My boss and I talk a lot when the work is slow, so we get plenty of subjects covered. From the topic of guns and gun control to the stupid people who operate on campus, I get a pretty view on things! One of the things we talked about lately is how different things have been in the past compared to now, and how everything has changed during that process.
One of the points made was that most children and teens don't go outside during their free time, and instead they (should I say we?) stay inside on the internet or playing video games. Back in the 50's and 60's, kids would just run outside to their neighbors to go swimming in the local lake. Now you can't (or shouldn't) touch the water in the lake because there might be bad chemicals, or sharps, or god forbid something that might accidentally cut you. The world today has become too safe for our own good. Want to ride a bike? Instead of being able to hop right on and learn to ride the "old fashioned way", we have to go through hundreds of safety precautions before even putting petal to the medal (pun not intended...maybe). We now have the curse of helmets for everything, protection eye wear to prevent that 0.0000001% accident, and round edges on our phones to prevent us from slicing our technology developed, silky smooth hands.
But there's more to this change - this generation's attention span sucks. Simply stated, well said. Just to use TV as an example, many of us can't seem to watch TV from week to week - instead we watch the entire season in one or two sittings. And there's the "Reality TV"... I may sit and watch a season in a sitting, but you will never catch me (even dead, might I add) watching a Reality TV show on purpose. TV should have news or stories - not fake people leading fake lives to keep those who are too lazy to get off their ass entertained. But what can you do?
I'm not sure. I love today, with all it's technology and advances in Science and Culture, but there are some things I wish didn't change - or at least they could have waited until I was older. I think the mid to late 1900's did a lot of things right, and now sometimes we have the need to "fix what doesn't need to be fixed".
One of the points made was that most children and teens don't go outside during their free time, and instead they (should I say we?) stay inside on the internet or playing video games. Back in the 50's and 60's, kids would just run outside to their neighbors to go swimming in the local lake. Now you can't (or shouldn't) touch the water in the lake because there might be bad chemicals, or sharps, or god forbid something that might accidentally cut you. The world today has become too safe for our own good. Want to ride a bike? Instead of being able to hop right on and learn to ride the "old fashioned way", we have to go through hundreds of safety precautions before even putting petal to the medal (pun not intended...maybe). We now have the curse of helmets for everything, protection eye wear to prevent that 0.0000001% accident, and round edges on our phones to prevent us from slicing our technology developed, silky smooth hands.
But there's more to this change - this generation's attention span sucks. Simply stated, well said. Just to use TV as an example, many of us can't seem to watch TV from week to week - instead we watch the entire season in one or two sittings. And there's the "Reality TV"... I may sit and watch a season in a sitting, but you will never catch me (even dead, might I add) watching a Reality TV show on purpose. TV should have news or stories - not fake people leading fake lives to keep those who are too lazy to get off their ass entertained. But what can you do?
I'm not sure. I love today, with all it's technology and advances in Science and Culture, but there are some things I wish didn't change - or at least they could have waited until I was older. I think the mid to late 1900's did a lot of things right, and now sometimes we have the need to "fix what doesn't need to be fixed".
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