Gap
I picked up the mail for Stella at the office today, and included with the bills and flyers were several cd's she had ordered. She was very excited to have them, but was disappointed that her car didn't have a cd player in which to put her new music. Rather than have her car's stereo replaced, I suggested she use a tape-deck adapter, but the blank look in her eyes revealed that she had no idea what I was talking about.
For those of you who don't know, a tape-deck adapter is a handy device that plugs into a portable cd player (or anything with a headphone jack) and transmits the information along a wire to a cassette that you then put into your car's tape player. This is no revolutionary piece of technology; it's been around for at least ten years and is, as far as I'm concerned, the most ghetto way of playing music through a car stereo; needless to say, that's how I listen to my iPod.
I had this same conversation with my father a few months back, whose mind was fully blown by this and other technological marvels like portable speakers. I know I'm not the first to propose that there is something of a generation gap that divides those who grew up wired from those who didn't. But this is just ridiculous.
I wonder what effect this gap has on us, our communication, our worldview. The world can't ever seem as big to a person who gets his news from the BBC online or who has checked out apartment complexes in Tokyo via Google Earth as it did to a person who grew up in the 60's. My parents remember black and white television sets, life without cell phones and actually know what a Burma Shave sign is. My mom didn't lock her doors when she grew up (still doesn't in her car), but I have password-protected email accounts to keep my personal information from being stolen. It's just a completely different world. And that's just one generation back; think about grandparents.
Communication between humans is all about having something in common. We speak in parables and with analogies because words can't fully convey what we mean. Thus, having seen a small sheet of paper, the best I can do is tell Crystal that it's the size of a floppy disk. But my kids will have no idea what a floppy disk is, nor will they remember that floppy disks weren't nearly as floppy as the wide, flat disks that preceeded them. In fact, they're unlikely to ever use a cd. I know it's small, but it's something that we'll never have in common. What else from my world won't exist in theirs? What effect will that have on our ability to understand one another?
Such is the thought pattern tha comes from having lots of free time at work.
For those of you who don't know, a tape-deck adapter is a handy device that plugs into a portable cd player (or anything with a headphone jack) and transmits the information along a wire to a cassette that you then put into your car's tape player. This is no revolutionary piece of technology; it's been around for at least ten years and is, as far as I'm concerned, the most ghetto way of playing music through a car stereo; needless to say, that's how I listen to my iPod.
I had this same conversation with my father a few months back, whose mind was fully blown by this and other technological marvels like portable speakers. I know I'm not the first to propose that there is something of a generation gap that divides those who grew up wired from those who didn't. But this is just ridiculous.
I wonder what effect this gap has on us, our communication, our worldview. The world can't ever seem as big to a person who gets his news from the BBC online or who has checked out apartment complexes in Tokyo via Google Earth as it did to a person who grew up in the 60's. My parents remember black and white television sets, life without cell phones and actually know what a Burma Shave sign is. My mom didn't lock her doors when she grew up (still doesn't in her car), but I have password-protected email accounts to keep my personal information from being stolen. It's just a completely different world. And that's just one generation back; think about grandparents.
Communication between humans is all about having something in common. We speak in parables and with analogies because words can't fully convey what we mean. Thus, having seen a small sheet of paper, the best I can do is tell Crystal that it's the size of a floppy disk. But my kids will have no idea what a floppy disk is, nor will they remember that floppy disks weren't nearly as floppy as the wide, flat disks that preceeded them. In fact, they're unlikely to ever use a cd. I know it's small, but it's something that we'll never have in common. What else from my world won't exist in theirs? What effect will that have on our ability to understand one another?
Such is the thought pattern tha comes from having lots of free time at work.
posted by Nialator at 10:49 AM
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