When people talk about who they are it’s not very common they go all the way back to their grandparents, little do they know a big part of who we are as humans dive all the way back to the choices they made.
Over this past weekend I was able to interview my grandma (commonly referred to as Memaw in the family) and she was able to sit down and talk about the greatest changes and similarities from when she was younger.
My Memaw, who is now 75, was born on March, 3rd of 1948 and when talking about her childhood she simply summed it up as “simple and wonderful,” also adding that she tells her grandchildren “I wish I could take you back for one day to the 1950’s.”
She highlighted how live sports are still as popular as ever and to some degree some have gotten bigger while some have taken a blow in viewership. The best example would be the MLB which was arguably the biggest sport at the time but in today’s age it lacks the viewership that sports like the NFL and NBA receive.
She also went on to insinuate that social media has taken over today’s age and that things aren’t as genuine as they were when she was younger. This sentiment is shared among many in today’s age with apps like X (formerly known as Twitter) taking grasp of the younger generation.
In a 2023 study by whatsthebigdata.com, the majority of X’s (twitter’s) audience falls in between ages 25 to 34 and they account for 38.5% of X’s users. Not only that but an average X user spends about 30.9 minutes on the platform daily, to add more perspective for the younger generation, the TV show “The Twilight Zone” aired its first episode in 1959 and episodes ran to be about 30 minutes long.
The addiction to social media is a topic that is constantly growing as things just continue to spread and new platforms are created but why can’t two things be true at once? Social media can lead to a lot of misinformation and toxic behavior but it can also lead to a quick route for information and awareness.
My Memaw then went into what is arguably the biggest difference from her generation which she worded simply as “acceptance.” She went on to list some examples, “same sex marriages, interracial couples and marriage.”
Over the last few years we’ve seen a lot of progress made but it opened my eyes on how the younger generation is now at the steering wheel of the future. They sit in school or at a job because of the path their parents and grandparents paved but now they are the path.
Which is why it’s not only important to learn from the people who came before to know who they are but so that they can continue to grow and not repeat the same mistakes that were made years ago. While it feels like the older generation were in our shoes decades ago we still face the same battles they did growing up. Their changes were made but ours are just beginning, movements like the “BLM” or “Me Too” are in our hands and will soon shape the future of generations to come.
