We used to mention something called a “Generation Gap” quite a lot.
But something happened to it.
What happened was both simple and amazingly complex. Technology, the likes of which previous generations could only dream about, became affordable for pretty much everyone.
So pretty much everyone now has the combined knowledge of the past, and potential for the future, in their pockets.
And the Generation Gap went away.
Or did it. That insight arrived for me one day last week when I happened to notice two people using their smart phones.
It revealed that the gap is alive and well and it’s not so much a matter of technology as of etiquette.
One was male, only a little younger than me. (That means he remembers General MacArthur as opposed to General Grant.)
He was using his smart phone like—well—a phone.
He held it up to his ear like he was listening to the top half of the device and talking into the bottom half.
The other was early to mid-20s. She was also talking on her smart phone but was using it like a fortune teller would gaze at a crystal ball.
It was face up, in her hand. She was holding it about half an arm’s length from her shoulders and was communing reverently.
To her, it’s not primarily a phone. Techennials—my phrase—don’t have smart phones. They have devices which can also serve as phones.
The Retros—again my phrase and includes me—have these same devices but operate them in an alternate universe.
There are clues to tell them apart. A Retro, like me, sees the irony in an “App of the Day” being touted over the radio.
A Techennial doesn’t know what a radio is.
Say the word “stream” to a Retro and they think of hauling a catfish out of the San Gabriel.
Say it to a Techennial and they think of watching the latest episode of their favorite television show, without television.
In fact, the other night, I heard a TV baseball announcer bemoan that his young son does not use a television. “He gets every kind of entertainment he wants without one,” the befuddled Retro said.
Retros think Facebook is cutting edge. Techennials laugh at that. But both are on Facebook, you can be sure.
By the way, if you hear someone refer to it as “The Facebook” they are a Retro’s grandmother.
We have a lot of ironies about, now. The other afternoon I went into the city library and saw two boys parked on the benches outside. Kids’were probably 7 and 5 or thereabouts.
They were hunched over and had pained expressions on their faces.
They were, of course, in Techennial World. I wondered if they knew about books. Real ones, that cut your fingers when you turn the pages clumsily.
That’s all I have to say. I just tried to use my smart non-phone like a cool Techennial by holding it out in front of me.
Dropped it in a place I choose not to share with you.
I sure hope those suckers are waterproof.
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