My Education and Experience
How Social Work Changed the Way I See the World?
Integrating Digital Intelligence & Community Resilience Through Positive Masculinity
My Goals of Cocreation and Empowerment with Gen Z Men
During the journey of my master’s degree in interdisciplinary studies, I want to deepen my knowledge concerning the masculinity crisis that Gen Z men are facing. I want to understand the impacts of social media and artificial intelligence on their mental health. Moreover, I wish to codevelop social, professional, and educational strategies with them to empower young men in the respect of women and other minorities. I hope to bring solutions to decrease their isolation and increase their social connections. My ultimate goal would be to encourage them to adopt critical thinking and positive masculinity in their lives.
Latests Posts
-
Photo by Sanket Mishra on Pexels.com Critical Reflection Essay created for Dr Derek Briton, professor of the Course MAIS 601 at Athabasca University.
Analysis of the article the Tech guru Jaron Lanier: ‘The danger isn’t that AI destroys us. It’s that it drives us insane’ of Staff, TyN magazine.
Lanier explains in his article how algorithms and AI drive us insane because of our social behavior with digital tools. Although algorithms affect our creativity and our perception of politics, I have observed that they increase solidarity and allow freedom of speech when used correctly, which otherwise leads individuals to isolation. Additionally, I have noticed their relevance for health issue advice in my daily life. However, I agree when Lanier comparing the previous decades situation with the current funnel effect when he said: “We were directly connected to a choice base that was actually larger instead of being fed this thing through this funnel that somebody else controls.”. This convergence has led to the creation of a bully archetype, and we have the responsibility to stop this ocean of misinformation and save our creativity. For my future research on Gen Z men, I could study the democratization of critical thinking with new technology tools by bringing in-person meaningful community experiences.
In 2025, Kango explained that algorithmic governance “is transforming the way decisions are made, rules are enforced, and behavior is regulated.”. The funnel effect of Lanier affects how algorithms act as choice architects that organize social media with the power of the agenda of authority (Thaler, 2021). Ultimately, this architecture creates a bully archetype with high visibility on social media because it rewards domination, provocation, and insults with a form of entertainment, as we can see on the platform X, for instance (Vaidhyanathan, 2018). Regarding positive outcomes, we have seen regulation related to chatbots that led to teenage suicides, the use of non-consensual deepfake porn-generated imagery, and artist copyrights. In the future, we must focus on ecological, logical errors, and biosecurity threats.
In the algorithmic era, individuals have shifted from groups such as families, neighborhoods, or churches to a core networked individualism (Wellman, 2001). Based on this concept, Siddiq et al. (2024) explained that “digital agency should be understood not merely as digital literacy, but as an expansive construct encompassing critical thinking, self-regulation, and epistemic agency in digital contexts.” Using a digital agency, individuals can use social media to create community experiences outside the digital world, which would be beneficial for their mental health. However, we must not neglect the loss of shared truth and collective reality, the cost of isolation, decreased empathy, and the impact of the manosphere on individuals’ mental health. Isolation is a phenomenon that has worsened since the Industrial Revolution.
Despite Lanier’s opinion, I disagree with him in the sense that I found numerous support groups and precious advice on conventional social media concerning 2SLGBTQ+ and disability issues that helped me navigate struggling moments in my life with time efficiency and accuracy that would worsen if I did not use social media. However, I feel that the algorithm components have mutated since the last US elections due to big corporations and the rise of the far right. During the last month, I decided to stop consuming short videos on platforms because of this bullying archetype phenomenon. I must admit that I use active conscientiousness and judgement when using these platforms, which act as protection for me.
Regarding the implications of this analysis, we must focus on the development of digital tools to help Generation Z recognize fake news and conspiracy theories. Moreover, community development for and by Gen Z men must be increased, and services adapted to their healthy masculinity must be defined and applied effectively. When I refer to the democratization of critical thinking, I refer to providing tools that can be applied to any type of person with any background.
Question 1: Is digital agency a sufficient solution for individuals or do we need to redesign of the digital architecture itself?
Question 2: Lanier argued that algorithms drive us toward insanity. Concerning Gen Z men, how could we transition from the digital pill’s phenomena into in-person community opportunities without losing their sense of solidarity?
References
Kango, U. (2025). Algorithmic Governance. In: Xu, W. (eds) Handbook of Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-8440- 0_90-1
Singh, A. B., & Engeness, I. (2021). Examining instructors’ roles in facilitating students’ learning process in pedagogical information and communication technology massive open online course. Cultural-Historical Psychology, 17(2), 76–89.
Thaler, R. H., & Sunstein, C. R. (2021). Nudge: The final edition. Yale University Press.
TyN Magazine. (2024, June 26). Tech guru Jaron Lanier: ‘The danger isn’t that AI destroys us. It’s that it drives us insane’. https://tynmagazine.com/tech-guru-jaron-lanier-the-danger- isnt-that-ai-destroys-us-its-that-it-drives-us-insane/
Vaidhyanathan, S. (2018) Anti-social media : how Facebook disconnects US and undermines democracy. New York, New York: Oxford University Press.
Wellman, B. (2001). Physical place and cyberplace: The rise of personalized networking. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 25(2), 227–252. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.00309
-
I feel that I am like those trees
Scoured by the uranium of bombs
The shifting flow of my tears
Like an atmospheric river
Surging toward the moon
The strangeness of the world around
me
This sensation of being at the center
of the controversy
I no longer hear, no longer look
I prefer the silence, the glacial cold
This blackout that I dream of
Is my life nothing but a hallucination? -
Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com In this post, I wanted to clarify why I chose the community studies angle to address the masculinity crisis.
Why is this focus area interesting for me?
Because we need to reflect and take actions locally on how, as a society, we could address positively and durably the needs of Gen Z men that have mutated. For one year, masculinity’s situation has shifted towards the far right, radicalization, disinformation, conspiracy theories, and critical thinking deficits.How might it connect to my experience, work, life, and interests?
During my social work studies, I had integrated numerous progressivist sociological concepts. However, there is the young men’s crisis that must be addressed in terms of education, technological transparency, mental health, and social connections.During the last year, I realized the distress and frustration of young men around me about their own life goals and the lack of customized services for them. Because of my background in science, I realized the damages of their lack of critical thinking with the proliferation of fake news and conspiracy theories. This master’s degree is a meaningful way to use my interests in sociology, mental health, and sciences to act. During my internship, I interviewed a community worker of the social program Bien dans mes baskets [Well in my sneakers], which guided teenage males in Montreal to improve their mental health, school involvement, and sense of belonging through the practice of team sports. When I was a community organizer for the nonprofit CRIC [Intercultural Resource Hub] in Montreal, I saw the benefits of building an immigrant men’s peer mentorship program, Hommes-Relais [Men-liaisons], by creating social connections and using horizontal-level relationships. I noticed the advantages of this kind of program on the immigrant women’s side, Femmes-Relais [Women-liaisons].
What main questions does the focus area ask, and what are two key concepts that I think are important for the focus area?
- How could community development practices become useful to people around the nonprofit sector?
- What are the solutions on how we could mobilize Gen Z men and other actors around these questions?
- How could these young men auto-transform themselves?
- How could they learn and build, with their own language, a positive masculinity in the field?
Key concept 1: I will be investigating the possible improvements of our current social systems and the top-down effects we could prevent.
Key concept 2: I will create the social transformation by mobilizing and developing alternative learnings.
What concepts from my MAIS 601 course (Making Sense of Theory in the Humanities and Social Sciences) readings/discussions are relevant to this focus area?
In The Community Development Around the World—Campfens (1999):The cycle of alienation (e.g., the digital revolution) means social groups must work on the community development. I believe that young men must create a community alternative to the manosphere.
In The Community Development Around the World—Campfens (1999):Algorithms act as the new “institutionalists” to serve powerful capitalist organizations, leading them in an isolation loop, and the current institutions do not respond adequately to their alienation. In the meantime, influencers use the radicalization funnel, the Alinsky tactic, to monetize rage through radicalization. This is why I would like to focus on men’s mutual aid and their conscientization, a concept developed by Paulo Freire.
Don’t Act. Just Think, Big Think-Slavoj Žiźek:Young men must debate publicly with other individuals from different perspectives to start thinking about important issues.
The Practice of Interdisciplinarity: Complex Conditions and the Potential of Interdisciplinary Theory—Jack Meek:This masculinity crisis necessitates the concept of self-organizing communities because institutions can no longer adequately address Gen Z men’s issues (disconjunctive state concept), and there is a decline of trust.
What (inter)disciplines can I identify in this focus area?- Community psychology: Reflections on peer-led mutual aid, inclusive masculinities, intersectionality, and men’s marginalities.
- Socio-economy: Reflections on a “Masculinity Provider Concept” reform.
- Heterodox economics: Reflections on a post-meritocratic identity.
- Religion: Reflections on the prosocial traditionalism
- Digital sociology.
- Education: Reflections on alternative credentialing
- Applied sciences: Shifting the “hegemonic masculine physicality” concept towards a dynamic and evolving body model not embodied in a rigid biological determinism.
How does this focus area orient toward theory or “making sense of” theory?
There is a sense of theory in my focus area when we collectively perform a retrospection by speaking and organizing for the goal of preparing the community. We identify specific elements in our chaotic environment to build a map for shifting our anxiety to actions (Weick et al., 2005).What questions may have arisen for me that I didn’t yet ask in the course?
- How could we react to the systematic rejection of our university research from certain men to improve our society?
- How would we start discussions with Gen Z men with a more powerful artificial intelligence that will attain the singularity soon?
Are there other insights of my own that I’d like to share?
I think everyone would win by focusing on this community development because we will reach a social stability.References
Big Think. (2009, July 27). Slavoj Žižek: Don’t act. Just think. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgR6uaVqWsQCampfens, H. (Ed.). (1999). Section from Part II: International review of community development: Theory and practice . In Community development around the world: Practice, theory, research, training (pp. 25–40). University of Toronto Press.
CREMIS. (n.d.). Qu’est-ce que Bien dans mes baskets? [What is “Well in my sneakers”?]. Bien dans mes baskets: où en sommes-nous? https://cremis.ca/publications-et- outils/dossiers/bien-dans-mes-baskets-ou-en-sommes-nous/quest-ce-que-bien-dans-mes- baskets
CRIC Centre-Sud. (n.d.). Hommes-relais [Men-liaisons]. https://criccentresud.org/projets/hommes-relais
Weick, K. E., Sutcliffe, K. M., & Obstfeld, D. (2005). Organizing and the Process of Sensemaking.
Sebastien Prud'Homme Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies E-Portfolio 