Creativity Is Dying!

As a teacher, I make it my mission to always try to incorporate time and lessons where my students can explore their creative skills in writing, illustrating or problem solving. What I have, however, noticed (and this is not a comparative study by all means- just my personal impression), is that students have become much less creative. I have only been teaching 4 years now and have a very small sample, but I have observed how my older students were productive, willing and open to engage in those more creative activities, whilst my most recent set of students were much more apathetic and their output hence less diverse. This observation has also been supported by many conversations I had with teacher more senior and experienced than I. So, what could be the reason for that development?

COVID! Yes, this would be the easy answer, but I fear there is a more general trend that has started before COVID came along and hit us all in the face. COVID surely amplified the problem, but the roots were already infected by a general "over-digitization" of the Gen-Z generation. And even me, as a millennial, have in some areas fallen prey to some of these trends too.

First, students are much less capable of focusing on one task for a longer period of time due to less attention spans. Never before, I would argue, have they had more possibility to be distracted during classes. They either wear ear pods, use their smart watches, look at their phones or surf online on their computers and other devices. We are pushing digital classrooms after all, and this is the consequence. Monitoring becomes so much harder when they actually are allowed to use these gadgets, even if it's only from time to time. They constantly carry them wherever they go, as they absolutely depend on them.

Furthermore, these devices have become such an essential part of their life, so much so, that they don't even interact in personal conversations during school breaks or free time with their friends anymore without at least one of their devices turned on. Teenagers want to famously fit in and connect to their peers, so how else should they do that? This is not even considering the impact social media has on their daily lives. But how does this relate to creativity?

Creativity needs time and dedication and the willingness to fully engage with a task or problem for a longer period. Any type of distraction will hinder this process. This is not only a problem that teenagers face but all of us - me included. Whenever I have set up a creative project, I was only successful when there was minimal distraction. Even listening to music sometimes had that abstracting effect on me. Now, imagine you are listening to a podcast, whilst being bombarded by updates on your phone about the latest TikTok trends, and every now and then getting pop-up messages from "friends" as well (and that is probably less distraction than most have when they are on their phones), all during a lesson where you should be creating an oil portrait of you dog. Does that work? Maybe the task is not the most realistic but you get the gist.

Another factor why creativity seems to be dying, is that due to easy access to everything in a matter of seconds, be it information, products, trends etc. the core of creativity, which starts with a blank page, a problem or even more generally an uncomfortable situation, is nipped in the bud. Laziness of thought is the consequence. More concretely put: If you, for example, have an account on ChatGPT and you must write an essay for next day's English class, why would you invest time and brain power to write it? There is no need to put any effort into it or be creative in any way. Just type in the prompt and it will deliver you a full essay, granted not the perfect essay, but enough to get a "pass". This comfort zone is very tempting and we all like it and sit in it because it is after all cozy, and safe and above all EASY. But we all know that like this, we will never learn, we will stay stagnant and, yes, I'm sorry to say it, become stupid.

Nowadays, ironically enough, places where creativity should be celebrated become less and less creative and much more stream-lined and straight out boring. Think of Youtube: Most Youtubers will call themselves "content creators". They create all right, but their "content" often is not creative at all. Videos need to follow a certain formula to be lucrative and successful- cute thumbnail, flashy title, some nudity or "edgy" imagery etc. (Did you see what I did with the title and image of this post? Did it work?). Therefore, if titles and contents are not sensationalized, there are no views. This platform that I held close to my heart for many years as a place for learning and creative ideas, has just become a huge hub for "creators" that all create or rather produce videos to get the same thing: Attention and money. Labelled creativity videos are utilized as a means to an end, namely money and fame. Hence, they are no longer just stand alone amateur videos people make for fun. There are certainly some creatives left that are not just in for the money, but they are only a handful and basically invisible among the huge crowds of attention-seekers. Consumerism has unfortunately corrupted many creative hubs and converted them to yet another place to buy more stuff, so we eventually all look and behave the same way, which is not creative at all but just boring.

Funny enough, however, it is boredom itself that could potentially safe creativity from becoming extinct. Boredom, real painstakingly endless spans of time with nothing to do or be distracted by, is the soil for creative ideas and endeavours. There needs to be some amount of "pain" involved to make people behave creatively. This can be very simple things, like not having a large variety of food at home on a Sunday in Austria (when all the shops are closed) because one forgot to go shopping. So, you must make do and be a bit creative with the ingredients you have at hand. Or not having enough money for the newest fashion items, so you might buy something second hand and alter it according to your taste. In an ever-turning constantly busy world we need to cultivate more spaces for boredom to grow in order to become truly creative again.

I am sorry for the rant- it had to get out of my system. Nevertheless, I would like to see this rather pessimistic view of the current creativity crisis (note the lovely alliteration there) as a first steppingstone towards a better more creative future.

Thanks for reading and more in the next post.