Generation Why?

I was sitting having lunch at my mother’s house the other day when I glanced at the blurb on the back of a bottle of a popular brand of cranberry juice. It talked about the light, refreshing tartness of the berries, and how it differed from the heaviness of most other fruit drinks. Nothing earth-shattering there.

However it went on to claim that it ‘cleanses and purifies the body’. My immediate response to that was, “What a load of bullshit!” My 22 year-old nephew who, bless him, always wants to join in a conversation, retorted, “Yeah, it does!” I said, “Does what?” He said, “Help your system.” I said, “In what way does it help your system?”, and he said rather lamely, “Well, you know (I didn’t), it helps with your insides”. I groaned loudly, indicating clearly to him that I thought he was talking crap.

Now, readers of this blog know nothing about my nephew; and why should you? He’s a pleasant young chap, if somewhat naïve and strange in habit, and like most heterosexual young men, has posters of near-naked nymphettes all over his bedroom wall. He goes out with friends, drinks alcohol, and as far as I know doesn’t do drugs. All quite normal.

Trouble is, he’s a member of the Y-Generation, that population of Western youth who for the most part, were born lacking important genes – those that confer common sense to their owners. Young people can navigate their way around a PC as though it were the inside of their parents' fridge; they are sexually more 'experienced' than our generation were at the same age; and they don’t seem to carry the racial or homophobic baggage that made previous generations seem mediaeval in outlook.

But Christ Almighty, today’s kids are so thick! They soak up everything they’re told by the media, and believe it – I think that’s what comes of being born into a mass media world. The Y-Generation seem congenitally incapable of thinking without the aid of a lifeline to the internet.

Before I’m accused of being a Luddite, let me say that I love the world wide web. It has opened up to me a world of information previously only dreamt of in my philosophy. No longer do I have to lie awake at night wondering “who wrote such and such?” or “who invented the thingummyjig?” or “who starred in this or that movie?”. All I have to do is jump out of bed, type what I want to know on Google, and the genie pops out of the bottle. It’s fantastic!

However, there is an important difference between the way Baby Boomers use the web and the way Generation Y do. Whereas we grew up in an era where information-gathering was an active pursuit involving some critical thinking and decision-making, nowadays no such effort seems necessary.

If our generation wanted to know something, we had to pick up a newspaper, go to a library, or engage in discussion with another human being. The effort required in gaining this knowledge imbued us with a sense of empowerment, and it allowed us to make decisions based upon what we had learned.

As useful as the internet is, it can be as much a force for evil as for good. For every web site with sound information, there is another that misinforms. For all the web sites that can genuinely improve our lives, there are as many trashy celebrity sites making youth think that slim and beautiful is the norm. For all those with important health advice, there are as many offering homeopathy as a cure for all ills or lemon de-toxing to cleanse and purify the body.

Is it any wonder our youth are witless, unfit and misinformed? They live in a world of fake cure-alls and pulp-fiction lifestyles.

If you’re middle-aged like me and worried that your dotage is in the hands of a world inhabited by teenage mutants, fear not - all is not lost. I believe the one dim candlelight in this cavern of gloom is the thought that cream always floats to the top. The really smart youth are the ones who will run the world, not the morons. While we like to think of those who run our lives - politicians and corporate demi-gods - as vain, self-seeking megalomaniacs (and of course that's true), they are for the most part intelligent, educated, discerning and capable. They are the ones who filter information rather than uncritically suck it all in.

The great unwashed of today’s youth will continue to live in their celebrity-obsessed little worlds, reading horoscopes and believing that a de-tox diet will cure everything from cancer to carbon emissions. They are of course free to believe that cranberry juice will cleanse the body of toxins; so long as they leave the smart people alone to run the world. While the smart people may not have all the answers; while they may have their own agenda and their own misguided beliefs; at least they are a slightly better bet than the vast majority of brain-dead zombies that make up today's youth.

I say only this to Generation Y - leave the important decisions to those precious few amongst you who can distinguish fact from fantasy - they are the only ones who can ensure the future of human society; and make us old farts slightly less panicky about our declining years.

The Gob