The Generation Gap at Warp Speed

            In my last column I wrote about how the perception of a “Millennial” would be totally different than what I was feeling. That got me thinking about the “Generation Gap” and how it seems to be widening at “Warp Speed”. If you know what “warp speed” means then you’re probably of my generation.

            The generation gap is something the media coined to describe the difference in changing attitudes, beliefs, and work habits of young adults verses their parents. Since the media also loves to just label things they have given names to subsequent generations starting with the WW II era “Greatest Generation” to what we have now, the “Millennials”.

            I’m part of the “Baby Boomers” AKA the “Me Generation” because so many of us were self absorbed, materialistic, and in need of immediate gratification for just about everything. I find myself blaming my own generation for most of the current problems, like the growing income inequality, climate change, and yes the negative ramifications of our incursion into the Middle East. But let’s leave all that for another day and another column.

            The thing we did right was technology. I am amazed at the advancements I’ve seen in just my adulthood. Typewriter to personal computer, to laptop, to tablet. Regular broadcast TV to cable to satellite, TV with nothing to VHS, to DVD, to DVR. And what about the telephone? When I was in high school only the cool rich kids had a private phone and number in their bedrooms. Then we got cordless phones and answering machines, then pagers, and finally cell phones. Now we have smart phones that have more computing power than the first desk top computer I had back in the early 80’s.

            But I think the biggest and most important development has been the Internet. My generation may have invented it but it’s not ours anymore. The younger generations took it and went nuts with it. I’m talking about social media and instant global communications.

            At this point, being of the older generation I kind of have to lump the internet and smart phones together. I know they are different technologies but they are so interconnected I can’t tell them apart. It’s hard enough for me to understand a computer program verses an app, is there a difference? I don’t have a smart phone (yet) so I don’t really know about apps. I guess that’s my point, the technology is changing too fast for me to keep up and that’s creating the widening generation gap.

            The gap isn’t in the technology part itself, I will eventually learn to use all the gadgets. The gap is more in the how and the why of the younger generation using it.

The how is fast; swishing and swiping and tapping and typing. It’s so fast that they don’t even have time to write whole words. It’s all about abbreviations and acronyms or even just making words up. That’s one of the things that got me started on this column. I kept hearing the term “on fleek” and just couldn’t figure it out. I finally “Googled” it and all I could say was OMG, really, that’s just “Cray” because you’re using a made up word instead of a real one. If you don’t know, in essence “on fleek” means on point or perfect or awesome or I guess whatever you want it to mean.

The why is where I have a real big generational gap. It’s seems to be all about sharing personal information. That’s what the whole social media phenomenon is about. You have FaceBook, Twitter, Instagram, Pintrest, Snapchat, and all the rest with new apps popping up every day. You have friends and followers, likes and hash tags, photos and videos, tweets and re-tweets. Putting it all out into cyber space for just about anyone to see and possibly forever.

In my opinion it’s TMI (too much information) but that’s the generational thing. I’m from that selfish me generation and I don’t like to share. I still have way too much of my parents generation in me and we were taught to keep our feelings and our problems to ourselves or maybe just to our closest friends or family.

Even though I say that I don’t like to share, obviously I do like to share my opinion or I wouldn’t write this column. I also do have a FaceBook account but I think I have more ignored friends requests than actual FaceBook friends. For me FaceBook, the internet, and social media are more about watching, reading, and hearing what others are doing and saying than for sharing what I am doing.

I guess I’m more of a voyeur than an exhibitionist and that’s also kind of what’s different about our generations. This Millennial generation wants to be seen (I think that’s why tattoos are so popular), they want to be heard, and they want to share their lives.

I wonder if they’re like all us previous generations and just want some attention from their parents. Maybe all this posting and tweeting is just an abbreviated version of Andy Warhol's proverbial “15 Minutes of Fame”, but with the lightning speed of the internet and the attention span of a tweet all they can hope for now is 15 seconds of fame, unless of course they go viral.

To view the column in it's original form go to page 16 of the following link. Winters Express 11/5/15