By Preeti Singh:
A letter to the people who criticise ‘this generation’.
We belong to a generation that is almost always criticised. As part of my research, I searched ‘this generation,’ on Google and the results were all negative – “this generation can’t get its shit together”, “10 reasons why this generation is addicted to the Internet”; “15 reasons why this generation doesn’t know ‘love'” and, the list went on and on.
It’s funny how people don’t recognise the beauty of this generation. We are usually criticised for our so-called obsession with technology. I really don’t want to advocate for or justify how this generation is not-screwed-up or how much in love we could be. All I want to put out there is that this generation lives in a beautiful, splendid time. Believe it or not, the things you can do with technology go beyond using facebook and SnapChat and this generation surely knows that.
Thanks to technology, this generation can learn languages for free, discover the world even if their pocket doesn’t allow them to travel, or set life goals and work towards them. This generation can be popular in minutes, sometimes in seconds, can share grief over online support groups, can come together and solve global problems, can make friends from all around the world, can watch movies and widen their horizons, can make motivational videos that discuss something that nobody ever dared to share before. This generation has produced young entrepreneurs, young social activists. This generation knows writers who can research anytime, anywhere or write a letter to you that can blow your mind. This generation might be facing a lot of crisis, but it surely knows the wonderful spectrum of possibilities.
This generation is thriving at a time when exploration, discovery, interdependence, openness are all coming together. This generation can and does make the best use of technology that it is so badly criticised for. For those who criticise this generation, you may want to refer back to the quotes of Mary Oliver and her likes because only this generation (thanks to the wide accessibility and technology) knows the beauty of dark times. Trust this generation, and you’ll find the beauty it holds. You could look for it in search engines too (or must I say, Google), if only they were ready to offer some.
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