You sometimes
hear people musing about the changes they have seen in their lifetimes. I know
that in the scope of my life I have seen quite a few. When I was a child there
was no internet, no cell phones. If you wanted to contact someone far away, you
had to write them a letter, or, if it was urgent use a land line phone to make
a long-distance call or a telegram. Both were discouraged because they cost
money. For electronic entertainment we had radio and television. The television
where I lived only had two channels until I was almost a teenager. Even so,
many parents were worried that TV was rotting our brains. There was nothing
akin to social media. You just hung out with your friends. Music has seen a lot
of changes. No instant gratification in my childhood. If you wanted to hear a
particular song and you didn’t own the record, you have to sit by your
transistor radio tuned to your favorite station and wait for hours for them to
get around to your song. I speak from experience. What? Surely, I was not the
only one.
As alien as
this may sound to youngish people today, the changes my grandfather saw in his
lifetime make my experience pale by comparison. My grandfather was born in the
1890’s. The airplane had not been invented yet. There were no cars in his town.
As he looked around his house, he would find nothing made of plastic.
Entertainment
in my grandfather’s day was simpler. There was no television, not even radio
when he was a child. What leisure time he had was spent reading, perhaps
playing cards or other games. Marbles, jacks, dominoes. Sports existed if you
were so inclined and had access to the necessary equipment. But everything,
everything in my grandfather’s world was more personal. If alone, a person
could read or go for walks, fish, or develop a hobby. Most likely, the only
affirmations you might receive would be from your family, not from social
media. Despite all that, his basic humanity was no different than mine. But
what changes he saw! From horse travel, to jet travel. From the local paper as
the only source of news, to cable news. This man who grew up in the 1800’s
watched men walk on the moon. He saw diseases he knew from childhood being
wiped out by modern medicine. When you think of the changes from the beginning
of his life to the end, it seems like his whole life must have been one big
shockwave. Of course, it is not really like that when you are living through
it.
He saw women
get the vote (who could imagine such a thing!). He learned first-hand the
ugliness of war, and second-hand the ugliness of the Nazi’s. he lived through
most of the Cold War, not knowing if we would all end in nuclear annihilation. But
he also learned the beauty of love, of friendship, of community.
Millennials,
and my generation, and my grandfather’s generation lived in different worlds.
But were we really that different as people? I would like to think not, but one
wonders if social media is changing society in a bad way. It is something to
worry about. But, wait: every generation has its own crises, its own threat of
annihilation. My grandfather had world wars and the Cold war. I had the Cold
War, and pollution, the energy crisis. Millennials have climate change, AI, and
social media.
We have all
learned to live with these crises. Perhaps we will weather this storm too. We
are the same people after all.
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