Technology changes often widen generation gaps

It's a topic that I could almost be accused of obsessing over. When I hear a fact or even an off-hand comment that relates to it, I perk up and get sweaty and start thinking way too much about it.

I'm doing my best to come to grips with the whole technology gap between generations and, more specifically, how technology is affecting/changing the rising generation.

Just this past week or so, for example, three things in this regard slapped me in the face. First, an associate scanned the demographic data of incoming freshmen to college and noted, "Hmm. It's kind of weird to see that a lot students coming in were born in the '90s and not just the '80s." Then I saw some statistics regarding the expotentially fast infusion of so-called new technology and social media-related technology into our culture.

Then I heard a student make an off-handed and clearly naive comment regarding 9/11 to another student: "Oh, it's September 11. That's the day that changed everything, haven't you heard?" And he said it with a tilt of his head, a lilt in his voice, a smirk sending it on its way, as if to say that he wasn't buying.

These, you see, are my worries, my near-obsessions.

It's not like I crossed the plains or anything. I'm not from "the old country" and couldn't be called out-of-touch. But I analyze the current culture shapers and see that they have never not known a world without online predators, identity theft or Osama bin Laden and the al Jezzera network. This is common knowledge and a common occurrence to them.

They've never known another definition of gay, assuming it has always been about sexuality, and are beginning to similarly lose the old-fashioned definition of pride. They would snicker to hear "The Flintstone's" theme song, assigning the wrong inference to some of words. They can't imagine that their parents once used the word thong to describe an innocent piece of footwear and are aghast when we slip and do so.

They've never not worn their hat backwards, and the vast majority of their "friends" were made online and live at one Web site. They've missed the experience of watching a television in a cabinet about the size of a refrigerator, with a tube the about 15 inches across. Their preference is a screen about the size of a large postage stamp.

They assume music has always had warnings to parents about lyrics. They've missed in their lives the sound of a newspaper hitting the front porch. They've never popped popcorn with hot oil and a pan rather than in a bag and microwave. To be without a phone is death in boiling oil.

And while there have always been cultural gaps between generations, technology seems to be driving this gap — and I think this is the crux of my obsessive thoughts — to new, wider proportions. Heck, the gap between my parents and me started with hair and ended with The Beatles. That's about it. But I could still see where they were coming from from the vantage point of where I was going. While there have been generation gaps since the dawn of time, the electricity-like speed of change now occurring in our lives has widened and deepened that gap and without real effort will be harder to close and communicate over than ever before. I'm convinced of it.

Some have compared the current evolution of high-tech, quick-turnaround social media, for example, to be equivalent to the development of the printing press or air travel. And they're not kidding.

Currently 96 percent of 18-30 year olds are on an internet social network. It took 13 years for television to reach the 50 million audience mark. It took Facebook eight months to reach 100 million. There were 1 billion (that's with a "b") downloads of Ipod applications in the first nine months of their availability. If Facebook were a country, it would be the fourth largest country by population in the world. It is routine for 18-24 year olds to skip watching something on TV, because they can see it on their computer, Ipod or phone the next day instead, 70 percent saying they regularly watch TV on the Web. And — are you sitting down? — a 21-year-old average American has played 10,000 hours of video games and received or sent 250,000 text messages. The number of text messages sent daily exceed the population of the planet.

Are you obsessing yet?

And I'm OK with technology. All of this doesn't worry me until the smirks and rolling eyes widen the gap even further by perpetuating this concept that anyone not on Facebook has nothing to offer; that anyone who prefers to read a book rather than listen to one on a podcast or skim the highlights on their phone must be an idiot.

The strong glimmer of hope in all of this for me is the thought that, well, I turned out OK. Even with all the gaps and conflicts and changes, my generation is pretty dang capable. We didn't mess the whole world up too bad. And I can be at peace and take a breath and whisper to myself that if we could do it, these naive yay-whos can do it, too. Hearts of children will always eventually turn to their fathers and vice versa, drawing out the best of each in the process.

I hope.