Essay draft 3

“Youths in Singapore are spending more time online now than ever.” (Sim, 2013) This has adversely affected youth’s social interaction within their family as they are spending less time on face-to-face social interaction. This leads to a widening of the generation gap and there is a chance that youth will be unable to interact with senior citizens in the future. (Yeo, 2002) Because of the increase in young people's reliance on ICT (Information and communication technology), which takes away family time and communication with members of the older generation, the Central Singapore Community Development Council (CDC) should organise large scale events to bridge the generation gap. This essay will talk about how the digital divide between grandparents and grandchildren in a family leads to miscommunication as well as a generation gap and evaluate the solutions taken by some group of people in Singapore to bridge the gap.

The Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) states that “family is the basic building block of society.” However, the over reliance of technology by youth is hindering the “building blocks” within the family which threatens the stability of the Singapore society. According to the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), statistics show that over 95 per cent of teenagers used the Internet in 2012. Many youth use the internet to play online games, browse social networking websites such as Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr and watch their favourite shows online. On the other hand, IDA statistics show that less than 20 per cent of the elderly, 60 years and above, used the internet. This results in youth exchanging social interaction for online satisfaction. The lack of face-to-face interaction leads to miscommunication and misunderstanding based on stereotypes. These stereotypes were created within the family, such as grandparents being frail and not techno-savvy. The differences in attitude between each other will lead to a widening of the generation gap (Serra, College, & Barracks 1971). This can cause grandparents and grandchildren may conceive negative images of each other which will inevitably build an invisible wall within the family.

According to the Journal of Intergenerational Relationships, a Brazilian study published in 2007(as cited in Stepp, 2008), by bringing unconnected teenagers and grandparents together, grandparents could be closer to their own grandchildren. The youth who took part in the project thought that the elderly were “not able to do anything”, impatient, callous and demanding while the elderly people within the project deemed teenagers to be disrespectful. After interacting with each other for two hours, interviews with the two groups shows that the perception of the opposite group became better. The teenagers found the elderly knowledgeable and admired them for working so hard to survive in the past. On the other hand, the elderly felt appreciated by the teenagers and had an enjoyable time.  Therefore, overcoming the “intergenerational barrier” and becoming familiarised with unknown elderly broke the invisible wall and made it easier to communicate within their own families (Stepp 2008). This solution may not work out for Singapore as Singapore is a more developed country as compared to Brazil. According to IDA’s statistics, at least 87% of the population in 2013 have access to a computer at home. Computers and cellphone acts as catalyst to distract teenagers from focusing on their task (Richtel, 2010). It requires more than two hours of interacting with strangers to change the mind-sets of Singaporeans where technology is already deeply ingrained into a child’s life ever since they are born. Nonetheless, it still holds some good points such as getting teenagers and elderly together. If we could remove the gadgets from teenager, they will be more focus on communication on the elderly. 

To raise communication levels between grandparents and grandchildren in Singapore, the CDC can organised an annual movement to bring them together to socially interact with one another. Doing so can help break the invisible wall within the family that prevents grandparents and grandchildren from communicating. In the year 2013, a similar project, The Silver Yarn Project, was created by four students from Nanyang Technological University for the same purpose. This project is a “youth movement” whose goals are to get more young people to socially interact with their seniors (Zhuang, 2013). Communicating with their grandparents allow youths to form closer bonds with them. The internet was used to promote the movement and it received "600 Likes on Facebook which translate to about 200,000 people reached". This includes roadshows at universities and an annual Instagram competition. Today, the four graduates are actively searching for more schools participate in their project. This project could be a basis for a more effective solution in the future. It was started in the year 2013 and received quite a number of positive responses from their targeted audience. Looking at the Pink Dot movement, a movement to raise awareness regarding lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT), it has grown significantly since 2009. According to statistics from the Pink Dot, it had about 2500 supporters in 2009. However in 2014, it has garnered over 26000 supporters. This shows that it requires a lot of time and effort to raise awareness for a cause. If the CDC is able to actively promote and organise an annual event to bring about related grandparents and grandchildren together, it may be successful in breaking the invisible wall between the two groups and improving family ties.

In conclusion, to achieve cohesiveness within the family, both parties (grandparents and grandchildren) should take initiative to communicate with each other. The younger generations can teach the elderly on how to make use of technology while the elderly can be optimistic to learn more about technology. If one party is not interested, miscommunication is bound to occur. It also requires the collective effort of other family members and government sectors such as CDC. As the saying goes, “Rome wasn’t built in a day”. Communication between people will not change overnight and it may take years of using campaigns to bond members of families together. If everyone involved believes in the same purpose, slowly but surely the miscommunication and generation gap in Singapore will be reduce.

(1018 words)

References

Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore. (2012). Statistics of individual usage of computer and internet. Retrieved from http://www.ida.gov.sg/Infocomm-Landscape/Facts-and-Figures/Infocomm-Usage-Households-and-Individuals#4 

Ministry of Social and Family Development. (2014, July 30). Family Protection & Welfare. Retrieved from http://app.msf.gov.sg/Policies/Strong-and-Stable-Families/Supporting-Families/Family-Protection-Welfare

Richtel, M. (2010, Novmember 21). Growing Up Digital, Wired for Distraction Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/technology/21brain.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Serra, R., College, A., & Barracks, C. (1971). A conflict of generations: The generation gap. Retrieved from http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/766107.pdf

Sim,F. (2013). S'pore youths spending more time online: study. Yahoo! News. Retrieved from https://sg.news.yahoo.com/s-pore-youths-spending-more-time-online--study-100333925.html

Stepp, G. (2008, October 21). Grand cultures: strengthening grandparent and grandchild ties. Retrieved from http://www.vision.org/visionmedia/grandparents-generation-gap/4742.aspx

Stepp, G. (2007, October 21). Mind the gap. Retrieved from http://www.vision.org/visionmedia/bridging-the-generation-gap/3870.aspx

Fletcher, S. “Intergenerational Dialogue to Reduce Prejudice: A Conceptual Model,”Journal of Intergenerational Relationships (Vol. 5, No. 1, 2007).

Yeo.A. (2002, March 5). Growing generation gap a concern. The Straits Times. Retrieved from http://www.populationasia.org/Events/2002/Event_040302/news1.pdf

Zhuang. Z. (2013, August 9). Bonding across the generational divide. Today. Retrieved from http://www.todayonline.com/singapore/bonding-across-generational-divide?page=1