Signs of the Times

One of the reasons I retired two years ago was the fact that I was beginning to feel the effect of Generation Gap with my 8th grade students. We connected well, but I recognized that some of my attempts to teach them associations of literature to life were tainted by my age and experience...and their lack of. It was time to let someone younger take over. I'm convinced that my grandchildren think I'm an extinct dinosaur. Both Robin and Ryan remind me regularly that I'm old. (They don't say that to the other grandparents. I guess because I jokingly talk about it, they respond in kind.)

Last week, I was commenting to someone else my age about how much society has changed just in our lifetime. I was probably 5 or 6-years-old before our family even had a television. I was a young adult before I had a color TV...and a TV with a remote was a real luxury! Computers were unheard of. There was no Internet. Parents always taught their children not to talk to strangers, but society was safer then. We could play outside without our parents having to ride herd on our every movement. Today, that's all changed. It's a different world. Columbine happened. September 11th happened. Children couldn't chat with pedophiles online. Society has become a dangerous place. It's almost as if change is occurring faster than our ability to deal with it!

So where are we going in the next 50 years? Personal hand-written letters from loved ones are disappearing. (If you get one, hang onto it because it may be the only physical representation of someone you care about!)

I predict:
1. Newspapers will fold.
2. Magazines will be slower to go away, but they will, too. (Internet news will take over.)
3. The US Postal Service will either become extinct or will be severely limited in services.
4. Libraries will have fewer and fewer patrons as books become more available on the Internet. Many will close.
5. Cell phones will (regrettably) replace land-line phones in households. Phone books will disappear. The useful function of ham radio will go away.
6. The American notion of privacy will no longer exist. Cell phones with cameras, home surveillance cameras, social networking....all will reveal the worst about you!
7. Society will continue the spiral of not having to meet people face-to-face. We will hide from the truth and become more and more depressed in our loneliness. Self-medicating will go to enormous proportions.
8. The "food police" will dictate what you and and cannot eat.
9. Parenting will become a matter of law.
10. Schools will become so watered down and so monitored by testing that they will no longer exist as they are now. Big Brother is watching you!

The only thing that will take us back to our roots would be something cataclysmic...some event that teaches us that we need to grow our own food and learn how to preserve it...a way to bring us down to the understanding that the past happened for a reason, and that we can't discard it in order to survive.

I won't live to see the changes...although some of them are already happening. In fact, change happens so fast that I can't even imagine the changes that will happen!