By: Jennifer Richardson Holt
I have heard it said more than once lately that the world is in trouble with this next generation coming up. No, it isn’t the most encouraging thing to hear. The thing is, I work on a major university campus, so I do get a very up close and personal sampling of today’s youth on a regular basis and, if I’m honest, it isn’t always the most reassuring experience. I am around these young men and women that will be tomorrow’s leaders and sometimes the sampling I am privy to does seem a bit on the questionable side. But I am also a mother to a relatively young child, she’ll be 9 in June, so, in her and her peers I get a glance at even further into the future. But I think we all notice that when you get to a certain age you can’t help but contemplate how different today is when compared to your own younger days. Being constantly among younger blood I find myself doing it quite often. I must be at said certain age though I am unsure of its numerical value exactly.
Even at a young age, my daughter is already more technologically savvy than I was probably in my 30s. From elementary age all the way to college, using computers (be they a laptop or the wonder that is the modern smartphone) is simply an understood part of life. I do find it very disconcerting that my daughter, who is in third grade, has multiple classmates that have their own smartphones. I understand the times are different and now having a phone does mean a certain amount of security however, my mind utterly boggles at this. While I grasp children as young as 8 are fully capable of using technology, the idea of a child that young having what feels to me like such a grown-up device, I can’t even fathom. Perhaps you can call me old fashioned on this one, and that may be true. All I can think of though is the internet and its treasure trove of information that comes along with a noxious pit of all manner of nefariousness, and I can’t quite make the two balance out for a little kid. Yep. I’m probably old fashioned. I’m ok with it. My daughter probably not so much.
The older crowd of what we would call youth these days seem a bit too lost in their phones. Again, I am not anti-phone because I am rather fond of mine and grasp what an amazingly useful tool it is. However, when you cannot count on two hands the times within a week that you are out and about on a college campus and see students walk directly in front of moving traffic to cross the street and never look up from their phone, it is a tad concerning. Of course it isn’t just phones with these young folk. There is a strange air of entitlement that seems to be swirling about that I see these days. I happen to know the college I work for has started ticketing students significantly less due to how many parents would call and complain about their children getting fines. Though, I suppose we see where the entitlement stems from in such cases. Lots of parents of my generation and even some younger (I became a mom late) have engrained into their kids that they are not accountable for their own actions and anyone who attempts to hold them as such is a big old meany. I wish I were kidding, but I have firsthand witnessed students that have been ticketed repeatedly, booted repeatedly, and towed repeatedly, not just for lack of finding a good space, but for parking in handicap spots, parking the wrong way on a one way street, and parking in the middle of a road and yet and still their parents will call and raise all sorts of cane at the unfairness of it all. Hm. Well now I’m discouraged by the youth plus angry at parents. I may have steered off course.
But know that there are bright spots in the upcoming generations. I saw the fellow in the wheelchair on this big campus. It wasn’t a motorized chair, and he had quite a hill ahead of him to climb and he was spinning those wheels for all his strongly muscled arms could spin them. I saw the girl that rushed over so that she could push him up that hill. She had been running previously, looking as though she were late for a class, but she stopped without hesitation to help. And though my daughter would very much like a phone of her own and is entirely too attached to her tablet where she watches videos, like her mother did when she was young, she loves to read. She will dive into the chapters of an actual paper book and enjoy herself just as much as when she has the glare of artificial light on her face. I’ve also watched her countenance, and that of all her friends light up when Epic, the school dog, gets to come around for a visit. That’s definitely a simple pleasure in which any generation could revel. I watched college students singing along to the radio while they joyfully volunteered their time to prepare food at a pantry for the needy. The lights are there among the shadows; bright points dotting the path.
My own generation was one that bridged the gap into the modern realm. We got basic internet during our growing up years, but we remember before it and before cell phones. We played outside but we also played video games. Today even the simplest task can be done for you by artificial intelligence. But no generation has it all figured out. Obviously, I can’t say mine does considering it is a lot of our shortcomings that manifest in the negative qualities in the next. We each must do our own part to try to be certain that artificial intelligence doesn’t replace authentic intelligence and that a smart phone doesn’t outrank a smart mind. And probably most importantly, whether young or old, it’s our job to be an example that we want others, despite the generation, to follow. Seems that old Golden Rule still measures up.
Prose and Possibilities 