us all feel outdated and obsolete.
For our group, I think this offers a chance to challenge our assumptions in the broad sense, and see if we might foster reverence for what we biologically are (unique individuated creatures with the need to be valued by our fellows) more than what we mentally lack (too young to be of any value, too old to be of any value, or just right to be of temporary value to society). What do you think? Some of this is in my dissertation's chapter 5 and based on my method (physical age bias: too young, too old, or just right and mental age bias: not smart, not smart enough, or just right).
Thanks!
Lonny
Reference
Search, P. W. (1901). An ideal school, or looking forward. In W. T. Harris (Ed.), International Education Series (Vol. LII, pp. 1-357). New York, NY: D. Appleton and Company.
############################
To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list:
write to: mailto:[log in to unmask]
or click the following link:
http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1
############################
To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list:
write to: mailto:[log in to unmask]
or click the following link:
http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1