I read an article a few
days ago that reported teens today are less interested in owning a car than
those of previous generations. It is really curious, at least to me, that this
is the case.
Maybe it’s because I
grew up in a time when our whole focus growing up was acquiring a car and with
it the freedom that driving brought. My
generation lived, breathed, dreamed about, planned our lives around and
generally obsessed over car ownership. It wasn't just a people shell with
four wheels.
Vo-Tech auto shop was
full of guys learning about how to build, repair and customize cars from the
wheels to the roof, the front bumper to the rear and from the interior to the
paint.
We torn apart our cars
to learn how they work, what went wrong and what
needed to be done to make it
go again. We put those cars on the dynamometer to see how much horsepower we
could wring out of them, then we would tweak, modify, customize and experiment
to try to get more.
Most of all, we learned
to work together to problem solve, innovate as a team to achieve our ultimate
goal, a really great ride. We sat
together at lunch and told stories, laughed, joked, planned and dreamed of our
futures. In the process we learned to
communicate on so many different levels.
“Thirty years ago, nearly half of 16-year-olds had a driver's
license, their passport to independence. By 2010, that figure had dropped to 28
percent, according to research from the University of Michigan.
“The cultural shift is largely the result of technology that
keeps teens connected to one another and the coolest new stuff without ever
getting into a car. All the adolescent staples -- music, movies, clothes, books
-- are available with a mouse click or smartphone swipe.”
Don’t get me wrong, I
love my smartphone. It allows me to do things that back in the day would have
taken a library, an atlas, a compass, a weather station, a post office, a
checkbook, a calculator, a very thick stack of notepads, a tape recorder, a
hi-fi, a very nice camera, a couple of shopping malls and a bunch of things I
would have never thought of back then. Oh yeah, and a telephone too.
What's sad is not that
phones have replaced cars but that 1s and 0s have replaced personal
interaction, eye contact, touch, the inflection of voice. We're enamored with
the technology of communication rather than the art of communication.
Yes, you can type, text
and tweet across the room or across the world in an instant, but the subtlety
of a wink, a slight grin, an inflection of voice or body language is completely
lost, in the process so is much of the language of communication. Emoticons are a poor substitute of the nuance
of verbal and physical communication.
I learned this the hard
way a few years back when I began my foray into technology. I emailed a friend
and business partner what was, in my mind as I typed, a humorous, snarky and
friendly comment about a personal matter.
When he exploded back at
me I was aghast and clueless at his, to my point of view, overreaction. As we ultimately talked about it, we both
learned a lesson about electronic communication and its inherent flaws. Unfortunately, the seeds of distrust were
sown and neither the friendship nor the business survived much longer.
Maybe today’s teens have
solved the built in weaknesses of text.
But even if they have, the vibrancy of language and the subtleties of physical
expression lead to a far richer and dynamic conversation than thumb tapping.
You have to understand,
I’m a guy and as such I’m genetically predisposed to
holding it in and
reluctant to talk about the tough, uncomfortable things of life. But even in my flawed state I understand that
done right, nothing beats those heads together confabs.
Yes, it takes a lot of
practice to master, and time, and effort.
But the personal, intellectual and emotional growth that comes with full
on exposure to another person more than makes up for the inconvenience of
actually having to look someone in the eye when you talk to them.
That’s something no
chunk of silicon and plastic will ever be able to do.
ttyl
Maybe it’s because I
grew up in a time when our whole focus growing up was acquiring a car and with
it the freedom that driving brought. My
generation lived, breathed, dreamed about, planned our lives around and
generally obsessed over car ownership. It wasn't just a people shell with
four wheels.
Don’t get me wrong, I
love my smartphone. It allows me to do things that back in the day would have
taken a library, an atlas, a compass, a weather station, a post office, a
checkbook, a calculator, a very thick stack of notepads, a tape recorder, a
hi-fi, a very nice camera, a couple of shopping malls and a bunch of things I
would have never thought of back then. Oh yeah, and a telephone too.
