Feature

I am talking about the young generation bred and brought up in an environment of extensive use of internet technology. I call them 'net generation'. All members of the generation are connected with each other with internet. The novel technology has tremendously influenced their life and patterned their thought in a way very different from the previous generations. They are unlike their fathers and grandfathers in temperament, where generation gap is easily noticeable. They are introvert and inwardly adventurous. They like to visit their favourite websites rather than visiting their relatives. They take to browsing instead of taking the pleasure of reading books. Their taste is all different, in propensity and intensity. They are self-centric and maybe a bit eccentric.

The net folks chat and make friends sailing through internet. They kill time with chatting, sitting at a cyber café or at the corner of their reading room. They chatter hours together, during day and night, with people known or unknown to them, in gentle or obscene language. They are never tired in doing so. Every time they click, they get fresh energy. The whole world is in front of them. They touch it and feel it as they can. Their knowledge, as it were, transcends their temporal and spatial limitations. They discover the meaning of life through some kind of illusion. They meet and interpret reality in a state of 'hyper-reality', to borrow a term from French philosopher Jean Baudrillard, an oft-cited name in the literature of post-modernism.

The net generation love to communicate with their friends through email or voice mail. They have bidden adieu to the traditional 'pen and paper' postal correspondence and adapted to the keyboarding measure. They contact with the persons residing at the farthest corner of the globe with the instant messaging system. This is how they overcome distance, to come too close to their sweetheart. Internet gives them immense opportunity to find out a match for them. There are numerous friendship sites and online matchmakers, who help the lonely souls. They exchange words, voice and photos with the matches. At some auspicious moment in spring breeze they meet each other and, if God has will, they put their hands together,
tying the knot.

They use and abuse net, so to say, violating netiquette consciously or unconsciously. They know exactly where the dark sites are. They surreptitiously enter the prohibited zone with trembling body and mind and enjoy the beauty of ugliness. It's just intoxication with an irresistible attraction to destructive drug. Life appears colourful, cheerful. The hidden world appears dearer than the visible panorama. This, however, does not impart the sense of anything bad or immoral. They are not ashamed of whatever they do. They are proud of being the members of net generation.

The net addictive symptoms will be more acute with the passage of time, I predict. As the internet will spread its net wider, more and more people will show the symptoms. The number will keep multiplying until the point of total exhaustion. Society will then show novel phenomena always keeping the youths at the cutting edge. The generation gap will take new dimension but it will never end. The offspring will be calling their parents outdated, as ever.

A few days ago I asked a boy why he is always busy with internet. Smiling like a Cheshire cat, he said, “What should I do otherwise?” I could not give him an answer. I remembered there is no open field for them to run and play, no river or pond to swim, no constructive club activities to attend to, and no 'kabi gaan' to listen to. Their world has virtually shrunk to the small room where a desktop computer is making its presence felt with the connection to internet. Yes, then, what can they do other than remaining busy with the marvel, which offers too many things to them? They are more close to machine than man. Their heart rhythmically beats in the silicon chip - their blood merrily flows through the network vessels. Maybe one day they themselves will aspire to be machines to attain a supernatural existence of 'matrix'! Who can say where the net mania will end and where will the net generation be led to?

The writer is Assistant Professor, English, Bangladesh University.
Email: binoy_barman@yahoo.com