Generation Without Community

Tantan Hermansyah

AS the growth of gadget users and internet access in Indonesia, there is something that has the potential to become more widespread and stronger: the decay of community spirit. Before discussing further the hypothesis mentioned above, let's first look at the field facts quoted from the data provider agency. BPS, for example, said that in 2022 alone, as many as 40.25 percent of children under 15 years of age will have mastered or owned a device. Then 91.82 percent for those aged 15 - 24 years; 74.09 percent in those aged 25 - 64 years; and 27.45 percent for ages over 65 years. Let's look further, at the age layer less than 15 years and 15 - 24 years. These two age entities are the generations that will inherit, construct and build this nation in the future.

Of course, positively, device ownership could be based on the real educational needs of today, as well as the communication patterns of the general public which cannot be separated from the internet and gadgets. However, all parties must be aware that there are potential negative impacts from ownership or control of these devices and the internet. One of the things we will discuss here is the decay of the communitarian or community spirit in their lives. One of the negative functions of connecting someone via their device to the internet is that they can "escape" from their social life and then immerse themselves in cyberspace. Indeed, in this virtual space there are various groups or communities which can then build emotional social relationships between their members. However, the weakness of the relationship model in cyberspace is that the relationships are more artificial. In a sense, they relate according to their pragmatic interests, which can quickly become disconnected.

Patterns and models of relationships like this are of course very vulnerable. The reason is, in the process, the connectivity or relationships that occur are born because the relationship model is not institutionalized. Different from the model in the pattern of relationships in a community. In a community, relationship patterns occur in a gradual process and then crystallize into a system. This system then maintains the relationships between individuals in this social space. Apart from that, this system also makes the relationships between members in the community bonding and beautiful.

The presence of gadgets and the internet has certainly reduced conventional model relationships a lot. Apart from the media also changing, the relationship patterns and language also change.

However, the most significant change occurred in the related subject selection system. Where each subject has the power to establish relationships or break them, without having to feel that the previous ties are something that can build a system. So if this is the case, we are moving towards a world, whose generations are only individuals. They are just digital bits connected in cyberspace with their own language and system. This system has the potential to produce individual crystallization, because the relationships that occur in it are more individual and vulnerable. This is what we can then call the "Generation Without Community".

It is called a generation without community because this generation no longer seems to need cultural-primordial social spaces. The spaces that exist in virtual communities are more pragmatic technical in nature. Even if relationships occur, they are mostly connected and bound in a space called business. In business, relations between subjects have been converted into a symbiotic-mutualistic relationship which is realized in a product called salary or income. So as long as the relationship pattern still produces mutual income for both, the relationship will still occur. On the other hand, if the relationship no longer has an impact on income, then most of the relationships between them end.

A generation without community is and also originates from, if we refer to the data above, those whose culture today is very tied to gadgets and the internet. Of course, if you look in more detail, they are in the group aged between 15 and 24 years. This age is psychologically in an unstable and transitional phase. Their choice to become individuals, on the one hand, could be the right one, but on the other hand, it could also be a threat to themselves. Because it is common knowledge that not everything related to income and welfare, the future, etc., is only based on skills and abilities. In fact, in some cases, networks and trust actually play a much greater role in a person's ability to improve their socio-cultural and economic status in society.

So if today's algorithms can construct a trust-based relationship with a high level of accuracy, then it would be natural for us to redefine community.

With the data above, we can also find a gap that a generation without community has actually spread into the worldview, even attitudes, of those who today are connected via gadgets and the internet. In the future, generations without a community like this will place many restrictions on their daily social and cultural relations. The biggest threat from the crystallization of a generation without community is that the wealth and luxury of the beautiful community in which there is a social system that binds and glues them together could be lost. If it's like this, then we can say: welcome to the generation of robots. (Fnh)

Tantan Hermansyah is a Lecturer at the Faculty of Da'wah and Communication Sciences, Lecturer in Urban Sociology at UIN Jakarta. This article was published on Kompas.com on Thursday, 11/23/2023 with the title "Generation Without Community", https://www.kompas.com/tren/read/2023/11/23/083257465/generasi-tanpa-komunitas?page=2