Article courtesy of Bonfire Thoughts, written by Carolyn Mackenzie.
We’re all used to generational gaps. You’ve got baby boomers, who are different from those in Generation X, who are different from millennials. Of course there are wide ranges when it comes to the people who populate those categories. What have tied them together, however, are common environments that have shaped the way they’ve grown.
But what happens when the environment changes more quickly than the generation does?
One problem that’s been around for centuries is that food grows arithmetically, while population grows geometrically. How do we sustain a quickly growing population with a slowly growing food supply? We’ve made a lot of advances in solving this problem, but we have a new issue today: technology as we know it grows even faster than the population does. While this isn’t leading to anything as dire as a food shortage, it does give rise to a new problem… you could say, to a ghost of a problem.
I’m talking about a little white ghost surrounded by a bright yellow background: Snapchat.
While it’s not the only example of how technology changes the environment within a generation, it is one that shapes how people of a certain demographic interact today. Want to know what your friends are doing? Check Snapchat. Want to see where the party is? Check Snapchat. Want to see everyone’s spring break fun? Check Snapchat.
All of these things that sound like pros, however, can end up being cons as well.