The way that social media has completely turned our society upon it's head can be difficult to understand. I've been trying for a few years to fully figure out what exactly is going on. As best as I can tell it really is a generational difference.
I am what is referred to as a Gen-x, which means I was born somewhere between the years of 1965 and 1980. My generation was raised on video games and television. We're old enough to have played outside but young enough to full grasp the information age.
It really was a bit of a lost generation without any real direction as a whole. I've been searching online to get a better handle on what defines the generations, besides just the years that a person was born. One of the things I came across was a paper written for what appears to be an online course or a textbook that details aspects on each American generation. I'm going to look at each thing listed, specifically for my generation and see how I feel they compare to what I actually know about my own generation.
The first thing that is mentioned is "Latch key kids". For those who don't know the term it essentially means kids who raised themselves because the parents were to busy. Looking back on my own experiences and those around me this seems to be incredibly true. I can't speak for other generations, but this was very prevalent for Gen-X.
Me and my brother were more or less taking care of ourselves in the afternoons after school until my parents got home. Once my parents got divorced this pretty much continued until adulthood. The same could be said for most of my friends. It was the first true generation of where both parents worked.
Naturally this tended to create a society of individualistic people who were quite capable to taking care of themselves. Without the parents around to guide them though many of us lacked guidance and direction, which would come back to haunt us as adults.