The generations are different in many ways
Posted on Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Quickly - what was your first telephone number ?
What was the address of the house in which you grew up ?
I ask these things for a reason.
I caught a story the other day on the Today Show about how younger people today - basically those 30 and under - don't really have to memorize anything like we older folks did. And that's just one thing that's different between the generations.
The younger generation has machines in which they can file all of the information they might need and have it at their finger tips, literally.
Many of those interviewed didn't even know their home telephone numbers and said the reason they didn't was because they had it saved in their cell phone.
If you are a Baby Boomer I imagine things were quite different when you were young.
You are just like me and I know what it was like.
We had to memorize things, such as a telephone number, a street address and the multiplication table.
In my case, we even had to learn the 55 counties and county seats in West Virginia and recite them in front of the class.
I recall having to do that with some of Shakespeare's work as well.
And there was one distinct reason between "us "then, and "them "now - electronic gadgets.
The younger ones may not believe it, but we didn't have them. We had rotary phones, cell phones were things that a character in a science fiction movie might have.
There was no such thing as the personal computer. We had slide rules, protractors and very early versions of the hand-held calculator.
Remember those big, bulky Texas Instrument calculators with the little red digital numbers ? They didn't even operate off of batteries in those days. You had to plug them into a socket.
And I don't remember one teacher in high school who would allow their use during class, let alone a test.
But, we survived because we were taught how to work out the problems the old fashioned way - using an equation and our heads.
Try to explain to a young person what an 8-track tape was and how it worked. You can still buy those things at flea markets, but I don't know anybody who has a player. If you do, you might want to consider upgrading. Don't even get me started on TV. Do you realize there are young people out there who think color television is the way it has always been; And that cable was the only way to receive TV signals prior to satellite reception ? Ask them what rabbit ears are and I imagine their answer will have something to do with Bugs Bunny. And of course we didn't have computer games where you could sit for hours on end and pretty much leave the world around you for some imaginary universe. We had to learn people skills because we had to interact with others around us. I know that not all of the young men and women are as I have characterized them. But there are a fair amount of them out there and it worries me. Basically, what scares me is that one day they will be running the joint and making decisions that impact me personally. I just wonder if they will be able to do it as well as we "old folks "have. And by the way, my phone number back in West Virginia where I grew up was 485-6994. And that phone was in our home at 1330 Avery St., Parkersburg, W. Va. Just something I remember because I had to.
*** Douglas Grant is the managing editor of The Weekly Vista. He has two decades of journalism experience having worked in Virginia, North Carolina and Florida.
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