I guess a cool thing for “the man” and the baby boomers to do these days is complain about how my generation (today’s teens and young adults) acts narcissistic and is completely absorbed by technology. Like there’s this one commercial for mobile banking or something and it shows a family going on vacation. Then the parents say something about not having cell reception on the island and the teenaged kids are devastated. They say things like “you mean we’ll actually have to talk to each other???” In the most dramatic voices.
This is offensive.
I will admit, we young whippersnappers spend too much time on our phones and it has affected the way we communicate with people around us and in the “real world.” However we have not become mindless zombies wh0 typ3 lykee th!$. I think in reality we’ve become the opposite.
Technology is a beautiful thing, and social media while it has its flaws, has taught us how to thrive in the modern world. Take Vine for example. It’s a platform where users post up to 6-second long videos for their friends and followers to view. At first it looked like Vine was for lazy people. People so lazy or attention-deficit that they could only watch 6-second videos. Now Vine has blown up into a whole new world of art. I’m not kidding. There are people making money off of Thai because they have learned ways to use their creativity to make 6-second masterpieces. And those people are my age. If you watch some of the crazy viral Vines you’ll see. It’s not something people do when they’re bored anymore. It’s something people are taking time to plan, write, and produce. If that’s not amazing, I don’t know what is.
And beyond that, looking at Twitter. Kids today use Twitter for all kinds of things like tweeting “Kim Kardashian is my mom” to “#BlackLivesMatter.” Whatever it is, they have to condense their input down to 140 characters. And people are posting political, social, opinions in clear and concise tweets that might be seen by 10-1 million people.
I am just always amazed at the way my generation takes good inventions and turns them into advancements. Beyond that, we are connecting across the globe. Yes, we interact way differently than our predecessors, but we share our thoughts and opinions with people we have never even met. The tumblr community for example is always proving the doubters wrong in my opinion. Our elders say our generation, the “selfie generation” is narcissistic. That may be true, but we care so much about each other and the worlds in which we live. Every time a social justice issue arises, the tumblr community explodes not only with opinions, but offering prayers and support to whomever needs it. If they hear about another tumblr user who committed suicide because they’re parents didn’t accept them, they make that kid a celebrity overnight. If they hear about issues not being covered enough by mass media, they tell everyone they know and people they don’t know about it. And this is the website that made “memes” a thing.
I get really happy when I see what people my age are doing for our world, and there’s not a lot I hate more than old people making fun of us because they don’t get it. When we inherit this world, or what’s left of it, I really think it might just be a better place.
Xoxo,
Kam