Youth and Technology: Leveraging Emotional Intelligence to Resist from Falling into Digital Dystopia

The twenty-first-century world is becoming more industrialized and more technological with every passing day. Several studies have indicated the negative side of excessive use of technology and the associated physical and psychological effects among youth. Generational studies have found these digital natives as self-confident, achievers, risk-takers, adventurers, but narcissist, emotionally unstable, arrogant, fickle, materialistic, and intolerant due to their vulnerabilities to technology. The escalating loneliness, stress, depression and frustration with the rising aspirations, ambitions and superfluous relationships leads them nowhere. This is evident from the recently released WHO suicide data where the leading age group in suicide happens to be youths between the ages of 15–29 years old. The current chapter examines the potential of emotional intelligence as a strategy to deal with the challenges faced by the youths and the future nation builders to resist from falling into digital dystopia in the intensifying technological era. The influx of limitless information and opportunities breeds impatience, instability, and enforced omniscient need to stay connected to the outside world in order to be updated constantly. This situation warrants a fresh approach where through leveraging upon emotional intelligence the inevitability of future society falling into digital dystopia can be arrested. The chapter articulates the strategies to this end.