Tag: generations

Generation Gap

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“Today, 2 year olds can unlock an iPhone, open and close their favorite apps all by themselves. When I was that age, I was eating dirt.” – This was my friend’s status message on Facebook recently. What an honest statement. 

When I was a kid, playing meant hop-scotch, dumb-charades, hide and go seek. Reading a story always meant lending a book from a local library. Summer vacation meant sleepovers – which automatically meant BOARD GAMES !! “Stupid” was a bad word, Tom & Jerry was entertainment, Ice cream felt like heaven and candy was the best thing ever ! 

Translating that into a modern day kid’s world – playing means Temple Run or Candy Crush or Angry Birds. Reading a story means getting a Kindle or just buying an e-book. Summer vacation sleepovers are pretty useless as every person is lost in their own world of technology. A third grader knows the f-word, apps on their parents’ tablet is entertainment and the latest smart phone is the best thing ever !

What happened? How did we go from “I can’t wait to go outdoors!” to “I can’t wait to get home!” ? When my dad got me my first mobile phone – a very very basic one – in 8th grade, my mum was convinced it was a big mistake as it was going to help me elope with some boy. Today, I rarely see a 8-year-old without a smart phone. 

When I was young, when I missed my cousin, I’d go visit him/her. Today, the kid just video conferences. 

 But why?! Why is the kid on the train so engrossed in that game on his tablet instead of looking around and noticing his environment. At the different people around him. Asking random naive questions that only kids can manage to ask?!

 It upsets me that someday in the future, a child will not know what it’s like to hold a printed book in their hand. The smell of it. Losing yourself in that world without having to worry about its battery draining out. That a child will never experience slipping and falling when trying to hop around on one foot. Guessing things that have absolutely no connection to what the person is acting out in a game of dumb-charades. Triumph of dragging all the money and cards to yourself when you win a game of Monopoly.  Giggling for no reason after lights-out during a sleepover. The pretend sword fights with your brothers. The forts you make in your bedroom. Those secret hiding spots in your town, around your house, around your school. Those hidden treasures buried behind the bush of your childhood home that you promise to someday return and find.

 This kid, that looked to be about 11, while waiting at my Dentist’s, walked up to me with his dad’s smartphone and asked me if I know how to play a game on his phone. I said I didn’t and that I’d never even heard of it. He smirked at me and said, “You old people miss out on so much.” I was offended. But then I later realized, he’s wrong. He couldn’t be more wrong. 

 Technology – that’s all you’re going to be using as an adult. Especially by the time the current and future generations grow up and start working. But there are certain things you can only do as a child. Certain acts where instead of calling you stupid, people smile at your innocence. Like believing that you’re going to be a fireman. Or trying to catch fireflies in a bottle and making wishes. Looking out the window of your parents’ car and freaking out about the moon chasing you. Today, I can honestly say, I had the best childhood I could’ve asked for. A childhood where having to put away my toys was the worst thing I could imagine. Especially, when playing with LEGO’s and I was asked to demolish my creation and put it in a box. That broke my heart every time.  A childhood where everything was an adventure. A childhood when fighting usually involved the window seat in the car, my turn on the swing or “I want more ice-cream!!” A childhood that has so many stories that I now sit and talk and laugh about with my family. A childhood that the future generation is missing out on..

 

Way Too Much Sex, Everywhere !

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Is it just me or is there suddenly way too much sex in everything? Movies, music, books even. It’s everywhere you look. There was a time when a kiss scene in a regional movie would be cut out by the Censor Board. But now, I rarely see a movie without it. I saw a movie recently. A movie that would have been just fine without a half naked girl sexually teasing a married man in a five minute song. As I walked out I saw this really old woman walking out with her entire family and I wondered, I felt awkward watching that song in the movie with my grown sibling. I can’t imagine someone from a much more conservative background / generation sitting there with their entire family – aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews – watching all those scenes. What do they do when a woman in lingerie is unnecessarily dancing around a man  for five whole minutes? Do they close the 5-year-old kid’s eyes? Doesn’t that just induce curiosity?

Everything that was taboo a few generations back is a social culture today. How did this happen? Is it the media spoiling the kids? With sex appeal becoming their best seller, TV ads now need a Parental Guidance (PG) warning. Perfume, deodorant and soap ads now have one thing in common : Dear men, use this and every woman you see on the street will come running to your bed tonight. Really?! One song has the ability to teach a kid more than what the kid will learn from an entire year of sex-ed classes in school. I get how certain movies have the need for certain scenes to make the story plausible. But when you don’t need such an explicit scene, why bother going through all that trouble to add one? Creating sets, paying the artists, shooting all day – for what? Sex sells? Wouldn’t you rather the person watching your movie or listening to your song, do so for the story, the meaning or the pure talent it took to create something like that?

My mother used to tell me, when we watched really old movies together – one dance with a woman half naked and the movie would be given an R (Indian Censor Board – A) certificate. But today, the woman dresses half-naked in a normal scene in a normal movie and the movie is given G (Indian Censor Board – U.) But why? Why has the censor board eased up on these things? Why does the media have such an undying need to portray even the most ridiculous of things in such a sexy way?

Or rather, is the media simply just catching up to the perverseness that is the current generation? Have we, in our need to protect our little ones from the big bad world, fed them more information than we’re supposed to? Have we slowly and steadily, in the name of warning and advise, injected their brains with more information than needed? Did we kick-start a curiosity in them and leave it unnoticed for so long that it is now irreversible?

In my family, you do not mention the word “sex.” Just no. When I moved away, I learned that it’s not as bad as they made it seem. It’s ok to say those words. It’s something that happens. But it’s a private part of your life. Something to be shared between you and the person(s) you’re with. It’s not something you advertise for the world to see.

I remember a time when my parents used to tell me, “Don’t turn into one of them! Your innocence is everything.” Today, I laugh at my one friend that has managed to stay innocent. But I never stop wondering, is she lucky to keep her mind clear of all this for so long? Is she talented to know to take the good from the world and not the bad? Or, is she dumb for not catching on, even though it’s all around us? She does know everything about the birds and the bees. But she doesn’t talk about it, think about it or even care. She holds on to what she believes is the right thing for her to think about. Does that mean she’s being left behind? Will she be the kind of person my child will some day criticize saying “Ohmygod ! She’s so ancient. Like, catch on!” ??

Relationships today are more sex than love. Why? Sure, there are really good guys out there. Guys who love a girl for her heart and not for what’s outside of that heart. But it’s a diminishing kind. Pretty soon, it’ll be extinct. And then what?

I don’t intend to say, we need to go back to the stone age. No, we don’t. But we need to find a balance. We need to make movies and music that a parent can enjoy with their child without it having to be animation or rhymes. You need to sell your product using the product’s worth. Not by advertising it with half naked girls and guys. We can deny it all we want, but we are the ones who decide what the future generation will be like. What we do will influence their lives in the future. Set a good example. Remember , your kid will be one of them someday..