We are emotional creatures: Emotion, much more than anything else, is our experience of the world, and it is a major input in our perception, decisions, and actions.
Many people reject their emotions or are ignorant of them. And life experiences often cause a lot of emotional injury, to the point where older people reach their limits (I suspect you have a good sense of that at your age) and shut down.
The effect of that shut down - well see the first paragraph; that all deteriorates significantly. It cripples experience and ability, including good judgment, and it causes people to avoid new experiences - the experiences might be traumatic, and the skill of learning and exploring atrophes. Also, shutting down doesn't actually do away with the emotions; they come out and people become angry and cruel.
Instead, we need to learn to be resiliant, to build our emotinonal capacity, and to experience life and use our well-honed emotional insincts as hard-earned wisdom. That includes exploring and learning new things.
But regardless I'm very curious how the internet generation will be later in life. I hope I have less anxiety and pressure!