TechnoBabble

 

I have recently become very aware of some distinct changes in society.

 Not just in terms of technology, but the actual people. I teach mostly grade 8s and 9s and I’m convinced that they are much more… what’s

the word? I want to say sophisticated but that makes them sound too refined (which in some cases is the very last thing I would label them
as), but they seem like a much older version of how I was at that age.

I was so completely naïve compared to these kids, I mean I was still riding bikes and getting excited about being able to tape my fave songs on the Top 40 on Radio 5 on Saturday mornings, Alex Jay or Barney Simon bloody well talking over the beginning of the song so that you cant ever hear that song without automatically expecting to hear one of them bla-ing on! I still assume that if I hear Come-on Eileen that Lovecats will inevitably be the next track. And when we went out riding around the neighbor hood, playing in the streets, nobody could get hold of us and it was not a bloody crisis.

Cell phones were things that came out of a futuristic sci fi movie, along with hover boards and time machines. Movies which we could watch at an independent movie  theater and not have to deal with an entire hurlingly scary cavernous mall. (I hate malls).

And when we had a school project we looked stuff up in books and painstakingly hand wrote and drew the pictures ourselves. No Internet,
no Wikipedia, no Google! The Horror! This generation has no clue what its like to live without these modern technological must- haves. Grade 9’s are already aware of and experimenting with  drugs, booze, sex etc. 

I was discussing this with some friends the other day and realized that our (my) generation grew up in a very interesting time – on the
cusp of all the modern tools we have these days, tapes and records making way for CD’s and then ipods and mp3’s etc. and we were there for it all.

I will never forget buying my first tape. It was something like Top of the Pops 37 or some such. I think I was 8 years old and all I wanted in life was to own a copy of wake me up before you go go by Wham. So my god father, bless him, took me out to musica and we found this tape that contained the song and many more (not that I cared much about them). I was a short lil shit (back then, you know, cos now I'm towering over everyone)…so I had to stand on my tippy toes to reach the counter. So I held  up the tape to the guy and asked if it was the one with wake me up before you go go on it. what did he do? HE LAUGHED.  Positively guffawed! I was mortified to my back teeth. This was serious stuff you know! But then he did confirm that it was indeed the one I should get. But by then I felt so embarrassed that I wanted to run as far away as possible. Then again, I wanted the tape desperately -, so with burning cheeks I handed over the money and excitedly rushed out of the shop so that I could get home and play it. And play it I did. My poor parents! The only other tape I had at the time was a taped version of the Best of Abba, say no more!

Technology shifts, and so  society shifts with it - but I still think its way sad that kids cant ride their bikes around on their own or play rounders in the road. Not here anyway. Perhaps that is too sweeping a statement, too generalized, but nobody can deny that times have changed what with the rise of the cell phone, media in general and the basic safety of ourselves and our kids. It's sad. Did the horrendous things I hear in the daily news happen when I was little and it wasn't public knowledge or is the absolutely vile and unforgivable  actions perpetrated by some, such as the rape of children, become more common place? In which case, WHY?? Why is society damaging itself more and more all the time? and is it due to our technology. Cos if you think about it something like WAR used to be clans of young and old men battling it out on a field, with swords, knives, and later guns -  whereas now we have nuclear bombs which could obliterate the entire globe.

Makes you think, doesn't it?