https://sputniknews.in/20260722/age-of-information-is-decimating-population-new-frontiers-of-russian-public-debate--11746571.html
Age Of Information Is Decimating Population: New Frontiers Of Russian Public Debate
Age Of Information Is Decimating Population: New Frontiers Of Russian Public Debate
Sputnik India
No friendships; no deep emotional ties; no certainty in people-to-people contacts. That’s a relatively new diagnosis of a social disease, caused by Information... 22.07.2026, Sputnik India
2026-07-22T20:05+0530
2026-07-22T20:05+0530
2026-07-22T20:05+0530
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russia
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If you make a list of the most worrisome national problems, discussed endlessly in Russian society, then it will surely be topped by the problem of younger generation going to dogs, or, to put it better, being destroyed by social networks in the Internet. Second place is currently taken by battles around the subject of healthy and unhealthy food. Traditional worries like rising prices and the rest take only third place. That’s the picture, derived from Internet discussions, as well as serious gatherings of experts of all kinds, with surveys and the rest to prop their opinions up.To think of it, only very recently I published a column here, called Young Generation Always Arrives With A Bang, or something like that. One of the ideas there was, older people always and everywhere are unhappy about younger folks, that are likely to squander the precious inheritance, left by the glorious and successful previous generation. And the problem is, if you delay the arrival of that next generation to responsible positions, then the bang will be much worse.Well, the new ideas discovered by sociologists and medics of Russia and other lands tell us that the problem is a bit different. That problem is, there may be no bang. The new generation is not very keen to arrive anywhere at all.Let’s have a look at these numerous ideas under discussion, remembering two things. First: they are just ideas, nothing more, one can and does dispute them. And second: it looks there is nothing exclusively Russian here, since researchers freely mix data from all kind of nations.But let us start with a purely Russian phenomenon. Proliferation of adolescent crime is bad, isn’t it? But psychologists are seriously alarmed by the new statistics, that tells us that all underage crime in Russia has dropped 5.8 times in between 2004 and 2024, from 154 414 such crimes a year to 26 398. Share of adolescents in all crime committed fell from 12.4 per cent to 3.2 per cent within the same period. And these underage criminals do their bad deeds mostly in Internet, not in the real world.Is that a cause for celebration? Not at all, say the experts. Boys, as well as some girls, have to be aggressive and violent, it’s a norm. While their sudden timidity looks strange.Doctors are saying that teenagers today tend to be afraid of conflicts, unwilling to discuss their true feelings, have low self-esteem. They tend not to form deep emotional commitments, and while you are online, it’s a norm to have a crowd of friends there, but to drop them easily, since friends online are as good (or bad) as ghosts.And that means also that we have more and more shallow people with no deep emotions and firsthand knowledge of life. When you live online, borrowed slogans and ideas are enough for you.Where the slogans come from? Dr. Andrew Bystritsky, chief of the Trustee council of the famous Valdai discussion club, says the obvious: our and other nations are facing a totally artificial informational sphere, creating fake worlds on daily basis. One has to be really strong to get out of these illusions. And that is a part of the creeping Third World War.Enough of these horrors, let us have different kind of horrors. There is that eternal debate going on in the world about too many or too few people being born and inhabiting the Earth. Today it looks like we are going to be depopulated all too soon, by the end of the century for sure. A United Nations report called World Population Prospects, 2024, tells us that the current average global rate of childbirth is 2.25 babies per woman, twice as low as in 1960-s. 131 of 237 nations and territories of the world have sunk lower than they need to keep up their population from going down. The British scientists – that is, The Lancet (IHME, 2024), say that 198 of 204 nations will cross that line of doom by the end of the century.But why so? The Russian experts and media are saying that the Information Age is to blame. Almost any inhabitant of a relatively modern city or even a village lives in a world that presumes immediate dophamine reward for anything a person may do. Smartphones, social networks, food deliveries and the rest are bringing them that immediate reward. While childbirth logic is different, children mean a constant chaos, endless investments into the future and very iffy rewards in that future.It is much easier to have not a family, but an AI companion to put you at ease, since an AI slave is never in conflict with you. Or so it seems so far. So, again, the Information Age is simply killing the humankind.All right, but since things are so bad, why not crush the enemy in easiest way? To think of it, there were some experiments in that country called Nepal, and how about repeating them in a light version? Here we have an opinion of a famous religious teacher Mr. Sergei Khudiev, whom I quoted here a couple of times already. Khudiev says: if children in Nation A will be proficient in information technologies, while these will be banned for children from Nation B, which nation will win the global competition? And then, if the safe kids from nation B suddenly meet the information plague from Nation A without immunity to it, what will happen to them?And, besides, adds Khudiev, who is going to watch the watchers? Banning access to information needs huge and powerful network of people to ensure total control. Now imagine that kind of network inherited by really bad people whom you won’t be able to stop. No, you only can meet that Information Age face to face.As a way of my own contribution to that debate, I’d add up a couple of ideas. One of such ideas derives from ancient European demonology, namely – to fight a demon you have to know its name. We have three such names in our case. Mass idiotization of minds have started, in 1990-s, from within British-American-European cesspool of ideas, when three powerful industries began to feel their growing power.These are the climate lobby, the medical lobby and the information lobby, mostly working together. All three employ one and the same tactics. They are scaring people the world over with all kind of global threats, mostly imaginary, and they immerse the people into an imaginary and ostensibly safe world of online. The way out will be demonstrated by young or old people strong enough to break out of the crowd. Previous eras are showing us that the human race always produces such people, and at first they are laughed at… well, sure you know the rest of that Gandhi quotation.Dmitry Kosyrev is a Russian writer, author of spy novels and short stories. He also did columns for the Pioneer and Firstpost.com
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Age Of Information Is Decimating Population: New Frontiers Of Russian Public Debate
No friendships; no deep emotional ties; no certainty in people-to-people contacts. That’s a relatively new diagnosis of a social disease, caused by Information Age. The diagnosis belongs to many, many experts in the Russian media, watching with dismay the alarming trends in, mostly, the younger generation.
If you make a list of the most worrisome national problems, discussed endlessly in Russian society, then it will surely be topped by the problem of younger generation going to dogs, or, to put it better, being destroyed by social networks in the Internet. Second place is currently taken by battles around the subject of healthy and unhealthy food. Traditional worries like rising prices and the rest take only third place. That’s the picture, derived from Internet discussions, as well as serious gatherings of experts of all kinds, with surveys and the rest to prop their opinions up.
To think of it, only very recently I published a column here, called Young Generation Always Arrives With A Bang, or something like that. One of the ideas there was, older people always and everywhere are unhappy about younger folks, that are likely to squander the precious inheritance, left by the glorious and successful previous generation. And the problem is, if you delay the arrival of that next generation to responsible positions, then the bang will be much worse.
Well, the new ideas discovered by sociologists and medics of Russia and other lands tell us that the problem is a bit different. That problem is, there may be no bang. The new generation is not very keen to arrive anywhere at all.
Let’s have a look at these numerous ideas under discussion, remembering two things. First: they are just ideas, nothing more, one can and does dispute them. And second: it looks there is nothing exclusively Russian here, since researchers freely mix data from all kind of nations.
But let us start with a purely Russian phenomenon. Proliferation of adolescent crime is bad, isn’t it? But psychologists are seriously alarmed by the new statistics, that tells us that all underage crime in Russia has dropped 5.8 times in between 2004 and 2024, from 154 414 such crimes a year to 26 398. Share of adolescents in all crime committed fell from 12.4 per cent to 3.2 per cent within the same period. And these underage criminals do their bad deeds mostly in Internet, not in the real world.
Is that a cause for celebration? Not at all, say the experts. Boys, as well as some girls, have to be aggressive and violent, it’s a norm. While their sudden timidity looks strange.
Doctors are saying that teenagers today tend to be afraid of conflicts, unwilling to discuss their true feelings, have low self-esteem. They tend not to form deep emotional commitments, and while you are online, it’s a norm to have a crowd of friends there, but to drop them easily, since friends online are as good (or bad) as ghosts.
And that means also that we have more and more shallow people with no deep emotions and firsthand knowledge of life. When you live online, borrowed slogans and ideas are enough for you.
Where the slogans come from? Dr. Andrew Bystritsky, chief of the Trustee council of the famous Valdai discussion club, says the obvious: our and other nations are facing a totally artificial informational sphere, creating fake worlds on daily basis. One has to be really strong to get out of these illusions. And that is a part of the creeping Third World War.
Enough of these horrors, let us have different kind of horrors. There is that eternal debate going on in the world about too many or too few people being born and inhabiting the Earth. Today it looks like we are going to be depopulated all too soon, by the end of the century for sure. A United Nations report called World Population Prospects, 2024, tells us that the current average global rate of childbirth is 2.25 babies per woman, twice as low as in 1960-s. 131 of 237 nations and territories of the world have sunk lower than they need to keep up their population from going down. The British scientists – that is, The Lancet (IHME, 2024), say that 198 of 204 nations will cross that line of doom by the end of the century.
But why so? The Russian experts and media are saying that the Information Age is to blame. Almost any inhabitant of a relatively modern city or even a village lives in a world that presumes immediate dophamine reward for anything a person may do. Smartphones, social networks, food deliveries and the rest are bringing them that immediate reward. While childbirth logic is different, children mean a constant chaos, endless investments into the future and very iffy rewards in that future.
It is much easier to have not a family, but an AI companion to put you at ease, since an AI slave is never in conflict with you. Or so it seems so far. So, again, the Information Age is simply killing the humankind.
All right, but since things are so bad, why not crush the enemy in easiest way? To think of it, there were some experiments in that country called Nepal, and how about repeating them in a light version? Here we have an opinion of a famous religious teacher Mr. Sergei Khudiev, whom I quoted here a couple of times already. Khudiev says: if children in Nation A will be proficient in information technologies, while these will be banned for children from Nation B, which nation will win the global competition? And then, if the safe kids from nation B suddenly meet the information plague from Nation A without immunity to it, what will happen to them?
And, besides, adds Khudiev, who is going to watch the watchers? Banning access to information needs huge and powerful network of people to ensure total control. Now imagine that kind of network inherited by really bad people whom you won’t be able to stop. No, you only can meet that Information Age face to face.
As a way of my own contribution to that debate, I’d add up a couple of ideas. One of such ideas derives from ancient European demonology, namely – to fight a demon you have to know its name. We have three such names in our case. Mass idiotization of minds have started, in 1990-s, from within British-American-European cesspool of ideas, when three powerful industries began to feel their growing power.
These are the climate lobby, the medical lobby and the information lobby, mostly working together. All three employ one and the same tactics. They are scaring people the world over with all kind of global threats, mostly imaginary, and they immerse the people into an imaginary and ostensibly safe world of online. The way out will be demonstrated by young or old people strong enough to break out of the crowd. Previous eras are showing us that the human race always produces such people, and at first they are laughed at… well, sure you know the rest of that Gandhi quotation.
Dmitry Kosyrev is a Russian writer, author of spy novels and short stories. He also did columns for the Pioneer and Firstpost.com
