Welcome to Generation Z
Welcome.
This is Generation Z. We are solely run on 16 GB. Unlike our elders and people before them we do not use our minds as alarm clocks to wake up or the friendly chatter to exchange one situation with another. You would be lucky enough to walk into a restaurant or store in general and find a clock hanging on the wall. When you ask someone the time do they reach to pull up their sleeve to reveal a watch that has been passed around in the family or do they dig their hand into their pocket and pull out the newest generations smart phone.
I wanted at one point to become a writer. I wanted to write for the newspaper. I loved the inked stained paper in the morning while I was trying to pull myself together for yet another day of high school. How can I become a successful newspaper journalist when if I asked someone if they heard about a current event they will nod and tell me all about the news video they saw regarding the incident on the Internet. I guess I can now understand why I always gave a friend a letter expressing my love or care towards them when they felt low rather than send a text message. Now, don’t get me mistaken, I am grateful when a friend sends me a messaging regarding how much I mean to them or that they miss my presence.
I think of it that I crossed their mind for a mere moment while they wrote out that SMS and clicked send. However, I have a letter hanging in my room on a tack board from a lover who took the time to sit down and write a three-page letter of silly nonsense explaining how much I meant to them. Now that is the thought I kept and read over and over again every time I pass it on my wall. Not because I think this person cares more than the other but because they took a little bit more time, thought, and heart into making sure I knew how they felt. I am a guy who wishes to travel and be able to share the scenes I will see and the experiences I will make. However, I find that I write more about the adventures I have took in the past rather than snap a picture of a moment that happened.
I can tell you more than what is captured in a small pixelated box. I can write about the scents that filled the air and the noises that where made through the journey. I can give you more details than a picture ever could. The places you would visit without a camera are the only ones that will ever be worth going too. We have become a generation that if someone pulled out the plugged that kept all of our electronic devices powered; we would not be able to sustain ourselves. We would be defenseless.
We have shows on television screens that thinner than a pen about lives of people who are known famously because of the pictures they post on apps. People make money off of videos of themselves talking into a thousand dollar camera about their day and then posting it onto a video website. I would be ending my life because of someone who chooses to stay anonymous on a website has the audacity to say that no one thinks I am worth more than the chewed gum stains on the concrete along with a comment about how horrid I am looking in a specific picture. Then they log out and go back to whatever life they have and do not think twice if I chose to end my life thanks to the words they said but did not own up to. My family will forever wonder what they did wrong not knowing I had another life on some website and that someone who most likely did not even know me in person chose to push me a little too far. So as you continue to use your finger to fling animated birds into green swine, remember that you do not need the device you say you could not live without.
No one is saying to give it up, what I am saying is write a letter to someone expressing your feelings, take a walk instead of blogging, and don’t use anonymous anger as an outlet. Welcome to Generation Z, where if someone was to unplug the Wi-Fi and shut it down, our minds would be shut down also.
