I'm slowly coming to terms with fact that I am 40: My body doesn't heal like it used to. My weight is harder than ever to maintain. My hair is thinning to where I no longer see a point in having it. (I keep my head shaved these days.) 20 year olds are starting to refer to me as "Mister" and "Sir". I rarely get carded at bars anymore. And some of my friends have kids old enough to be attending the same college classes that I'm currently taking. (I often refer to myself as a "born-again college student".) While I hardly consider myself "old" by most standards, I'm not young, either. To use the tired old cliche, I've been around the block a few times.
That being said, I'm finding more and more people my age starting to sound like their and my parents, bitching about "these damn kids today" and it needs to stop.
Yes, some of the concepts and ideas we grew up with are lost on the newest generations. Kids don't "go outside and play" as much as we did. There's less unstructured social interaction for kids these days. Pick up games of football, baseball, and to some extent even basketball are less common. Kids spend a lot of time staring at computer screens and smart phones instead of interacting with the world around them more directly. All these things are true. But while your lamenting on your kid's inability to build snow forts as well as you once did, they're posting videos on YouTube, interacting with people from around the world via social media, creating their own content, writing code, and being creative in way we couldn't have even imagined 25 or 30 years ago. While it may seem that kids are less connected, the truth is they are more connected than they have ever been before, just not in ways you or I grew up with. When we see disconnected kids, what we're actually seeing is a growth in the choices we have in the levels of participation with the world around us. We can be the person at the center of attention, in front of the camera for the world to see, taking in all that our surroundings have to offer. Or, we can be the person with ear buds in their ears, creating our own soundtrack, reading something on our smartphones, disconnecting from the world as it walks on by. That level of choice scares some people. It leaves them wondering whether or not the pretty lights flashing before their eyes are somehow being manipulated at their expense. It seems as if the world is tearing itself apart and the younger generations can't or won't see it, glued to their screens watching cat videos or writing memes, but you would be wrong in underestimating them. War, famine, greed, anger, strife, we are bombarded with these images every day, but they are nothing new. Our ability to see and readily connect with the world as a whole is new, forging an image that the world is a more dangerous place than ever before. In reality, it really isn't. Fear-mongering is a full time business these days, but most of it is utter bullshit. And I think kids today, certainly the college kids I interact with on a daily basis, understand this better than most. They're better connected to the constant flow of information we are now inundated with. And yet, they have an awfully bright outlook on our and their future, even in the face of uncertainty. I think the younger generation can teach us a great deal in how to proceed forward.
It would be wise for us to listen.
Cheers,
-Jay
That being said, I'm finding more and more people my age starting to sound like their and my parents, bitching about "these damn kids today" and it needs to stop.
Yes, some of the concepts and ideas we grew up with are lost on the newest generations. Kids don't "go outside and play" as much as we did. There's less unstructured social interaction for kids these days. Pick up games of football, baseball, and to some extent even basketball are less common. Kids spend a lot of time staring at computer screens and smart phones instead of interacting with the world around them more directly. All these things are true. But while your lamenting on your kid's inability to build snow forts as well as you once did, they're posting videos on YouTube, interacting with people from around the world via social media, creating their own content, writing code, and being creative in way we couldn't have even imagined 25 or 30 years ago. While it may seem that kids are less connected, the truth is they are more connected than they have ever been before, just not in ways you or I grew up with. When we see disconnected kids, what we're actually seeing is a growth in the choices we have in the levels of participation with the world around us. We can be the person at the center of attention, in front of the camera for the world to see, taking in all that our surroundings have to offer. Or, we can be the person with ear buds in their ears, creating our own soundtrack, reading something on our smartphones, disconnecting from the world as it walks on by. That level of choice scares some people. It leaves them wondering whether or not the pretty lights flashing before their eyes are somehow being manipulated at their expense. It seems as if the world is tearing itself apart and the younger generations can't or won't see it, glued to their screens watching cat videos or writing memes, but you would be wrong in underestimating them. War, famine, greed, anger, strife, we are bombarded with these images every day, but they are nothing new. Our ability to see and readily connect with the world as a whole is new, forging an image that the world is a more dangerous place than ever before. In reality, it really isn't. Fear-mongering is a full time business these days, but most of it is utter bullshit. And I think kids today, certainly the college kids I interact with on a daily basis, understand this better than most. They're better connected to the constant flow of information we are now inundated with. And yet, they have an awfully bright outlook on our and their future, even in the face of uncertainty. I think the younger generation can teach us a great deal in how to proceed forward.
It would be wise for us to listen.
Cheers,
-Jay
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