A very interesting visually recorded interview showed up on my feed the other night. In 1966, several British adolescents were interviewed about their vision of the future (circa year 2000). Here are some of the remarks:
“I think it’s going to be very boring.”
“People will be regarded more as statistics than as actual people.”
“I don’t think it’s going to be so nice. I think sort of all machines everywhere. Everyone doing everything for you.”
You can come up with your own opinion on just how prescient these English lads and lassies were.
I can tell you how I think we, as Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964), Generation X (born 1965-1979), and earlier generation kids growing up, were interesting, actual people who had it pretty nice without machines doing everything for us.
- Using hardcopy roadmaps when on vacation or driving around somewhere with which we were not familiar. It may not have been fun, but it sure was not boring!
- Conversations with other people in any type of scenario. You may not have been the most interesting person in the room, but you sure weren’t boring because you were looking at your cell phone the whole time!
- Calling a girl’s house to talk to her on a landline when chances are her mother or father would answer the phone. First, you had to summon the courage to make the call, and then you had to get through a gatekeeper. And that’s all while figuring out what to say.
- Going to an event (ballgame, concert, etc) and focusing on said event. You either watched, talked to your companion(s), or both. The only thing to read or look at was a program.
- Passing notes in class. Either you got caught or you didn’t.
- Finding out about a party and spreading the word. It was either by word of mouth or a landline phone. The anticipation was outta sight!
- Playing in your neighborhood, sometimes until well after dusk. We built forts in the woods, played four square and kick-the-can and capture-the-flag, jumped on a trampoline for hours, and generally engaged in real-time conversation and companionship with friends. Inventing ways to have fun and keep busy.
- Riding your bike everywhere.
- Walking everywhere and taking shortcuts to your destination. Cutting through alleys and personal property without fear of getting yelled at (or worse).
- Receiving a handwritten thank-you note, or writing one. There was something about it then, and there is something about it now.
- Having to do research and find out information about anything. You either had to call or send mail to request and then wait to receive info via U.S. (snail) mail. No Googling. What did we do when we couldn’t find out everything within seconds? We had to figure it out.
- Learning how to drive a car. We couldn’t wait to get our learner’s permit and license at age sixteen! There were two kinds of cars to drive: automatic and manual.
- Listening to AM/FM radio or vinyl records on a turntable. If you wanted to buy music, you went to the record store. You could peruse for hours it seemed.
- Visiting an actual brick-and-mortar bookstore. Again, an activity by which you could spend big chunks of enjoyable time.
Changes in lifestyles have naturally occurred through generations since the beginning of time. Hey, listen! I love you all and everything, but it could be said that you kids these days may belong to the least innovative, inventive, and self-sufficient generation of all (in my humble opinion). Bored? Just pick up your smartphone.
We as Baby Boomers and Gen X may do that as well, but we got that privilege the old-fashioned way.
We earned it.
– Andy Pitzer