Changes

My daughter is a curious and perceptive sort. She recently asked me how life is different today than when I was growing up. What a question…and where do I begin? Let’s start with the premise that change is constant, but the pace of change is definitely not. And, at 58 years old, I have seen a lot of change. Wind the calendar back that far from my birth and Woodrow Wilson had not yet been sworn in as president. Think about that for a second.

The most obvious change is in the realm of technology. There were no computers or mobile phones in the house. Having a color television set was considered a sign of affluence. My grandparents didn’t even have their own phone line. They shared one with the family across the street. As a teenager, I played around with a TRS-80 computer at Radio Shack. That is as close as I came to technology until I was in graduate school, unless you count using an IBM Wheelwriter typewriter. In college, I paid someone $1 per page to type my papers.

At a societal level, I would point to the loss of common experiences and the community that came with it. With only three television networks (if you don’t count PBS and the two local channels), the most popular programs were viewed by everyone I knew. They routinely drew audiences that are seven times larger than today’s shows as a percentage of the population. This shared experience binds my generation in a way that is no longer possible.

The most pernicious effect of all this change is the shift in how we spend our leisure time. Today, the average American elects to spend 7 hours per day consuming video content. That is 7  hours per day that we are not playing softball, bowling, having friends over for dinner, going to a Rotary Club meeting, singing in the church choir, or just sitting on the porch talking with the neighbors at the end of the day. We have lost many of the vehicles that we once relied upon to build community.

And while it is easy to wax nostalgic and pretend like those were better times, I also see the amazing progress we have made on so many dimensions. I am not giving up my laptop or my phone, and I am certainly not giving up the advances in healthcare that keep this old body going. I wouldn’t want to turn the clock back on advances in transportation, communication, and conservation. And I certainly wouldn’t want to give up my food delivery services (or the fact that we are much more tolerant and accepting of others.)

If we could find a way to combine the best parts of both eras, I think we would all be better off. I’ll take that as my assignment.