Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Is New Generation Getting Too Much Info ?

Rodney · 02-19-2004, 09:25 PM

Oh, Lordy, when i think about the information vaccuum we grew up in -- I was a mid-boomer -- I want to cry. Imagine having to look up current info by going down to the library, getting the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature (an index of recent magazine articles, always six months behind), picking out the issues you wanted to see, and then sending some page out to the stacks to find them for you manually -- if they were even there.

I remember when I was about 12, I ran into a guy who was selling copies of the Berkeley Barb (a famous underground paper from 30-miles-away Berkeley with plenty of graphic ally-illustrated sex ads and pretty subversive articles) in my little straight-laced 'burb. Man, I was the hero of seventh grade for a week.

On the other hand, when we graduated high school, we had actual academic counselors who'd sit down with us and walk us through state scholarship apps, college plans, and so on. A lot of schools today don't have counselors anymore, or maybe 1 per 2000 kids. If you didn't have the Internet, you'd have nothing.

And I do have to say that a lot of boomers, including a lot of my friends, just drifted after high school. Here in California, community college was essentially free, so they'd just keep living at home, taking college courses, changing their major, and goofing around for years. I think that on the whole, we didn't have any more or less direction than kids today. Maybe less, because the good times were still rolling in the 60s and early 70s, and a lot of guys just thought that if nothing else came up in a few years their dad would help get them a soft union job or civil service job and they'd slack for the rest of their lives. And in the meantime, they did a lot of drugs.

I do understand: you have to wonder how well a 12- or 13-year-old can cope with the gush of unfilitered info that comes down the pip to his/her terminal: a million competing ideologies, a zillion possibilities all overloading their little brains. But frankly I'd rather have that than the alternative -- the sort of know-nothing cocoon a lot of people in my generation grew up in.

02-19-2004, 09:25 PM	#4 (permalink)
Rodney Observant Ruminant Location: Rich Wannabe Hippie Town	Oh, Lordy, when i think about the information vaccuum we grew up in -- I was a mid-boomer -- I want to cry. Imagine having to look up current info by going down to the library, getting the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature (an index of recent magazine articles, always six months behind), picking out the issues you wanted to see, and then sending some page out to the stacks to find them for you manually -- if they were even there. I remember when I was about 12, I ran into a guy who was selling copies of the Berkeley Barb (a famous underground paper from 30-miles-away Berkeley with plenty of graphic ally-illustrated sex ads and pretty subversive articles) in my little straight-laced 'burb. Man, I was the hero of seventh grade for a week. On the other hand, when we graduated high school, we had actual academic counselors who'd sit down with us and walk us through state scholarship apps, college plans, and so on. A lot of schools today don't have counselors anymore, or maybe 1 per 2000 kids. If you didn't have the Internet, you'd have nothing. And I do have to say that a lot of boomers, including a lot of my friends, just drifted after high school. Here in California, community college was essentially free, so they'd just keep living at home, taking college courses, changing their major, and goofing around for years. I think that on the whole, we didn't have any more or less direction than kids today. Maybe less, because the good times were still rolling in the 60s and early 70s, and a lot of guys just thought that if nothing else came up in a few years their dad would help get them a soft union job or civil service job and they'd slack for the rest of their lives. And in the meantime, they did a lot of drugs. I do understand: you have to wonder how well a 12- or 13-year-old can cope with the gush of unfilitered info that comes down the pip to his/her terminal: a million competing ideologies, a zillion possibilities all overloading their little brains. But frankly I'd rather have that than the alternative -- the sort of know-nothing cocoon a lot of people in my generation grew up in. Last edited by Rodney; 02-19-2004 at 09:30 PM..