Kids These Days
As a parent with three children and only slightly more hair, I feel I have earned the right to complain about "kids these days."
I do not understand kids these days. They’re living on the Earth I grew up on, but in a way so foreign to my experience they make me feel like an alien.
We were at a pizza place and there was a group of six or seven kids at a table. A parent walked over and placed a pizza on the table. I anticipated a Lord of the Flies like frenzy or at least a little excitement, but the group didn't even notice. It was like watching a well-trained seeing eye dog being offered bacon as a distraction. Impressive and thoroughly disappointing at the same time.
Of course, the children probably didn’t notice the pizza because every single one of them was looking at their cell phone. These kids were all 10 or younger. I don’t understand kids these days.
How did we get here? Did you know there is a device called a "Selfie Stick" (it looks like a golf club handle with a clip for a cell phone on the end of it) and the sole purpose of this invention is to allow people to hold their cellphone out in front of them in order to take a better picture of themselves (a selfie)?
Today's children won't know what newspapers, malls, pay phones, phone books, book stores, arcades, CD players, or film is but they will know what a Selfie Stick is. I have only one more thing to add regarding this device: Was the product name The Narcissist Wand already trademarked?
I feel very disconnected from kids now, and the Selfie Stick is only one example (which, I should add with embarrassment for all, is mainly used by grown-ups). When kids talk about Minecraft, Clash of Clans, or Dubstep they might as well have said Flippity Floop, Bippitty Zip, or Dubstep. I feel like an old man asking someone to repeat the same phrase because I didn’t hear it. Except I did hear it, I just have no idea what it means.
The other day, a middle schooler shot past me on the sidewalk on what appeared to be a brick with wheels. While I was surprised with how well he could balance himself on the diminutive skateboard, I wasn't surprised that I had no idea what it was. He might as well have been on a hoverboard from Back to the Future. He might as well have been from the future.
However, the truth is he is the future. I, on the other hand, get to join the noble ranks of past fathers, grandfathers, and great grandfathers and sweepingly declare youth has been wasted on the young of this generation. And just like all those before me -- I’m right.