Tuesday, June 15, 2010

COMPUTER AND WATER





During one of the dining table conversations at our house as to what are the most important things in life, my daughter one day answered 'Computer and Water'. Water as an answer was understood, but computer as the most important element of life was unexpected. Then me and my husband realised that it is generation gap. But it is not the same generation gap that we felt with our parents.

The present generation according to me is growing under tremendous pressure, which I never felt in my childhood. The last ten years have seen a boom in the digital revolution and the ones most affected are the kids born in this decade. The market is flooded everyday with the latest model of mobiles, laptops, palmtops and digital cameras.Today's kids are very smartly coping with the pressure of adapting to every gizmo that enters the market, be it the latest i-pod or the latest i-phone. My daughter is one among them and I empathise with today's kids.

Gone are those days, when summer holidays meant just visiting nearby relatives or staying at home relaxing. I do not remember having seen so many places as my eleven year old daughter has today. Today every school vacation of hers means a new travel destination for us. And every holiday means clicking loads of pictures with digital cameras and sharing with everyone on social sites. I do not recollect whether I clicked so many pictures in my lifetime.

I and my sister who is a year elder to me would look forward for our vacation to do other activities. We would be very happy to stay at home to read our Archie's, Tin tins, Enid Blytons or some comic. We would look forward to play scrabble, snakes and ladders, carrom in holidays . And we were never bored. Today kids play all their games only on the computer. They aren't keen to visit friends staying nearby, but want to be a part of many social network sites as face book, orkut, hi-fi etc. My daughter always mentions as to which friend of hers has more friends on face book and how she needs to keep up momentum with them. Hence one sees present day teens at airports, shopping malls in their own world with some gizmo plugged to their ears or eyes strained on the laptop screen. Once they step inside the house, the first thing they do is switch on the computer to play a computer game or to catch up with friends on some chatting site.




Similarly shopping, eating out in restaurants were not a weekly affair as is now. My parents bought new clothes only for birthdays or festivals. We would eat out once a month when I was young. But we would be look forward to eat out and treasure our new clothes. But for present day kids, Starbucks, Bistros, pizza huts are normal affair . Similarly shopping for clothes, shoes, accessories is not an exciting trip as kids are shopping every other day. To shop for birthday gifts is so much of a nuisance today as all kids have everything today. Hence they do not have a smile when they open their presents. Watching a movie in a theater was a special treat in my childhood. Today my daughter downloads or watches every new movie or song thanks to you tube and other free downloading sites etc.

I remember treasuring my song book since I had written lyrics of all my favourite songs. Plus getting lyrics was not easy task. Today my daughter coolly stores all her latest downloads in her pen drive with least effort. With vast strides in storage space, life has presented a new definition for them. The present generation need not be bothered about storing anything in physical folders or writing in notebooks etc. One click and all information for their school project is available. Similarly, they need not buy albums to store all pictures clicked or buy tonnes of DVDs to watch movies. Any data they need can be downloaded and stored in the computer.
I thank my stars for my daughter at least mentioned water as an essential thing in life along with computer.

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