AUDREY REED
News Editor
I hate to say it, but I’ve already come up with my Christmas wish list. (How can one resist getting in the Christmas spirit when the Malibu Ralphs had its first Christmas display up before October?)
My two most coveted items are the iPod Nano, and a Chi straightening iron.
While I might be jumping the holiday gun, making this wish list has taught me a lesson about generational gaps.
Although I’ll be happy to accept these presents from anyone, I was at first apprehensive to even ask them of my parents in fear that the word Nano would remind them of a prefix unit and they may try to buy a knock off Micro or Centi.
This perfectly exemplifies the generational gap that is widening with every new model of the television set.
In the next 10 years, the people currently in the 18- to 25-year-old age bracket will determine our culture.
For example, most parents don’t sit around the living room watching TV with a computer on their lap, surfing the Internet. Yet, for our age group this is the everyday norm.
We will be in the audience of the highest-grossing movies. Further down the line, it will be our generation that is making the movies that will influence American culture.
In fact, this is already started to happen. Even people five years older than the freshmen don’t access Facebook.
This week, my mom, who teaches at another university, gave me a call asking why she could not see my profile. Besides being scary on more than one level, it demonstrates how we are inventing our own culture.
The next presidents, CEOs and religious leaders will come from this pool of people who right now are addicted to wireless Internet or their iPods. It won’t be people who have seen Jimi Hendrix play or remember Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. It will be people who saw the Dave Matthews Band and remember 9/11.
In a week, most students will be sitting around a Thanksgiving dinner table with their parents. Especially for out-of-state students who see their family one or twice a semester, this can be scary.
There will be the inevitable realization that our culture has taken over from the one that was, at one time, shared between parent and child.
But this isn’t anything to be sad or worried over. Instead, be excited about the possibilities. I’m confident in our generation. Save a select group of reality TV stars who will be in rehab by the time our generation steps up the culture shaping plate, the future looks promising.
11-17-2005