I’ve got the idea for my NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) novel for this year. I’ve only got about a week to get ready. I’m excited. I’m going to tackle a new genre this time. I’m going to write a science fiction thriller. This is bound to stretch my imagination to new dimensions. I’m not going to say any more about it until after I’ve written the first draft. I’ve got the first draft of my last NaNoWriMo novel (from two years ago) lined up ready to start editing as soon as I finish writing this year’s entry.
I watched a video today, Why did Millenials Ruin Everything, on YouTube. It was very thought provoking. It put a new spin onto the comments I was making the other day about how things were really better than they ever have been before, we just didn’t know exactly how bad things were.
In this case, the presenter is talking about the impact of a society where the culture of previous generations is preserved in TV, film, photography, etc. This makes it hard for subsequent generations to synthesize their own world view.
It got me thinking that the acceleration of advances in technology have many sociological ramifications beyond the prima facia functional impacts that they bring. Things like the narrowing of the number of years, or is it months, between generations.
The common definition of a generation refers to people of approximately the same age such that they have many shared experiences. This includes such nonintuitive things as not knowing what it was like to live in a world that had no concept of things that are taken for granted in the world as we now know it. The example often sited of this is cell phones.
Of course the distinction that I claim is that I never knew a time when we didn’t have TV. My daughters can claim they never knew a time when we didn’t have personal computers. Another common example often sited is the lack of pay phones in the modern world.
The video takes the discussion much further and I highly recommend it. I intend to watch it again myself. It helps me understand the world as seen by people with a vastly different perspective on it. That is both liberating and a little disturbing.
Sweet dreams, don’t forget to tell the ones you love that you love them, and most important of all, be kind.