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We're the generation that has been accidentally bred to despise boredom. No one is at fault, it's not liek the parents had any damn clue what it would do. The parents of the first mass television age had no idea either. In our quest to never be bored, we've inadvertently caused ourselves to be more and more easily bored.
Progress is to quick for simple humanity. My generation is critically damaged, but society supports this damage. We can function with never looking away from a screen now. I remember reading about surveys of people asking how often they're at the computer. I've always been in the highest percentile.
I really don't have a good explanation. I'm not a psychologist, I obviously have absolutely no expertise in any field, especially none relating to this. All I have is my personal self-awareness and observational guesstimation of society. Honestly, i don't think very many people know "why", other than that human beings are simple animals.
Ever use a laser pointer on a dog, especially a very young one? Never do it. The animal will develop a vicious type of OCD. That dog will stare at every light and every reflection for many many years. Doing it for 30 minutes on only one day will change that dogs ability to function for many many years. Not every dog, but I've personally dealt with it. We didn't know it would fuck her up until after it had happened. It seems so innocent. Now imagine if laser pointers were an accepted and supported factor of that dogs life? What if that dog could control when it gets to see that laser dot?
To me, that's what has happened. We have shiny screens and psuedo-progress and we've become blinded by it. The old phrases about society and its spectacles ring truer now than they could ever possibly could before.
I know my generation won't be the worst. While we are the first to grow up with an internet connection of some sort the entire time, we weren't literally raised on screens from birth. My sister has a baby. He's adorable. He is FASCINATED by these bright screens. Absolutely mesmerized.
He grabs at them. We've used an iPhone to encourage him to crawl forward. Granted, all he does right now is try to eat the damn things, but the problem is there. i don't think my sister is going to raise him on this, but she may have no choice. A very large amount of new children are being raised on these screens from birth. We were bad, but just you wait, a whole new world of problems is coming.
It isn't stupidity or laziness on its own. It's the fact that we are animals, and we've been blindsided by our ancestors' adult progresses. We can't honestly expected to be above it, not when all of society is not only absolutely tolerant of this "progress", but expectant of it. Evolution has not saved us from ourselves. Our quest for obstacle-less progress towards technological utopia is not compatible with our biology.
TL;DR: We're just dumb monkeys. We didn't know this would happen. I take my device with me to the bathroom with absolutely no reason. Most of the time i don't have time to use it. But it's my laser dot now...
Thanks I'd always wondered and for the record that was a fair but terrifying assessment of your generations infatuation or addiction to electronic devices.
With my generation it was television that defined us and now as we progress or digress depending on which point of view you have we'd better hope nobody accidently drops and EMP on us because, it'd create an epidemic of boredom that would make the plague look like the common cold.
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