For the younger generation, the contemporary digital landscape is a bustling workplace
To prepare for the initial intervention, I had a series of unstructured interviews with Korean professionals in the visual domain. Interestingly, the dialogue evolved into a generational discourse, revealing the shared sentiment of both younger and older generations: a feeling of marginalization, uncertainty, and diminished hope.
The discussions unveiled a common acknowledgement of increasing screen time dependency. However, the correlation between this digital immersion and a pervasive sense of anxiety remains unclear. Also their professional ties to the digital world, it’s not realistic for them to take drastic steps like a dopamine detox.
Interestingly, younger people tend to say they use online platforms more for career preparation than for fun. But regardless of why they’re online, most people mentioned feeling tired, nervous, and anxious. What they’re looking for is not necessarily a way to completely disconnect but a different kind of relaxation.
When asked what they expect from the cultural industry, responses varied. Some people wanted simpler, less anxiety-inducing content, while others felt it was up to the individual to manage their own issues and that there’s not much the creative industries can do.
The digital sphere is an inevitable reality of our times, and it’s up to us to decide whether to adapt or fall behind. It’s hard to measure the impact of cultural changes because they don’t happen overnight. We all just living up together.
This leads me to hope that cultural spaces can provide relaxation through visual media. The potent influence of our environment, particularly visual stimuli, on our thoughts is a well-established fact. The emotions evoked by the brain’s reception of visual information weave narratives into our conscious framework. Such reflections have stimulated my curiosity about the potency of moving images in shaping emotions. I hope digital technology can be used as another means to do so. The juniors who were interviewed said that they were caught in the middle. Although there may be negative and unfamiliar feelings in digital liminality, there is an expectation that the space is more extensive and vaster than we feel. There will be enough space for us to explore and find good things for us.