Raise your hand if you've ever heard, "This generation is so unsocial. It's all because of this new technology." Everybody's hand is raised? Yeah, that's what I thought. Every time anyone from this generation does anything remotely unsocial, this gets thrown in our faces by those older than us. And from their perspective, it's understandable. In my parents' day in age, to be 'cool' you had to have a pager and you told everyone to call your cell phone after 9 p.m. because it was free. Nowadays, you show a kid a pager and they probably won't even be able to tell you what its true purpose was. And millennials are blamed for being selfish and impatient. I had this discussion in my Mass Media and Society class just this week, and some amazing thoughts and perspectives were shared from both sides of the spectrum. But let's take a minute to look at our side of the argument.
This current generation is credited with needing instant gratification, and that's why children get upset when they don't get instantly rewarded for an achievement. And while that may be true, it is not our fault. We have been raised with the ability to obtain knowledge and things we want quickly and effectively because we were raised on the Internet. It's been around since 1983, and the World Wide Web came about in 1990. It was literally born with us and grew up with us as we did. So, of course, we were conditioned to be used to and expectant of instant gratification, since it is the only thing we've ever known. But let's put this in a simpler perspective; let's talk about just gathering information.
Okay, 20 years ago, if you wanted to know what was going on with celebrities, like what clothing styles were in fashion, and what was happening in the world, you would have to read newspapers,magazines, or watch the news on TV. You had to wait for the celeb gossip until that monthly magazine issue came out and you were subscribed, so there was no possible way you missed a beat. But today, you don't even need to watch a TV to know what is happening around the world at any point. You can just look whatever you want up on your phone and be reading the Cosmo article on the whole Kim K vs T- Swift issue in less than 30 seconds. Somethings you don't even have to look up; you can go on Twitter and check the trending page. So yes, we are satisfied by instant gratification, but it's what we know; we know nothing else.
We also get told we are unsocial and nobody communicates anymore. And yes, I agree with this to an extent because whenever I get in the elevator in my dorm and say 'Hi, how are you?' I get looked at like I'm diseased (but that's a whole different story). But I also disagree to an extent because yes, while we are weary to hold a face-to-face conversation, I believe that our generation is much more worldly and culturized due to our ability to communicate with people all across the world through the Internet. We have friends who we've never met in person, but can name all of their brothers and sisters and tell you what they had for lunch that day. So, when you look at our physical connections, yes they're a bit behind the normal, but in reality, we are spreading our thoughts and love and friendship much farther than ever before possible without traveling.
Yes, we are millennials. Yes, we are glued to technology, but it's been glued to us and was what has been glued to our generation. And yes, we are weary of physical communications, but we are at that same time communicating with people across the world who are completely different than us. So before you go calling us 'self-absorbed' and 'antisocial,' think about what you associate with our generation and why. We were born with technology and it was born with us. We were raised on that simplicity and accessibility that technology offered. So yes, we are the technological millennials, but remember, it was YOUR generation that created it for us.
