The year was 1990. It was my first week at college in Columbia, Missouri, and my roommate and I set across campus to explore. We ended up witnessing the death of a student during a party along with nearly getting alcohol poisoning. (Look up Bid Day Bash 1990 for more of that fun story.) There is no earthly reason why the earth shouldn’t have just swallowed us dummies whole that week because we were clearly too dumb to be living away from our parents.
Jump ahead 33 years and here I am, still laughing at (and making) fart jokes. My day is spent giggling at “that’s what she said” comments along with spending time surfing my phone. Snapchat. Then Instagram. Then Twitter/X. Then Blue Sky. Then email. Let’s go back to Snapchat. We’ve all been there – but I seem to be falling deeper into the ADHD pit.
I figured I was just like everyone and that this is just the way the world ends – looking at your phone while the meteor races by overhead.
Enter Generation Next. This is the generation born around or after 9/11. Those who are just now reaching high school or their 20’s. And boy let me tell you – do they have their stuff together.
Obviously, it’s a challenge to paint everyone with the same broad brush – but stay with me here and see if your experience with these kids is the same as mine.
Let’s start, first, with my son, Brett. He turns 21 this month and owns his own business, and works five other “hustle” jobs including deck building, food delivery, and parking cars. He is frugal with money. But most surprising is that he told me that he has deleted his social media apps off his phone. “Waste of time. Too much of the world goes by while I’m staring at my phone.”
I could never. But Brett could. We then checked in on a friend of his that I hadn’t seen for a few months and he also said he deleted a couple of his social media apps because he wasn’t getting any bang for his buck. “It’s just people yapping on there. I have other stuff to go do.”
Finally, exhibit C is a friend of mine’s daughter who started high school last month. She’s wanting to go to Homecoming with her friends – but they all decided to shop for dresses at the thrift store to save money.
Small sample size, but it’s going to take this type of maturity that my generation simply didn’t have to pull us out of the spin we are in. If you haven’t noticed, the world seems to be burning and our leaders – both government and business – are pretty busy with petty differences and squabbles to do anything about it. Maybe some practical kids can help put out this fire.
Should I take a page out of the Gen Next playbook and make a budget, or tone down the fart jokes a little bit online? Well, some of us are just too far over the hill to make those types of sweeping changes. Now, if you’ll excuse me, my phone just buzzed. I think I have an Instagram to check.
(As he just explained, you can find Chris Kamler on the social media app of your choice)
