Will the Digital Age Destroy Creativity?

Will the Digital Age Destroy Creativity?

Solitude makes it possible for us to gain access to our most inner reality. Through solitude we find the ability to sort out the structure of our thoughts, to gain access to the meaning of our ideas and attitudes. Solitude provides access to our imagination.

Imagination and reason are the aspects of the embodied mind, which, in levels of sophistication, sets our species off from our nearest non-human species. It is imagination that provides man with the flexibility to adjust to a changing environment but it is imagination that also robs man of contentment.

Our non-human ancestors are guided by instinct alone. Instinct is the impulse that determines the behavior in a pre-programmed response. But our species has added to this survival response system a high level of imagination, which allows us to fit into a changing environment for survival. Reason and imagination determines the destiny of the species. Discontentment, bred by imagination, motivates man to seek a different way; reason facilitates the change by offering the options for change. The discontent of imagination is the catalyst for adaptation.

The product of imagination can become either reality or fantasy. Fantasy can provide an escape from reality or, as is evident in our accomplishments of science and the arts, it provides the ingredients for new ideas, which like the theories of Newton and Einstein establish the paradigms for technology.

Freud wrote, in his paper Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming, “We may lay it down that a happy person never phantasies, only an unsatisfied one. The motive forces of phantasies are unsatisfied wishes, and every single phantasy is the fulfillment of a wish, a correction of an unsatisfied reality.” Critical Thinking, i.e. evaluative thinking not negative thinking, makes a correction of an unsatisfactory reality possible.

Freud considered fantasy was an escapist practice, a turning away from reality rather than a confrontation with reality in attempted change. He considered fantasy as a derivative of play; the child, in growing older, turned from fantasy focused upon an object to castles in the air. Freud theorized that the pleasure principle was replaced by the reality principle.

Present day psychology considers that fantasy is part of our biological endowment and that the discrepancy between our inner world and our outer world compels man to become inventive thereby leading to an active imagination. Imagination is the attempt to bridge the inner world and the outer world of man. Imagination is the engine of play.

Goya wrote “Phantasy abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters; united with her, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of their marvels.”

[b]Do you often seek solitude?

In our Digital Age is solitude possible for young people?

Will the Digital Age destroy solitude and thus inhibit imagination and thus creativity?[/b]

Most inner reality… Why stop there… Go for the mostest inner reality…

I’ve argued that ceativity is a myth. How can someone do something that hasn’t been done? How can someone make something when everything already exists?

Just because it is a myth does not mean it is not true… In fact; creativity is really re-creativity, when we use the forms of knowledge we possess to recreate reality in a new and better form…What we can do with our forms is proof of the truth of our forms…We once dwelled in caves, -a form of shelter… If we built a house and its roof was full of holes that would mean we had the idea of it wrong…Every reality suggests a better reality…

The hand held electronic gadgets and the Internet have created the means for constant interaction between one another thereby diminishing any time for adult contact or interaction with the world via newspapers and books.

“Mark Bauerlein, a professor of English at Emory University, compiled his frustration at young Netizens in his recent book The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future.”

“Bauerlein, 49, says younger generations don’t spend enough time learning about the world at large, writing: “They are latter-day Rip Van Winkles, sleeping through the movements of culture and events of history, preferring the company of peers to great books and powerful ideas and momentous happenings.”

digitaljournal.com/article/257487

Solitude isn’t as hard to find as you think; go camping, go into a bunker, go to mexico…

Go grab a book in the shet house… If you are not some where were you can shut up the other long enough to think about what he or she has to say, you ain’t alone…

I’m 17. No the Digital Age will not destroy Creativity. As other have mentioned, creativity separates us from animals, so if creativity were to die so would humanity as we know it.
Secondly, Many kids do get lost in the hyperconnetivity of today. Facebook being the timesink I’m thinking of. However those that realize the benefit of solitude will seek it. Nothing has really changed.

…Turn the computer off?
Easy as that.

I would class myself as a part of this generation that grew up on technology.
I find it entirely possible to still be creative.
I think - more to the point - is that today’s generation cannot be BOTHERED to pick up an instrument to learn… or even a fucking PENCIL, and start drawing.
…Though this is due to the digi-ness, so yes - I guess you’re right.

If you’re content you’re not thinking hard enough.

This is a big NO.

Those with a tendency to be creative, and it is only a small segment of the population, will still find the drive to create no matter what. In fact, look around you - there’s never been more artists, musicians, painters, writers, etc. etc. than at any other time in the world. Of course it could be because there’s simply more people nowadays; however, it’s more likely that it’s because the world has gone digital that people have become more creative.

Take music, for example. It used to be that to make music, you needed a complete band and a professional recording. Now you need a computer, maybe a vocalist or so, and you can create music.

the Digital opens the way for creativity. It provides the tools. Writers can opt not to write on paper (much more tiring than typing); painters are shifting to electronic art, either for practice or for profit; musicians + myspace (although ‘music’ may be loosely defined in that case)

I get your point, though, that isolation breeds creativity. Yes, it is true. But hasn’t it also been said that today’s generation is more alone, in terms of number of close friends per person, than past generations? Then creativity will, if anything, increase.

And about these people who glean all of their ideas from the wider media… well, there will still be creations coming from that side, but it will be derivative. Still, it’s ‘creative’. In any case, not everyone is affected by that.

its as simple as this back in the old time they didnt have all the things they have today. so we have to just adapted to a new enviornment. thus look at all the new animated movies and the way computer science is, this is one example of how we have come up with new ideas and being creative. yes we do spend alot of time on the computer but it just gives us more imagination and a wider spread of people to commuinitcate with. so no digital age is not destroying creativity! it is simply giving us more options to become more creative.