Opinion: Good old daze

key points from this story:

• Cash transaction baffles young cashier
• Supervision needed to make simple change
• Phone use overshadows outdoor activities
• Questions about youth life skills today
• Compares past and present social challenges
• Skepticism about promises of technology

A few weeks ago my wife and I visited the market gardens south of Craven, where I purchased a bag of peas for our dining pleasure. The total came to $8.50, and I handed the young lady behind the till a 10$ bill, and received a blank stare in return! Completely and utterly incapable of manufacturing 1.50$ in change because I paid cash for my purchase, and needed to summon her supervisor in order to produce the proper change. So to save her further embarrassment, I nicely told her to open the till, give me a loonie and two quarters, and I will be on my way!

A few days later, the temperature is running around 34 °C, too hot to work, I hop on the motorcycle and go to the beach for a swim. Now a young family comes down and sets up beside me, mom, a young daughter, and an older son, probably around 14. Mom and daughter go into the lake, splashing about having a great time, but I could not help but notice the older son hunched over his phone from the sunlight, the entire two and a half hours I was there, never left the beach blanket! Aside from the obvious posture problems he will soon develop, the obvious parenting issues inherent in such activity, I found myself wondering! Why did you come to the beach to be a phone zombie? A place where you get exercise—swimming, fresh air, and some vitamin D-producing sunshine, you could have stayed at home and done that!

Now I never long for the good old days, or use the term, back in my day things were different, because as I recall when I was that age things were not all that great either. In my day, airliners were being hijacked seemingly every day, Belfast was a war zone with murders, bombings and sectarian riots! The Palestinians and Israelis were murdering each other at a frightening rate, and the entry-level minimum wage hovered around $4 an hour! Not all that different from today's news!

But we must stop and ask ourselves a couple of questions here, are we doing an entire generation of young people any favours by raising them completely ignorant of how to make a $1.50 change without the aid of a digital calculator, put your phone down and go for a swim, or unable to read a wall clock? And how and when did we get here?

Because if this is supposed to be the age of marvellous technological intervention that will make our lives so much easier! Where is the part where I should be impressed, because I am not, I assure you. And why should I be?