The Generation Gap(s)

    Last week I was asked what I thought was the biggest difference between my generation (X) and whatever the media label is for people who grew up with ready access to the internet was - Gen Z? Millennials?

   It's been a full week and I've pondered the question everyday since. Turned it upside down and inside out trying to figure out what the difference is...if there really is one (or two, or eleven thousand).

   Using the good ol' Google I searched for common complaints about the generations in question and everything I found was extremely similar.

  Everything. 

   My generation (at least according to the then dominant media - newspapers, magazines and television news) was regarded as lazy, ungrateful, ignorant (of how good we had it), selfish, inconsiderate, and pretty much a harbinger of the end of times.

  The computer-literate generation (at least according to the current dominant media sources - digital platforms, social media apps, and, such as they are, 24-7 news channels) is regarded as lazy, ungrateful, ignorant (of how good they have it), selfish, inconsiderate, and pretty much a harbinger of the end of times.

   There was, of course, some retaliatory criticism of the preceding generations by both of the succeeding generations - the tried and true you've bankrupted our future by totally mismanaging the government, your parenting skills are suffocating us, and of course, how can we possibly ever afford to buy our own homes earning ridiculously low wages and home prices being sky-high?*

   Every generation seems to be critical of the prior generation for the exact same reasons.

   There are a few things that are obviously different, such as improvements in health care, technology, and communication, as well as a much more receptive climate toward alternative lifestyles and such.

   So, the biggest difference (to me) appears to be the ready access to instantaneous worldwide communication, and/or the ability to spread information oneself - anyone and everyone who can connect to the internet can access Facebook, Youtube, Blogspot, Instagram, X, Tik-Tok, and hundreds of other social network programs to either digest the content or create the content.

   And there's the rub. Information and ideas can be spread around the world without check at the speed of light - good and bad ideas and information.  

   Which has been both very entertaining and horribly alarming, so far.

*In 1981 minimum wage was $3.35 an hour and the average 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house sold for $83,000. In 2025 minimum wage is $16.50 and the average 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house sells for $512,000