Kev, my thoughts will be two parts. One will address the topic, one will address you within it.
1. No doubt, your generation has instant, full access to everything that you've grown up on media-wise. Certainly more than my generation could even have imagined at your age. If we dug something, we watched it as much as possible and then moved on (movies, cartoons, etc).
I don't think instant access to everything has made your generation immature or slower to grow up. At least not by default. It certainly hasn't had that effect on you - this topic is a perfect example. I think people are who they are. If they're immature they'll find a way to delay responsibility one way or another. If it's watching cartoons for six hours straight, they will. If it's following their mom around the house and asking her to cut the crust off their PB&J sandwich or do their laundry like she did when they were children, they will.
The real difference to me, and it's considerable, is that we couldn't experience our comfort & escape on-demand. I watched Speed Racer and Bugs Bunny every chance I could, but I still had to wait for the hour or so that they were being broadcast, on which ever days. Because of that, my generation spend most of our time outdoors interacting with other people and using our imaginations.
That's where your generation is radically different than mine. There seems to be a new type of person emerging - the true First World as you so eloquently put it. Being able to retreat to the computer and live within their escape at-will, has created a generation of kids who seem unable to interact with other people. They've become so used to the pretend world on a screen at their desk, that when faced with the vast & real one on the other side of their door, they don't know how to function within it.
It's not retarding their maturity, it's retarding their sociability. Growing up on a computer is creating a generation of Sheldon Coopers. Great for a thirty minute comedy, terrible for reality. The Facebook creator is a great example. Entrepreneur and billionaire at 21, train wreck in an interview. Find his original 60 Minutes interview and give it a look. He's out of his element sitting across from an actual person. He has the craziest flop sweat I've ever seen.
It will be interesting to see how your generation develops.
2. One of the more interesting aspects of being on this board the past ten years, for me at least, has been watching you come of age. Your posts have always been somewhat advanced for what I image teenagers are like in their grasp of the world. That said; not having any teenage friends, I don't really have a control for the comparison.
Here's where I wanted to transition away from the topic and instead address how you see it. However, I want to first be absolutely clear on this - this is not a criticism of you personally. In fact, I'm one of your biggest fans. It's an observation and a realization that you can't have yet. You can't imagine it, you can't learn it, nor can you fully understand it. It is, however, every bit as important to your topic as the subject itself is. I'll use some of your post as an explanation, along with an anecdote from my own past.
People like me, who grew up during....
I can return to them as solace: a reminder of what once was...
this ease of revisiting childhood.....
On the last day of my senior year, I was 18 years old. As you all know, that's a huge do-nothing day as you go to each class for the last time. In my literature class, Miss Buscemi went around the room asking us what we planned to do after high school.
I knew what I wanted to do and had been working on it in my head for months. I wanted to write a book about all my crazy high school experiences and friends. When I told her, her response wasn't what I expected. Her words, verbatim - "Write about what? - you're 18 - you're life hasn't even started yet."
That stung. "She has no idea all that I've done and seen", I thought to myself. "She just doesn't understand".
Man, talk about being off the mark. Was I ever. I couldn't possibly have grasped the concept of my life just beginning. I couldn't grasp what she'd already experienced.
Kev, that's where you are now. You have no idea of "what once was" - yet. But you will, and this topic of yours will be wildly different for you by then. I don't know what will become of all of us, but I hope I'm around to see what you think of things after you're well into your journey.
Again, my thoughts are not at all meant to sting the way my teacher's did me and I hope they didn't. You just reminded me of myself - 33 years ago - and made me smile at the remarkable similarity.
This topic is a perfect example of why I wish we all lived within an hour or so of each other. We could have a yearly gathering, for an evening with the libations of our choice, and sit around pondering the journey so far and solving the world's problems (if only we could get the world to listen to us).
;-)
