Growing up with the internet

We are a generation that grew up with the internet. That is an indisputable fact.

With every milestone—from my elementary graduation where I spent half the time being asked to take pictures for the photo albums to my most recent one, celebrated in the comfort of my own home and immortalized with one click of the screenshot feature during the online ceremony—it almost seemed like technology was growing with me, eclipsing my own achievements with one of its own. In fact, perhaps at this point, we’ve experienced everything online—from school orientations to workshops to anything you could possibly imagine—amid COVID-19.

I still distinctly remember how, as a child barely reaching my parents’ knees, I looked up the Pokedex website on the clunky personal computer that my grandparents owned, and how, a little older, I used my practically indestructible Nokia phone to type out little stories as a text, and how I saved them all in the outbox like a treasure trove of poorly kept secrets. I watched the “You Belong With Me” music video every single time our class was sent to the computer lab for classes. I probably even learned how to write from eBooks I smuggled out of Wattpad stories as much as from the instructions of my English teacher. As I battled with puberty and hormones, researchers from all over the world developed front-facing cameras and GPS and talking kitchen appliances.

If we’re speaking plainly, maybe my childhood was the internet, in a way. Maybe you feel the same. It was unavoidable; look at this, all our interests connected through one seemingly infinite source. There was always someone there through the screen who could understand, no matter how outlandish the pastime. Of course, we’ve never had a choice, with Pandora’s box being as tempting as it is. We never had to worry too much about relating.

We are a generation that grew up with the internet. In the age of hustle and grind, we’ve learned how to cut our losses and value efficiency above all. Everything is made and engineered for convenience. The question we aim to answer in everyday life, no matter what field you work in, is, “How can we make this better? Faster? Easier to digest?”

Our school discussions and lectures are condensed into the most necessary bullet points in aesthetically pleasing PowerPoint. Our advocacies are succinctly packaged and delivered into color-coded infographics. Even the things that are meant to be entertainment, something to help us unwind, have been cut down from 30 minutes of one episode to 15 seconds of a TikTok for maximum productivity. We are, no doubt, a generation that feels the need to rush, and who could blame us? There’s so much going on—the phone in our hands with several notifications already loading up after switching it off for 15 minutes on a school day during a global pandemic is already enough proof of it.

We are a generation that grew up with the internet. It is, in a way, easier. We are our parents’ hopes and dreams. We are all that they’ve never had. We are the visions of a future that seems simultaneously bright and bleak.

Never before has a generation known so much; the news scream of another thing that you can’t change, no matter how much you want to. Look online and what do you see? Your feed gives you reels of people your age doing all that you want and more, all while looking absolutely gorgeous in that outfit you could never pull off even if you tried. Have you heard this? Have you done that? Have you been here? Have you owned that? Perhaps more terrifying: What are you doing now that’s making a difference? What will you continue to do?

You turn off your phone, but it’s already an ever-constant ringing in your ears—are you doing enough? Will anything you do ever be enough, realistically?

We are a generation that grew up with the internet. Never before have children been so easily given the world with no advice on how to bear its weight. Breathe, little warrior. The internet has a funny way of making you feel heard and yet, still feel so alone. You aren’t. There are so many who are struggling with the same thing. You are doing all you can, and just for that, you deserve recognition.

We are a generation that grew up with the internet. We’re trying our best to properly navigate what’s been given to us, the same way the others before us have. We hope for your patience and support in this endeavor.

Trisha Marie Matabalan, 21, is from Bohol. She is a third-year literature student at De La Salle University. When she isn’t writing, she is the happiest taking naps or in a 7/11, buying another salmon tuna onigiri.