Generational Overlap
You always hear people say, “back in my day” or, “when I was younger.” Then they go on some rant about how much better things were back then and how much simpler of a time that they lived in. With technology being so advanced now, I can get the simplistic side of things, but not really the better side.
Being born in 1993, I feel as though I have a bit of what I call Generational Overlap. Basically what this is saying is that I’m old enough to remember a time before cell phones, but young enough to understand them completely. When I was a kid I never had any idea that something like a cell phone or tablet would exist. I feel as though I’m the last generation that truly played outside. It wasn’t just me and my brother out there from dawn to dusk either, it was every kid in the neighborhood. I’m not saying that no one plays outside anymore, but it certainly isn’t the way it was.
That’s not for me to say whether it’s a good or a bad thing, it’s just an observation that I’ve made over the years. I realize that I have a unique view on a lot of things. Things that would have never in a million years been done when I was a child are being done now regularly. For instance, when I was young we were always told never to talk to strangers or get into someone else’s car. Now we have kids on videogames and social media whose best friends are complete strangers. We have people getting into a strangers car every single day with Uber and Lyft. These things weren’t even thought of when I was a child and it’s strange because it feels so normal to me now. It feels as though I’ve had a phone in my hand since birth, or that I’ve always logged onto Twitter and Instagram for my news.
This new generation won’t have that feeling. At least not about the same things. They will never know a time where cell phones didn’t exist, or even a time where they were mad exclusively for calling. Not texting. Not the Internet. Not games. Just calls. Think about that for a second. It wasn’t all that long ago that we were using phones that had no Internet capabilities. It wasn’t that long ago that we had a separate device to hold our music and it only held about 100–200 songs at a time. So, it won’t be long before the next thing comes along either.
For the generation below me, this is normal. Technology advances and new things come out every year. To them, it’s small tweaks here and there to enhance usability. For us, we’ve seen a massive change from our first cell phones to the super computers we now have in our pockets. I’m curious to see how this new generation reacts to the next major change and how they shape it themselves. I know that it is my generation, and then the next, that will be driving these advancements and I’m just not sure what’s going to come next. I’m stuck in between the way I grew up and the world today. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have grown up in an entirely technological world. If I had potential back then, when information wasn’t so easily accessible, how would I be now? Would I be even smarter, even farther ahead? Or, would I become lazy? Dependent on the devices at hand. I like to think the first but I feel as though the second is a more common option.
While I love the advancements we’ve made and how easily accessible information is, I think that it’s becoming too easy. People don’t have to try anymore. They don’t have to truly learn things because they can look them up in a matter of seconds. I didn’t have that luxury. At least not on the same scale. I was using dictionaries, encyclopedias and thesaurus’ until I was high school to get my information. Now each of those things have a website designed to expedite the process. I’m not against it, I want to make that very clear, but it does scare me a bit. I know that I’m always going to have that working and learning mentality, but the more that things progress, I’m not sure those who come after me will be the same.
