People often complain about our generation, saying that we are too technology dependent, too un-involved, you name it. They will often complain about the generation that follows them, perhaps because we, as humans, simply don’t like change.
What I would like to address is the critical idea that our generation is rude, disconnected, arrogant or whatever else we’ve been called. From my personal experience, this is simply not true. Not naming names, but I used to work at a popular fast food chain, (it rhymes with smick-smil-a), and I saw a lot of people on a daily basis. When there was a mix-up in the order or when food was taking a long time, it wasn’t the teenagers or the kids who got irritated and upset, it was the middle-aged soccer moms and grouchy old people who gave me grief.
Our generation also gets targeted our dependence on technology, with people saying that we are constantly buried in our screens and not interacting in the real world. Let’s go ahead and throw that out the window now, every generation has done this, the technology just changes. We are distracted by iPhones and apps instead of 8-tracks and dial-up, but the premise is the same. Old people are just jealous that we can talk on the phone and use the internet at the same time. And let’s not forget that at one time, people considered the printing press a problem.
Some people will mistake our need for instant gratification and our use of technology as disinterest or lack of imagination. False! False I say! If anything we have more tools now to create and to express ourselves than anyone ever has. And we need them too, because our generation has to fix all the problems the previous ones have caused. The messed up economy, the conflicts in the middle east, global warming, and on and on.
We are the future, and the future is bright! Our generation will have to fix the problems of the one before us using all the tools at our disposal. One day we will all be older and wiser and, no doubt, will be complaining about all of the new young whippersnappers and their fancy new gizmos and do-dads. Damn Kids.
