The mystery of teenagers' rooms

BarcelonaOne of the first things I learned to do when I was a teenager, and my parents finally put a chunky computer on my bedroom desk, was to figure out which set of three keys to press to make the programs I was using suddenly close. That way, when I heard my mom's footsteps approaching my door, with a flick of my wrist I could quickly make that blog I had when I wasn't allowed to blog, or that messaging app I used to chat when I wasn't allowed to chat, disappear.

Bedrooms have always been a space for mystery. A space for freedom, for intimacy, for self. That's why, of course, Virginia Woolf I believed that women needed their own cameras to be writers. The bedroom wasn't just a physical environment, but also a space for mental development. I thought about this a lot when I was watching the series. AdolescenceIn the fourth episode, the parents of the child protagonist sit on their double bed and wonder (from the comfort of their own bedroom, of course: where else?) what they could have done to raise their son better, that is, to protect him better. Mom recounts a situation that breaks our hearts and puts us on alert, mainly because we know it's common in many homes: "[Jamie] would lock himself in his room. He'd come home, slam the door, and go straight to his computer. He'd have the light on until late at night, and I'd knock on the door and say, 'Jamie, ving!' It would turn off, but he never said anything."

The scene not only takes place inside the parents' bedroom, but also places the son's bedroom at the center of the problem. Gabriel Ventura also touches on this topic in the essay The Best of Impossible Worlds: A Journey into the Reality Shifting Multiverse (Anagram). While explaining what the reality shifting, a technique for moving to parallel worlds, the author argues that we live in a "technocracy of simulation." He says: "In the modern era, every learning process involved going out out and face the world's adversities. Now it's the world that comes to us, with algorithmic fury and in the intimacy of the bedroom."

Retreating into imaginary burrows

For parents, bedrooms are complex places—I suppose even more so than before, but that would be a better question to ask grandparents. Adolescence It's the cultural expression of the worst possible scenario that can happen in our times, and sadly, like this one, we know of many others, more related to self-harm and eating disorders. But teenagers shutting themselves away in their rooms and immersing themselves in their obsessions is nothing new; all generations have done it. And in fact, we could also say that teenagers shutting themselves away in their rooms is not new either. with a technological device –I used to do it and I'm already thirty years old.

From Ventura's book I like the moment when the essayist lets a ray of light enter between the fear, I would say even the panic, that this topic generates. He says: "It seems that shifters They have renounced any form of political action and have retreated into their imaginary burrows. At first glance, common sense invites us to read this mundane renunciation as a collective failure [...]. In promises of evasion, we can sense a desire for rebellion, "an irrepressible will to transform society into a better place, even if it seems impossible [...] in these new internet subcultures, we should also see unexpected forms of collective organization." And he concludes: "Perhaps it is a terrifying idea, almost like the idea, almost like it were made of the same spectral matter that imprisons us." I hope he is right.