I grew up after the age of records, but well before the
innovation that digital media has brought to the music industry. I listened to cassette tapes for my most of
my childhood. Playing my tapes on my
Boombox, I was the epitome of cool. I
would listen patiently for my favorite song to come on the radio and eagerly
hit the record button to capture it on tape.
Into my later teens, I got my first portable CD player. I would stick it into the pocket of my
oversized jeans and listen to the same disc over and over again. It wasn’t very convenient to carry your CD
collection with you when walking around town.
My son will be able to fit more songs than he can even imagine onto a music
player the size of a matchbook. It won’t
even matter what songs he has downloaded anyway. He will simply be able to pull up the song
over his smartphone whenever he wants to hear it. In the big scheme of things, you might ask
why it matters. Why even give any
thought to this subject? Maybe it
doesn’t matter, but maybe it is just a small look into a much bigger
generational change. We are currently
raising a generation that no longer needs to be patient or selective on
something as simple as music. They are
growing up to expect that whatever song they want to listen to will be
available whenever they want to hear it. That attitude of impatience, the
expectation of instant gratification, the ability to have it all will shape our
children in ways that we can’t even foresee.
What else will my son expect now?
You make a very good point about instant gratification. I believe that it is a problem that our children don’t even recognize. Patience is a virtue and needs to be learned prior to adulthood.
ReplyDeleteOften when people say that my generation is losing respect and not learning how to get a work ethic. I know too many people that can prove each and every stereo type wrong that is out there about this horrible generation that is to come. So I ask what did the generations before you think about your generation
ReplyDeleteI am not saying that this generation will be horrible. I am simply saying that we can't fully foresee how this will affect them. This is true of every generation, mine included. As technology changes, children grow up differently. This molds them. We live in a world where so many things are now at our fingertips. This will have some impact.
DeleteI was just thinking of this myself when I was driving into work this morning. My car and my phone synch up and I can listen to the Pandora app on my phone through my car's bluetooth connection. We pay for satellite radio but I barely even listen to that anymore because with Pandora I can customize a "station" and listen to very few commercials. Or I can use my Google Music app which I have tons of music that I have purchased.
ReplyDeleteI caught myself this morning thinking that I can skip through certain songs easily now instead of hitting fast forward on a cassette player and hoping you have gotten good enough at stopping at just the right time on the tape. I was skipping through a couple of songs on Pandora because I have heard them before.The sad part about it is, those songs I skipped over I had only heard maybe 3 times. I was already moving on to something new. Growing up probably in the same age group as you, I have noticed even a difference in myself and how spoiled technology has made us. What's next? Artists having to release more music at a faster rate to keep people interested?
I heard a comedian once describe what he imagined the future would be like, based off of the technology that spoils us already. He said we are all so hooked on instant gratification that somewhere down the road when we are able to teleport somewhere, even then there will be wait times. He said our reactions to those wait times will be something like this, (and this is not verbatim but it gets to the point) "Oh my gosh! I have to wait 9 seconds?! I have somewhere I need to be in 4 seconds!!"