by Rob Purifoy

Created on: June 28, 2009

Today's youth are embarking on a new era of things the previous generation didn't have. Technology is moving so fast that changes the face of activities that our youth partake in. Even with all the new gadgets, games, cell phones and texting, our youth sometimes look to be a generation of the "bored". This is likely because video games, all that texting, and hanging with their clicks, they are becoming a generation with the ability to create their own bubble and their different social world. Different from what we typically see as a place where we look people in the eyes, shake hands, talk face to face and know what is right and what's wrong.

Through all of this, youth are not much different than when the Gen Xer's were young, the only difference is that the youth today employ technology that the generation before didn't have. When we were young, we too became bored and went out to do mischievous things, ran our cars in circles in parking lots creating all the white smoke we could handle, street raced, beat up mailboxes and participated in under aged drinking at house party's. It may be possible that Generation X helped to bring all these things to the attention of everyone and were responsible for some of the laws we have today. However, all these things mentioned are still done today by our current youth, but since we know they are going to do the same things we used to do maybe we can educate them better.

We've heard our Granddad's telling us how things were in their day and how youth today have gone to pot. It seems that as we get older and wiser we stop doing the things we used to do, grow up, and then gripe about how the next generation is hopeless and lost. The truth is, the new generation is far from lost, they have all the news and technology they can handle and they are not afraid to use it. Like most of the older generation believes, texting is an anti-social behavior when done in the presence of a face-to-face conversation. This is just a new thing to most parents and it's up to them to teach their kids the proper manners of texting, and sexting. In other words, don't text and drive, and if you are being spoken to don't be rude by texting in the middle of it. As far as sexting, they should be taught to respect themselves and that there is nothing cute about sending your body to someone that may be showing all of their friends and possibly posting it on the unforgiving internet.

The youth of today is in fact are very smart in most cases, society still has gangs, bullies and some bad apples like we always have, but there are many examples that show the new generation is much like the ones before them. Because of our new technology, we have millionaire teenagers creating websites and businesses, this hardly equates to "lost". At 12 years old, Cameron Johnson made $50,000 selling Beanie Babies on EBay, and by his senior year of high school had started several internet businesses, written a book and made his first million. Of the many other examples, Ashley Qualls started out making websites for her friends and has gone pro, and at 17 years old she also become a prodigiously rich teen.

It's easy to be like ole' grandpa as you yell for the kids to "get off my lawn", but kids today are just like we were, only with cooler video games. And as the question of "lost", no way, maybe we're the ones that are lost as we let technology pass us by without embracing it.

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