I couldn't find a rigid definition of a 'Visual Generation' but go figure, the definition is in the phrase itself. Yes, a Visual Generation is a generation brought up and dominated by images and the spectacle as a whole. I can safely say that even the Baby Boomers, a post Word War II generation were somewhat part of the visual generation. This is more relevant now than it has ever been, everything is connected to a picture. We live on the internet, which is dominated by images of everything you could possibly imagine. We have images of ourselves, and images that represent us through avatars, be it an image created by you or somebody else. When there's a story, we seek proof through images, 'show me a photograph!'. Ever since the International Typographic Style movement made people aware that images can be a huge part of your business (or should I say word and image combined) everyone now has a logo, or a design, or a poor attempt at a design. Either way, imaged and videos are an integral part of our society. No longer do you have to read through 'How to guides' even on the internet, and thanks to Youtube you can actually see videos of people doing the tasks, with immediate results. I don't really have a standpoint on censorship, I personally think that there is only some much protection you can offer, especially to children but we have to try at least until they hit a certain age(the one where they can operate a computer on their own, then it's goodbye to bad words and sexy movie restrictions). I do believe that we have been desensitized to an extent, we see the bad all over the place, the news are a prime suspect. All they show is the bad, yeah sure they manage to slot in a happy ending somewhere, but it's a small percentage of the overall awful content they show. Crime, Politics, Corruption, Violence are just the tip of the iceberg. We should expect this sort of thing nowadays, it's nothing new anymore(I don't know why they are still insistent on calling it 'News'). In a way it's a good thing that images of violence and such no longer bother us as much as they used to, but on the other hand you have a lot of censoring happening all over the world. China being the biggest culprit, censoring or at least attempting to censor many parts of the internet(which we know is not possible entirely unless they somehow 'shut it off' and those determined enough will find a way to get to the site they want to get to). The more you try and bar someone from getting through, the greater their need/want becomes for getting through, and this leads to multiple people forming groups and protests against censorship.
As an artist/designer(Yes I went there, I identify myself as both) I know how important images are. For someone like me, I need as much information as possible for a project, because the more you look at the work and images created by others, the more of a database you will have to draw from. Ideas don't come from thin air, they come from a combination of your experiences and interactions with the world around you, and you need those images to make the ideas happen. Not only that, you also need reference points, and what's better than borrowing from history and the imaged it has provided for us. Images are a great thing, it's just that people don't necessarily use them for good anymore. The world of images is also so diluted that one can easily get confused without context.
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