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Anyone older feeling a bit sad for the younger generation?

posted 5 years ago by [deleted]
24 replies | jump to latest

When I was in my twenties, this was at the height of when the internet and digital age first exploded, and I was so envious to not have come of age at that time.

Twenty years later, I now feel the opposite. The problem I'm noticing with technology now is that it's reduced life into a pathetic singularity in which everything is done through your phone or tablet, and usually using one app.

For example, back in the day, there was more than one way to discover and listen to music. You could go to the music store, watch music videos, pick up a magazine (like Rolling Stone), listen to radio shows, watch a TV show (American Bandstand/Soul Train) or go to venues. Hell, sometimes you could just walk into ANY store (bookstore, clothing, etc.) and hear something you'd never heard of before and go, "What the hell is that?"

Now, it's like, "Oh, let me just turn on my tablet/phone and see what's trending on this one app that I use for all of my music."

Ditto passing the time. If you were bored ages ago, what did you do? Maybe you completed a puzzle book or played a board game with your friends or called someone up to talk to for an hour or two or played a video game or listened to the radio or read a book or took up knitting/stamp collecting/model building. Now it's, "Let me turn on my smartphone/tablet and use the one platform I'm obsessed with (Facebook, Instagram, Candy Crush, etc.)."

Same thing with shopping. Back in the day, you'd go to stores, garage sales, flea markets or order via catalog. Now it's, "Let me open up my tablet/phone and order on Amazon or eBay."

Every single thing today seems to be based around this one gadget and boiled down to a small handful of apps. I can't imagine growing up in such a time defined by this level of singularity. There's none of the richness and variety that older generations grew up with.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

Bring back Springsteen, Madonna,
way before Nirvana
there was U2 and Blondie,
and music still on MTV,
her two kids in high school,
tell her that's she's uncool,
because she's still preoccupied,
with 1985...

I guess they'll never morn what they never knew but yeah I get what you're saying. I use Amazon for items that aren't easily found in stores but I really enjoy going to the store for stuff. I miss going to music and video stores. I even miss having fewer selections of shows and movies to watch because I know I'm not alone in surfing netflix/hulu for over an hour unable to find something good so I just end up watching an episode of The Office or Family Guy that I've seen a dozen times. It's funny I never had trouble finding something good to watch when there were wayyyy fewer choices. I guess the times they are a changin'!

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

I guess they'll never morn what they never knew but yeah I get what you're saying.

I think they will miss it, but in a different way. They will reach middle age feeling empty and cynical but not exactly knowing why. I say that because when I was growing up, I was absolutely miserable. I was so miserable that I didn't think I'd live to see 40. Now I'm almost 50 and the strangest thing is that I'm looking back on my younger years with fondness because there was this other stuff I could hang onto. I can remember the excitement of Saturday morning cartoons, the latest music video to drop, the silly fads (Rubik's cube), the songs that seemed to define an era, etc. So, as miserable as my home life was, I can at least go, "Well, at least I have these fond experiences going for me."

What is this generation going to have as an emotional lifeline when they reach this age? "I reached Level 549 in Candy Crush." "I got 400 likes on this one Instagram post." "I got 50 subscribers on YouTube." "I made a meme."

[–] AndyKing1967 (39243) 5 years ago

Lol, one of my favourite music videos: -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K38xNqZvBJI

[–] BillHicksFan (10664) 5 years ago

I'll never get one of those tablets or phones and I won't let anyone come over with them. The only music that will be listened here is from the 60/70s, and no movie made after 1980.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

I'm kind of similar except my dates are later than yours. My music is from the 70s and 80s and I don't watch much of anything from past the year 2000.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

I've never owned a smartphone, but I do have a tablet.

[–] Mrmojo4700 (21603) 5 years ago

I’m headed to the local flea market in a bit to look for vinyl records, DVD and VHS tapes.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

A bunch of secondhand stores have opened in my neighborhood recently, so I'm in vinyl and CD heaven. I download music all the time, but it's not the same as physically going to a store, going through a rack of stuff and going, "OMG! Yes! I can't wait to get home and play this!" It's just not. I've tried the whole, "Well, I'm going to just download everything," and there isn't the level of satisfaction for some reason.

[–] Mrmojo4700 (21603) 5 years ago

I even love the way it smells in the used vinyl record stores I frequent.

What genres are you into?

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

Almost every genre that's come out within the past century: mambo (Perez Prado), British Invasion, Motown, 1960s R and B, easy listening (cocktail/lounge), bachelor pad, disco, soundtrack (John Barry, Burt Bacharach, Henry Mancini), New Wave, electronica (The Prodigy, The Wiseguys), trip hop, grunge (Nirvana), house, alternative rock, underground/foreign hip hop, even some classic (Scott Joplin) and opera. I am a walking "I listen to everything" cliche.

[–] Mrmojo4700 (21603) 5 years ago

If your list, these are the ones I like:

disco, soundtrack (John Barry, Burt Bacharach, Henry Mancini), New Wave, electronica (The Prodigy, The Wiseguys), trip hop, grunge (Nirvana), house, alternative rock,

[–] AndyKing1967 (39243) 5 years ago

Remember, albums are to be looked at, as well as listened to.

[–] Mrmojo4700 (21603) 5 years ago

I agree. That’s one of the reasons I still collect VHS as well.

[–] Quasimodo (16388) 5 years ago

Not especially.

[–] nyctc7 (43952) 5 years ago

Well stated, and I would add that I feel sad that they are so ill educated.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

We're the same age, I was actually pretty late to the internet in terms of actually having it at home and using it a great deal. When I think back to the 90's when I was in my late teens and early 20's there was this crossover period where we all knew the internet existed but it was still so slow and clunky. You had the two worlds exist side by side.

I love that I can now just get online and look up any song I want to listen to or check out any band. In the past I would have to go to a record store or just hope that the radio (ha, ha) would play the song or a music video program would etc. I did discover lots of bands back then through fanzine's which were independent run music magazines, home made style. I even ran one myself. Two actually, the other one was for poetry and stories.

Do I feel sorry for the younger generation? Not really but I can see that they are being brainwashed from the cradle with nonsense politics and non values. I can see they are obsessed with racism or not being racist, that they are reportedly stressed out of their minds and I believe a lot of that is due to all the crap they are bombarded with.

They only know what they have been taught as well which isn't much and in the work place they struggle with decision making and problem solving. They need everything to be set out nice and simple for them.

They have been taught that being critical is "hating".

Oh and they love scribbling all over themselves with tattoo ink and piercing themselves with metal. Makes it hard for me to be a dirty old man when most of the young women out there look like circus clowns...

[–] thingmaker (32) 5 years ago

Not really... I'm a fan of genre fiction: Science Fiction, Horror, Fantasy, Pulp Adventure... Also some Mystery and Thrillers and, outside the realm of genre fiction, History and Folklore. I'm a reader and encountered a lot of fiction which is usually thought of as film or video through print. My first Star Trek was a James Blish paperback...
In the "good old days" I remember having to wait forever for some UHF station to pop up and air episodes of "The Outer Limits". A few "the Prisoner" episodes would be screened at SF or Star Trek conventions... German expressionist cinema was available one or two films at a time at rep houses or at special screenings on college campuses. I remember setting alarms to get up at 3 in the morning to possibly record on VHS obscure movies like "Kronos" (1957).
I read my used copies of "Doc Savage paperbacks and wondered what the other hundred and thirty novels in the series were like, cuz I couldn't afford, even at 1970s prices to buy the old pulp magazines. I only discovered classic fantasy as the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series was published. My favorite music - film scores - came out in dribs and drabs... Vast amounts of material unavailable even with the most ardent used bookstore hunting.
Thing is... Now everything I love, which used to be hard to come by is easy to find. Now you can download or stream damn near any video. Text is almost unlimited. My favorite music is available in vast quantities.
Also. I'm one of those nerds with no social skills except the ability to become paralyzed by fear in social situations. If I had been born 20 years earlier I would not have had access to the internet until I was nearly 60... And would therefore never have gotten married. So, from my, admittedly nerdly, point of view - THESE KIDS HAVE IT ALL!!!

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

In the "good old days" I remember having to wait forever for some UHF station to pop up and air episodes of "The Outer Limits". A few "the Prisoner" episodes would be screened at SF or Star Trek conventions... German expressionist cinema was available one or two films at a time at rep houses or at special screenings on college campuses.

See, here's the thing. I remember those "good old days," too. And what I don't understand is why people who grew up during those times make everything seem so much more dire than I remember them being.

What I remember was that because everything popped up once in a blue moon, it was so much more exciting when they eventually aired or played somewhere. For example, maybe you'd look at the TV guide and then you'd see that a movie you hadn't seen in ages was playing and you'd go, "OMG THAT IS COMING ON THIS SATURDAY THAT IS SO AWESOME I'VE BEEN WAITING FOREVER TO SEE THAT!!! GONNA GRAB SOME POPCORN!!" I don't remember sitting around feeling as if was a major drag or inconvenience waiting to see something.

So, from my, admittedly nerdly, point of view - THESE KIDS HAVE IT ALL!!!

IMO, they have too much. They are exposed to so much media that they don't even know where to begin when picking what to watch and listen to, so they only pick what they were first exposed to, what is the most convenient or what is trending on social media. It's why so many of them have no idea about anything that happened before their lifetime.

[–] Furienna (3365) 5 years ago

I have to side with Thingmaker though. Everything has become so much easier to find, and that is a good thing. And I just love that I can use the same device for so many different things (music, TV, camera, calculator etc). My mother is lost though with all the new technology, so I have to help her all the time.

[–] CoreyHaimFan (1031) 5 years ago

People in general went out in the world to explore their interests, whether it be music, film, the arts, nature, etc. These days, aside from a great nature hike, most anything else can be experienced on your phone or laptop. I definitely miss the old days that I took for granted then. I graduated HS in 2001, so I was a teenager in the early days of the internet, when it was a curiosity more then what controlled our lived daily. I remember spending the night at my friend's house in fall of 95 and that was the first place I had really seen the internet at work. Being in Ohio, I remember being just floored that we were "chatting" with someone in Florida. Just seemed unreal and blew my mine. The dial up noise was and is still weird sounding.

As much as I resent what the internet, social media, and smartphones have turned most of us into, people only interested in their screens, I also have to admit I love so much about it. What better place to complain about the internet and reminisce about yesteryear with other old timers then on the internet. YouTube is my favorite thing to watch. It's outstanding for anyone that loves to relive old shows, commercials, moments in history. I do love many things about today, but I personally feel that Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have hurt more then help. YouTube probably has as well but I'm selfish and like youtube.