by Siena Hutchison

“Give me your phone, right now.”

“No!”

“Yes, do it now.”

“Fine!”

“Back in my day, we didn’t have this technology stuff…” You fork over your phone and walk away in a huff. You sit in your room missing your tiny little device, and all of its joys. You desperately want to text your friends (possibly about how much you hate your parents, but no guarantees) or scroll through Twitter (insert rage tweet here). But alas, you cannot. You settle down, and start your homework.

“My anger levels are through the roof,” remarks sophomore Lauren Gentleman.

“I feel like I have no contact to anyone, I feel like I live in the 1960’s”. At first, this would seem like Lauren is quite possibly addicted to her phone, but staying connecting virtually could be an escape for some teens. I know that everyone reading this has been so extremely frustrated with their parents (if you deny that, you’re lying to yourself). But what do you want when you honestly think that you hate your parents? You (or at least I) want to talk (rant) to my friends. Somehow they always agree with me…

We’ve all heard these five words come from our parents mouths at one point or another, “well, back in my day…” followed by some outrageous statement about the eighties. The most common response is a simple roll of the eyes and a shrug, maybe a scoff or two. However, when you challenge yourself to understand this term a little bit deeper, is the phrase even relevant anymore? Yes, we know that learning about ‘history’ (because we all know how old our parents are…) is important, but can adults really get angry for technological advances? Adults use devices as much as teenagers do, but the important thing to stress is that they are sometimes used for different purposes. Adults constantly cast a negative shadow on the usage of teenagers and cell phones, and other devices, but why are they so upset about it? Maybe the depression of the past slipping through their fingers…or they just hate seeing our faces lit up with that little LED light every second of the day.

We all adored being a nineties kid, but maturing in the era of newborn technology, along with having it presented to us and being immersed in it, we can’t help but to be more involved with it.

Personally, I think adults are too harsh about our use of technology. Since they were born in their era, they cannot possibly understand what it was like to grow up in this day and age. This would be like me trying to understand what it was like to grow up in their era. Truly, adults and teenagers are from two completely separate worlds.

I believe that the biggest issue is that adults only see technology for its benefits, and that’s what it is only meant to be used for. My mother only uses her phone for business, because it makes it easier. Which is the exact same situation us as teenagers are in, except it’s not to make business purposes easier. It makes school a whole lot easier, and just general communication.

As I close this column, I can’t help to think how different but the same adults and teenagers are. I hope one day everything will even out, but as they say, a girl can dream…