Every generation is unique in its own way. As times change, definitions of different generations change as well. The 1920’s were considered to be the silent generation because of the Great depression. The baby boomers followed because of the large amount of children that were born within the limits of the generation. For our generation, it’s a little different.
We’ve grown up in a world that no other generation could experience. We grew up with lots to see and so much to do, and yet we’ve done so little. We are the generation of technology. We grew up in front of screens, not the outdoors. People from our parents generation or older tend to see our generation as high maintenance. They see a bunch of stuck up kids with nothing better to do than play with their latest hand held devices, instead of going outside and playing. Before advanced technology was so easily obtained, kids had nothing better to do than to go outside and play. Exercise was basically a requirement if you wanted to have any fun, and now we struggle with obesity because of the lack of time we spend outside. Now a days kids aren’t interested with anything without a screen because we’re being raised with them in our faces.
There’s a line between being technologically aware, and technologically impaired. For me, it’s easy to see that line. I consider my mother to be technologically aware, but she’s definitely not tech savvy. She recently got a kindle for all the books she reads, but at the same time, she also just got a cell phone with the capability to text. She’s had a cell phone for a few years, but only used it for calling. If any of my brothers or I tried to get a hold of her, there was no chance of conveying our message if she didn’t pick up because of the fact that she couldn’t figure out how to listen to her voice mail. Now she has a new phone that has the capability of texting, but she prefers to ignore this application. Sometimes she’ll answer my texts if she happens to glance at her phone in her spare time, but I don’t expect a lengthy message in return. My grandparents are a whole different story of being technology impaired, but it’s far too late to try to convince them that an iphone5 is a necessity.
As generations age, the more impatient they become with brainwashed youth. I’ve heard countless stories from elders that start with, “back in my day we didn’t have…” and end in a frustrated humph. Sometimes it’s easy to understand the frustration, but at the same time, it’s also necessary to look at the world differently than it used to be. Even at age eighteen, when a majority of the world sees me as part of the youth, I myself am shocked to see how early kids are getting technologically dependant. I could walk around the mall on a Saturday evening and find five or six kids under the age of ten, glued to their screens. Maybe they’re just preoccupied with their parents phones, but part of me also knows that they probably have something similar at home that they call their own.
If I had a nickel for every time someone bumped into me because they were distracted by what was in their hand, I would be a rich man. Just by walking down the halls at our school you can tell how much technology has an impact on people. With the newest types of technology, you can take a device smaller than your hand to do countless different things. You can call or text on your cell phone of course, but now the capabilities of our phones have gone above and beyond what they used to be able to do. You can surf the web, play games, take pictures and send them to one another. You can take those pictures and upload them to any social website, and then the person next to you can literally “like” it.
Even though It’s easy to mock our generation for being too dependant on technology, I also understand that it’s simply the way of the world now. All our problems are being solved by technology. Technology makes everything we do possible. We fight wars with technology…not just combat fighting, but the war on terror as well. We’re so advanced that we can take out terrorist groups who are located on the opposite side of the world, simply by sitting in a chair operating a computer drone. Trade and communication are all done with technology, and any country that isn’t involved with the world affairs is considered to be obsolete.
Our generation is one like none other before us. We have everything passed generations had, plus an incredible amount more. The biggest issue for us, is going to be finding a perfect balance. We need to find the middle line between using our technology, and knowing how to get along without it. Technology is a very useful tool. It helps us every day, and we’re very blessed that it has came this far. However, I feel that as time goes on, people forget how to do things themselves. Rolling up your sleeves to work on your engine is starting to become a lost art, because the “best” cars are ran by computers. Everything we do independently will most likely be overrun by technology at some point or another, and our generation is just learning how to effectively cope with it.