Talkin’ ‘bout my generation

THIS COLUMN WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN WRITER’S BLOCK IN THE July 26, 2017 EDITION OF THE CHRONOTYPE, RICE LAKE, WISCONSIN.

Given the chance, the very first thing I consume at fairs and outdoor events is a fresh squeezed lemonade. Something about the simple lemon sugar water combo satisfies the very old soul in me. But I am an old soul in a rapidly developing tech world that I also love. Enter paradox.

I love the convenience of having a world of information at my fingertips and leaving a text message. While my honed English education internally rages against BRBs and LOLs, I earnestly love the direction we as a society continue to play with language and words and emojis. But then I also love old bookstores and how real books, magazines and newspapers feel and smell in my hands. The idea of a written note or letter makes me warm and fuzzy, but man, do I love the ability to download the last book in a trilogy onto my e-reader at 3 a.m. I had a Walkman with mixed tapes, but I seriously could not live without Spotify.

I recently found out why I can live in two seemingly different worlds fairly seamlessly. I belong to a mini-generation between the Generation X/Yers and those darn Millennials called the Xennial Generation, also called the Oregon Trail Generation or the Lucky Ones—because we got safely through university without the embarrassment of social media.

An Australian news article written in June described us as this, “Typically born between 1977 and 1983, not young enough to be “digital natives,” Xennials grew up with technological advances, and tend to be more comfortable with them than generations previous to them.” Basically we remember the agonizing wait for dial-up connection and brick-like mobile phones, but were young enough to embrace the first wave of social media in our 20s.

I have a fierce no-technology-in-the-bedroom rule at my house, which I begrudgingly had to breach this week when my digital alarm clock (yes, I understand that’s technology) met an untimely death.

I had to resort to the clock function on my iPhone, and mostly have avoided the inevitable time suck of being supine with the world at my fingertips. An avid music-lover, I now appreciate the variety of wake-up listening options! It turns out that the monosyllabic buzz, random pop song or morning radio chatter were not the most ideal sounds to reenter consciousness with.

This then begs the question … can I ever go back to a primitive means of conjuring myself from sleep? I’m not really sure, the X might actually be silent.