Generations in the Rearview

The Digital Kids Are Not Alright (But Neither Were We)

Photo by Leif Christoph Gottwald on Unsplash

It may sound cliché, but the survival of our nation’s better angels depends on the fire of youth. Still, older generations offer a lived experience that younger ones often overlook, and not always unfairly. Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, Gen Z, and now the rising Gen Alpha live in a tangle of contradictions that don’t fit neatly into boxes, no matter how many think pieces try.

Each generation thinks in its own key, shaped by the paradigms of its time. The ideas that guided one cohort often seem outdated or alien to the next. That divide only begins to soften through shared storytelling, historical excavation, and a mutual reverence for change, even when that change is hard to stomach.

I remain fascinated by the power of generational experience. Take the classic “Boomer, please” retort. It’s a tidy little package of resentment and eye roll. A jab at a generation raised in a country flush with postwar wealth and high on its own potential, where eradicating poverty didn’t seem like a pipe dream but a reasonable policy goal. That wide-eyed Americana optimism helped inspire movements for social justice and emotional growth. But the same generation also helped pave the road to today’s bloated inequality, often blinded by its own self-mythology and addiction to upward mobility.

Meanwhile, younger generations, like late Millennials and Gen Z, especially, feel little obligation to honor the norms their parents accepted as gospel. The hustle culture that burned out Boomers now looks like a cautionary tale. So does the tolerance for mental health neglect, war-as-default foreign policy, and the endless erosion of the social contract. We were raised in an information flood (access to knowledge our elders could only dream of), and with that comes a sharp eye for hypocrisy, even in the so-called intellectual heavyweights.

And yet, for all the connection, we live in an era of profound social isolation. The record store, the bookstore, the arcade. These third places of old are giving way to scrollable solitude. We can message across the planet in a heartbeat, but still feel stuck in a room alone, trying to decode someone’s feelings through a string of emojis.

This isn’t a judgment, it’s a reality, not for all, but for many.

The most revealing part of studying generational dynamics is this: we’re wired to critique the excesses of the past while romanticizing our own. My generation (born in 1994) and those younger often call out our elders for voting away the safety net, cosigning endless war, and letting segregation slink back in through silence and zoning laws. However, we also tend to overlook the traumas that shaped them, such as growing up under the stern gaze of the Silent and G.I. generations, whose parenting playbook borrowed heavily from the military-industrial complex.

Imagine being raised by people who lived through the Depression, fought in the Second World War, and then had to explain why a world that once celebrated Civil War veterans now delivered instant TV, supersonic jets, and a Big Mac in under five minutes. The pace of change was blinding. So were the flashbangs from police riots and COINTELPRO surveillance. Sometimes retreating into private wealth wasn’t selfishness; it was a form of shell shock.

That doesn’t excuse the harm. But it does complicate the story.

To reflect on generational difference is to sit with tension; it’s beautiful, scary, and humbling. It’s precisely the mindset for a sleepy July evening, when the air is thick with time and old radio songs.

May we all age with grace, and remember: the past doesn’t disappear — it echoes.

Happy Hump Day.