The Angry Rant

I know I’ve ranted about this before, but I hate the younger generations. I just can’t help myself. It’s almost as if though they are purposely trying to irritate me. Truth is, they are doomed, and they don’t even know it. And if they do, they damn sure don’t care.

But how about some backstory?

Last night I was out to dinner with some friends of mine, and we had a nice enough time, just like always. We sat and talked like the educated people that we were; we discussed the stimulus package, and how it may or may not work, and how the education system in this country is a mess, and how special education programs do more to hinder the students, rather than helping. Most importantly, we talked about things that had actual merit. Things that matter, things that are important.

I’m not trying to sound pompous or holier than thou because of my dinner conversation, but rather, I’m making a point. At the table next to us was a family of four. Two adults, and two teenaged children. At a certain point during their meal, one of the teenagers pulled out a cell phone and began to feverishly tap away at the keys.

I couldn’t help but notice this because it is one of my biggest pet peeves: people spending more time on their cell phones than with those they are having a meal with. I wanted to throw a breadstick at her, but that would have been a waste of food on a lunkhead who can’t put the phone away for an effing minute. Why don’t you (and by you, I mean the entire younger generation) enjoy the actual, live company that is in front of you, and engage them. One thing that separates us from the animals is our ability to converse using a series of words that are arranged in sentence form, and from there, extrapolating the meanings to form thoughts and opinions. Except for some people, that isn’t good enough, and they need to seek their interaction with a faceless specter on the other end of a text message.

Listen, idiots. There is a real world out there that is waiting, and BEGGING, to be explored. If you lift your heads up from your cell phones for half a second, you would realize that, and you’d be better for it. That’s the problem with this next generation – they don’t appreciate anything – ANYTHING. A friend told me that his brother always complains about his Playstation 3 because the wireless DSL connection isn’t fast enough. What? That’s not fast enough for you? Remember the 28.8K modem? It took 25 minutes to download an MP3, and while you were doing that, you could forget about actually visiting websites, because there just wasn’t enough internet. That’s right, the internet ran out! It was too small, it was scarce. It was like a wave pool at an amusement park – there wasn’t enough room for everyone, and when you did finally get a chance to get in, it was way too crowded, and you couldn’t have any fun. Not now, though. It’s wide open, it’s wireless, it’s high-speed, and it’s NOW NOW NOW NOW. Everything has to happen immediately, otherwise it’s no good. “Hey, why can’t I connect to the internet it’s going too slow I need to see what happened on Lost and talk to Jason and Lucy and Dylan and Casey and check my Twitter and MySpace and Facebook and FaceSpace and MyBook and AIM and I need it right away I need to know I need to know!”

Oh my God it’s exhausting just thinking about that.

But really, how many teenagers need cell phones? The answer is zero. None of them do. When I was 13, you know what I had? The ability to speak. I could converse with my friends but looking at them and using this thing called a voicebox to turn my thoughts into words, and my friend would process those words, and repeat the process back to me. It’s called interpersonal effing communication, and it’s something that we rely on everyday, because without it, nothing would ever get accomplished. And right now, kids are too busy sending text messages to their friends that they just saw 20 minutes earlier in study hall. And what do they talk about? As far as we can tell, NOTHING. They are turning themselves into social retards. Guess what – text messaging is no substitute for actual communication. One day, when you’re at a job interview (sounds scary, right?), you’re going to need to interact with someone if you want to get a job. And without your precious cell phone, whatever will you do?

I’ll tell you what you’ll do. You’re going to fail because the guy behind the desk doesn’t care about what happened on Gossip Girl last night. So do yourselves a favor, put down the cell phone, and start interacting with people. It’s a wonderful thing to be able to speak and to exchange ideas. It’s what makes us human, it’s what makes us unique.

You’ve got nothing to lose, and the world to gain.

Tags:   Rant · stupid kids · text messaging1 Comment