My grandfather owned a retail shop in a rural village in India. He would bring goods from a nearby city around 20 miles away and sell them to the locals - everything from notebooks to potatoes! He hardly watched any TV, walked around the village and met with people face to face, hosted his kids and their families over summer and other festivals and was physically present in all our childhoods.
Imagine the same in today's world! All my cousins live all across the world and we seldom meet each other, mostly over whatsapp, phone or skype! We still hang out once a year, but this is becoming somewhat of a rarity as we grow up. We all realize that the quality of interaction we used to have as kids has gone down, but what has bonded us together is that quality time we spent with each other that allowed us to build those deep personal ties!
If I imagine what the world and nature of human connections would be like 10-20 years down the line, my heart shudders and almost feels miserable for the next generation who probably won't get to experience that level of deep personal connection! Sad part is they probably won't know what it is really like because they wouldn't even have a frame of reference to compare it with.
For the generation Z, the social connection starts with Facebook and ends with SnapChat!
So, this is my old man take on all this! I often tell my friends I am an old man trapped in a young body! Let's say what my young boy instincts say now -
Over the course of millions of years, the nature of human connection has changed over time. Starting with just a body language, to mono-syllable sounds to an evolved language as the frontal lobe kept on expanding and brain started growing! The change in the nature of human connection has evolved slowly, which determined the rate at which humans adapt to change.
Ever since Industrial revolution, things have started moving drastically though! From a normal, farmer lifestyles; human being are moved to big crowded cities and started living markedly different life than before. All of a sudden lifestyles changed and new set of lifestyle related diseases evolved!
Anyways, that aside - the future generations are defining their ways of establishing those deep connections - through whatsapp or snapchat or vines! They are willing to share way more than all the historical content combined! They have different problems to deal with - not to find some information, but to sieve thru dirtload of information, not to worry about electricity and clean waters; but the speed of wifi and connectivity of cellphones!
As generation Z becomes Y, and us Ys become Xs; new set of necessities and social norms would evolve! As an individual you can still be part of whichever group you like; but in general
We too are gonna reminisce about the days of the yore
We too are gonna miss the days of GI Joes and barbie dolls!
We too are gonna envy the new kids on the block
We too are gonna smirk on the stuff they are getting wrong!
We too are gonna laugh at their stupid ideas and sensibilities
We too are gonna cry at their stupid mistakes and idiosyncrasies!
We would be nostalgic too to the tune of that old song
We too are gonna look inside when our kids are what we were!
We too are gonna grow old and act like wise men!
We too are gonna learn to live well every once in a while!
All in all, George Bernard Shaw said it the best
Youth is indeed wasted on the young (and the restless)!!
Imagine the same in today's world! All my cousins live all across the world and we seldom meet each other, mostly over whatsapp, phone or skype! We still hang out once a year, but this is becoming somewhat of a rarity as we grow up. We all realize that the quality of interaction we used to have as kids has gone down, but what has bonded us together is that quality time we spent with each other that allowed us to build those deep personal ties!
If I imagine what the world and nature of human connections would be like 10-20 years down the line, my heart shudders and almost feels miserable for the next generation who probably won't get to experience that level of deep personal connection! Sad part is they probably won't know what it is really like because they wouldn't even have a frame of reference to compare it with.
For the generation Z, the social connection starts with Facebook and ends with SnapChat!
So, this is my old man take on all this! I often tell my friends I am an old man trapped in a young body! Let's say what my young boy instincts say now -
Over the course of millions of years, the nature of human connection has changed over time. Starting with just a body language, to mono-syllable sounds to an evolved language as the frontal lobe kept on expanding and brain started growing! The change in the nature of human connection has evolved slowly, which determined the rate at which humans adapt to change.
Ever since Industrial revolution, things have started moving drastically though! From a normal, farmer lifestyles; human being are moved to big crowded cities and started living markedly different life than before. All of a sudden lifestyles changed and new set of lifestyle related diseases evolved!
Anyways, that aside - the future generations are defining their ways of establishing those deep connections - through whatsapp or snapchat or vines! They are willing to share way more than all the historical content combined! They have different problems to deal with - not to find some information, but to sieve thru dirtload of information, not to worry about electricity and clean waters; but the speed of wifi and connectivity of cellphones!
As generation Z becomes Y, and us Ys become Xs; new set of necessities and social norms would evolve! As an individual you can still be part of whichever group you like; but in general
We too are gonna reminisce about the days of the yore
We too are gonna miss the days of GI Joes and barbie dolls!
We too are gonna envy the new kids on the block
We too are gonna smirk on the stuff they are getting wrong!
We too are gonna laugh at their stupid ideas and sensibilities
We too are gonna cry at their stupid mistakes and idiosyncrasies!
We would be nostalgic too to the tune of that old song
We too are gonna look inside when our kids are what we were!
We too are gonna grow old and act like wise men!
We too are gonna learn to live well every once in a while!
All in all, George Bernard Shaw said it the best
Youth is indeed wasted on the young (and the restless)!!
2 comments:
Very nice Sankalp!.. my another weird observation, And I would like you to observe as well - many people who I thought were shy of public spreaking, meeting etc. or appeared to be reticent now in fact get more expressive with these modern sociallizing tools! Surprisingly they still keep mum in one-one meetings, family functions but whola they post a hell lot of content on FB and Whatsapp!!
Lolz. Yes Apurv-ajoba :P Kidding!!
I think it is less intimidating (although could be equally powerful) to talk a computer screen in the safety of your home than to face the judging eyes of the 'society'! That probably is the reason some people find comfort in World Wide Web, instead of dealing with the World With Real People ;)
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