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The world has changed so much that young people need to reinvent the wheel.
Contrary to what it might seem, the title of Michel Serres's work, "Thumbelina ," does not refer to Andersen's famous tale, but to today's young people who cannot disconnect from the virtual world and whose greatest companion is their cell phone. Originally a speech at the French Academy, the author states: a new era is beginning that will see the victory of the anonymous multitude over the elites.
According to Serres, Western societies have undergone two revolutions: the transition from oral to written language, and then from written to printed. Like the previous ones, the third, under the influence of new technologies, is accompanied by political, social, and cognitive changes. These are times of crisis.
The book draws a parallel between the emergence of print and modern media. At the time of the first's creation, Martin Luther King Jr. said that every man would be the Pope with a Bible in his hand. Now the author asserts: "every man is a politician with a laptop in his hand. Thanks to the internet, there is a space that is no longer determined by distance, but by proximity."
A portrait of the world as it is today, which proves that current technologies have created a new human and that this little thumb, in turn, had many things to invent for this new world into which he was born.
Thumbelina also shows that teachers will have to adapt to the new reality. Students no longer adapt to traditional teaching methods and prefer to learn online. Often, they arrive in class already familiar with the subject matter, a situation unimaginable decades ago.
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