There’s always so much controversy nowadays about the new generation of kids. They’re often looked down upon and are even dubbed as “failures”. I wouldn’t blame them I mean I have little cousins myself and it always appalls me how much time they spend on their iPad playing games. They’re always engaging so little in anything else that it frustrates me. “When I was your age,” I would say, “we had video cassettes and no iPods and used this thing called MySpace.” And then I realized how old and just plain bitter I sounded. Who am I to criticize what kids are doing and acting like nowadays? It’s what they’ll be growing up in until a new generation of kids pop up.

I was born in 1996. I had to use the Walkman, using CDs that I actually bought from Walmart. I watched Blue’s Clues via video cassette and I still have one of those rewinders that go with it. I remember having super slow internet, using up all my hours on MySpace and pondering about who I should put on my top friends list. And remember when Disney Channel had good shows? LOL jk. Not really.

The point is, I know I’ve had my own share of experiences that are considered iconic, before this whole “technology splurge” happened and now everyone is tweeting and hash-tagging and yadda yadda. But should we really be criticizing the future generations for just simply going along with what their generation is supposed to be all about? Selfies and Flappy Bird? I mean I personally don’t like how my younger cousins are walking around with an iPhone 5 and whatnot. But it’s their generation, isn’t it? They were born into this madness. I was just lucky enough to be born in an earlier year.

We are so used to the norm, to being grounded and living the old fashioned way that it shocks us when we see younger kids so spoiled. They’re living with everything at the touch of a button, and this lack of effort can have serious effects. What will happen to hand-clocks? The postal system? It scares me to think that one day, I won’t be able to send letters anymore. Not to mention the GPS system. My dad seems to be one of the very few people still using a map book.

But maybe this is the way things are supposed to progress. The world is changing whether we like it or not. The question is: how do we deal with this change?

I honestly don’t know myself.

I’ll be graduating this year, and reading this article really got me thinking about how the change is happening. Does it make me feel old? Heck yeah.

What do you think about the generation shift?