In today’s world, the seperation between arbitrary age groups is prominent. Society has been divided into generations, such as Generation X, who share birth years between around 1965-1980, Generation Y, who have birth years in around 1980-1995, and Generation Z, with birth years in 1995-2015. One might say that it would be excruciatingly obvious that age differences might affect the interactions between generations, but the context of the time period in which these people were born impacts this separation more than that, creating a sort of disconnect that sometimes leads to mild hostility. This bias is fixable if people come together and share their difficulties, instead of berating the other generations on how much harder life was back in the day, which will be beneficial to society.
Understanding why older generations tend to be quite condescending to Millenials and Gen Z relates to the hardships thay faced during their time period, including finacial decline and hard jobs. Today’s media, generally infested with the stench of partisan politics, tends to portray Millenials negatively to for their own agendas, often blaming them for “economic issues,” according to Market Watch, just because they were born in a time where the economy was more stable. Similarly, the TED talk we watched, “Dear Grown-ups… Sincerely, Gen Z,” presented many ways in which parents, often members of Gen X, condescend, patronize, or belittle us children, generally members of Generation Z, putting the responsibility of problems like climate change on our shoulders when in reality it was caused by the sheer negligence of the former generation in the first place.
All of this seems like a valid point when the issue is looked at superficially. The older people dealt with harder problems, and did not have that fancy technology to help them. However, If one would say that the world was better when Gen X was flourishing, they would be wrong in more ways than one. First of all, crime rates are at a low. The world if actually safer than it ever was, apart from COVID, which is a special circumstance, according to History News Network. More people are educated today and technology is developing faster than ever. Unfortunately, some people are still stuck in a pretentious in which everything that is foreign to them would be considered harmful.
Sharing our differences allows us to relate to each other. Instead of Gen X dissing or shaming Internet users for being “lazy,” they should embrace it, as it is a way people learn, work, communicate, and vent today. Likewise the current generation should not gatekeep against older generations, and instead remove hostility, relating to and helping them with comprehending our problems.
Coming together and mending the rift created by media conglomerates and a long-standing rivalry makes society more productive in solving issues such as the current problem of COVID-19. We cannot accomplish much if we are still at each other’s throats, complaining about issues that are rendered insignificant by real social problems.