United By Family, Divided By Technology

The Digital Divide

Right now if we analyse the society, there are three generations that are living their lives together but divided by technology. These are three different worlds that try to strike balance among them and more than often find themselves colliding with one another in the digital era.

The grandparents are the first who find it most difficult adjusting with their children tuned parents and their grandchildren. They often find their kids rapt in the technology that is beyond their understanding. They are reluctant to learn the matrix of new technology based on computers and smart phones. Most of the times, we find them complaining about overuse of gadgets and gizmos by other members. They firmly believe it is all waste of time. They are happy with being successfully surfing through TV channels. Surprisingly, there are few of such oldies who learn a bit and make the most of their remaining lives by watching the Meena Kumaris and Rajendra Kapoors of late 1960s through YouTube videos. The old man in the Vodafone advertisement is one such example.

The second generation is the parents who have seen the birth of computers. They have been the part of internet boom in 90s. They have witnessed common words like Windows and Apple attaining a totally new meaning. They are the users from Windows ’95 to Windows 8.1. The Gates and Steves of I.T. industry belong to this generation. They are the consumers the I.T. companies have thrived upon. They are the first users of e-banking and e-shopping. They have seen world go from 1G to 4G in couple of decades. They have seen the negatives effects of digital boom, be it the global scare of Y2K (Year 2000) at the turn of century ;

or stock exchange frauds. They have seen their large landline phone shrinking to the size of palms. They have seen their lives progressing at the speed of bits and bytes.

The third generation is the comprised of the kids who are born in the digitised world.

They are like Abhimanyus who have inherited the technology right from their conception in the womb. Even a 2 year old kid can unlock smart phones. They are impatient kids who want things done at the single click of mouse of a gentle tap on their smart phones or tablets. They are the never tiring users of internet who make the most out of the social media. For them socializing means getting themselves hooked to Facebook,  Twitter, Tumblr, Google+ and so on. Every kid considers himself a writer by posting updates on Twitter or Facebook. They are the ones who have forced political parties spend heavily on online campaigns. We even heard Mr. Modi mention the YouTube videos of 2 year old kids chanting ‘ab ki baar…’. Their problems are well reflected in TV shows like MTV’s  ‘Webbed’ and Bindass’ ‘Emotional Atyachar’. They add their favourite food dishes first on Instagram and later to their stomach.

The ideal government for them is the one that promises free Wi-Fi cities. Cloud to them brings online storage rather than rains. They prefer to google cure for their illness rather than visiting a doctor. Internet is their oxygen. Phones are their gods. They are a ‘selfie’ish generation.

Images : Google