Young, Angry, and Wired
Armed with cell phones, social media, and sometimes just sheer determination, youth from North Africa to the Middle East are struggling to take ownership of their future.
It was a generation in waiting. They waited for a good education, and that rarely came. Then they waited for jobs, which paid very little when they did come. Without proper jobs, they waited to get married, often staying with their parents into their 30s—or living with their parents even after they got married. Most important, they waited for liberty: the right to vote freely, to participate in politics, to change the world.
Until they could wait no longer.
Some 60 percent of the people in the Middle East are under 30 years old, and many of them are angry. Like young people everywhere, they have ambitions. They want, they need, they crave. They feel constrained—especially, perhaps, when they watch satellite television or surf the Internet. There they can see how the rest of the world lives. Social media (including personal blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and more) allow young men and women to share their frustrations in ways they couldn't in the past. They're not alone anymore. Now they have allies. They have power.
