Every generation reflects back on their younger days, their youth and the lives they lived and they will tell you, "it was better back then.". I recall my Grand Dad smiling and telling us about riding the river boats on the Mississippi when he was a young man. My Dad talked fondly of riding race horses at county fairs and what life was like, 'back then'. I certainly remember a cleaner, freer, less stressful and more innocent time growing up in the 50s and wouldn't mind if things could be that way again.
However I fear that much of the younger generations will not have those types of memories to look back on. Their recollections will be 'technology based' and far less human oriented that any before them. Many of them lack human skills, like face to face communication, the ability to entertain themselves without relying on electronics.
Technology is denying kids today to experience anything 'for real'. Yes they can get on a computer, or more likely their phones, and visit anywhere in the world. They see pictures and videos of animals, people and places and digitized images of anything they can imagine. But they don't 'experience' those things. They have only a shallow, very vague idea of what the world is really like.
They can pull up a picture of a horse and they can study that animal, read about its habits, diet, personality and anything else they want to know about a horse. But can they tell you what a barn smells like early in the morning? Can they hear the soft sounds a horse makes when he awakens and snuffles quietly over his stall door in greeting? If they're lucky whoever wrote what they're reading might include some reference to what being around a horse is like, but they can't know. Why? Because they've never actually experienced it.
I use the horse reference simply because I grew up around them and even the smell of a horse, or horse poop for that matter, today will bring to life memories of early childhood, my Dad and a race track at sunrise. Sweet memories and I have them because I lived them. I didn't just read about them on my phone.
Wake up, kids, and people. There is a real world out there for the taking. All you have to do is 'experience' it like generations before you did.
Tom