Kids Today

Sometimes the fact that Kirk is growing up in The Future really hits me. The technology divide doesn’t seem so big when you’re texting and blogging along with all the rest of the kids. But when you look at their birth dates and realize that kids not only don’t know what it’s like to not have cable, they don’t know what it’s like to not have YouTube, well, that changes things.

Kirk can request to watch something and, with very few exceptions, said request can be honored within seconds. Either it’s on DVD or VHS or else snippets can be found online with little effort. Even photography is changed. Disposable cameras are completely foreign. My nieces were perplexed about why the picture wasn’t immediately viewable long before Kirk was the one demanding, “Me see! Me see!”

The article The Longest Day really illustrates how integrated technology is in the lives of the so-called Generation Y. And while that’s an eye-opener in and of itself, Kirk has shocked me with his expectations. He’s grown up with video so commonplace that we’ll capture temper tantrums and inanities just as easily as actual milestones like first steps and first solid food. And he’s begun to request to see things that were never recorded.

I find that a startling mindset. To have your every living moment available to replay is a horror described in sci-fi novels and shown in movies. It’s the very definition of Big Brother. And for Kirk it’s beyond an expectation; he takes it for granted. As a good thing. Sure, he’s not expecting to be busted for thought crimes. He doesn’t live in the world of Harrison Bergeron. But it’s still a mind-blowing paradigm change. One that I don’t think anyone has yet postulated as a positive.