{"id":27171,"date":"2025-09-22T09:00:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T16:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/?p=27171"},"modified":"2025-09-12T11:36:40","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T18:36:40","slug":"open-space-in-defence-of-real-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2025\/09\/22\/open-space-in-defence-of-real-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Space<\/em>: In defence of real life"},"content":{"rendered":"

Digital connection has never been more essential. We stay close to friends across continents, access unlimited information, and build communities around shared interests. Life is lived increasingly online, and while millennials and Gen Zs have been coined as \u201cdigital natives,\u201d our digital ecosystems have become fertile ground for conquest by those seeking profits.<\/p>\n

Your attention is the product being sold. As Gen Z\u2019s favourite economist Kyla Scanlon explains, \u201cattention is infrastructure\u201d\u2014it\u2019s the foundational input that shapes everything else in our digital economy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Studies show that more than 50 percent of Instagram posts promoting ultra-processed foods use deceptive health cues, while 77 percent of #fitspo videos featuring women focus on a single body part instead of on genuine wellness. Engaging in problematic social media use like this has been associated with measurable physical changes in adolescent brain structure. Social media doesn\u2019t just influence\u2014it\u2019s systematic reality distortion.<\/p>\n

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This story originally appeared in our September 17, 2025 issue.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Generations are defined by shared formative experiences during identity development. For us \u201cdigital natives,\u201d those experiences occurred within systems designed to exploit psychological vulnerabilities.<\/p>\n

As a millennial who witnessed social media\u2019s emergence\u2014even lying about my own age so I could poke friends on Facebook in the 2000s\u2014I\u2019ve watched this unfold firsthand. I\u2019ve also experienced the personal cost of prioritizing digital connection over human presence.<\/p>\n

Like many mature students balancing competing obligations, I\u2019m grateful for online learning\u2019s accessibility, yet my higher education path has presented unique challenges within remote contexts. Digital connection can be isolating and may complicate access to nuanced understanding, inadvertently compounding social barriers for college students seeking transformative personal growth.<\/p>\n

This reflects broader research showing how digital relationships lack the depth of in-person connection. It\u2019s been documented that increases in adolescent anxiety, depression, and suicide aligned with the rise of smartphones and social media\u2019s ubiquity. These extreme costs aren\u2019t just personal.<\/p>\n

The real-life AI data centres required for the expansion of our digital networks are massive, loud, and environmentally destructive. Virtual products of the digital economy exist alongside real-world businesses, highlighting a crucial distinction we\u2019re losing sight of: digital life has real-world implications.<\/p>\n

So, prioritize human connection: join study groups; go dancing; meet with friends; shop local. These aren\u2019t nostalgic gestures\u2014they\u2019re strategic choices. Students who step back from digital-first approaches and step into real life report better focus, deeper friendships, and more authentic learning experiences. Attention flows from your mind like a freshwater spring\u2014protect it.<\/p>\n

Yet defending real life isn\u2019t necessarily rejecting technology. Dating apps have allowed queer people like me to find others in ways that weren\u2019t possible before, and digital tools can genuinely facilitate real-world connection. But we must refuse to allow digital systems to replace human experience, especially during formative periods of development. Generation Alpha will inherit an even more sophisticated attention-harvesting machinery, making our choices today crucial for establishing different patterns.<\/p>\n

The neurological benefits of in-person connection are undeniable. Your capacity to think, feel, and form authentic human relationships shouldn\u2019t be treated as a commodity. Unfiltered reality serves as an antidote to algorithmic manipulation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In a world where social-media platforms attempt to hijack and warp our reality, choosing physical presence is revolutionary defence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Digital connection has never been more essential. We stay close to friends across continents, access unlimited information, and build communities around shared interests. Life is lived increasingly online, and while millennials and Gen Zs have been coined as \u201cdigital natives,\u201d our digital ecosystems have become fertile ground for conquest by those seeking profits. Your attention […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27192,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,338],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-views","category-september-17-2025"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27171"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27195,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27171\/revisions\/27195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}