Gen X is an interesting generation. We’ve not only borne witness to amazing changes, we’ve embraced and adapted to them.

We’re the kids born between the mid-sixties and 1980. We’re the latchkey kids and the MTV generation. We’re women in higher education and the workforce without (official) restrictions. We’re ostensibly about equal rights.

We watched the wall fall and consumer-based capitalism triumph and hasn’t the latter been unfortunate. Capitalism is responsible for more ills than most realize. Though I do like having choices. Even if they only relate to the irrelevant. Because moisturizer options are as important as political options.

Boomers lived through many of the same things as their children, but most haven’t adapted to the changing world as well, and Millenials and Gen Z don’t know from an analog world. That makes Gen X different, though different doesn’t mean better, comments from my fellow Gen X travellers about kids today notwithstanding.

I come from a family of early adopters. We’ve embraced it all early on: cars, plumbing, electricity, VCRs, computers, DVDs, cell phones, smart tech, and now EVs (my brother, so I’m claiming the connection). I missed the boat on Amazon, and that’s a shame. I’d like to be rich, or at least, not cash-strapped.

I didn’t underestimate the internet, however. I knew it would take off, my annoyance with the endless tide of AOL dial-up CDs notwithstanding. I couldn’t wait for the day, in fact. The connected world was going to be amazing.

I was thrilled when we advanced beyond the annoying screech of dial-up. I thought the Netscape Navigator was a miracle. I couldn’t believe that we would soon have the sum total of human knowledge at our fingertips. And memes. Those are important too.

I guessed wrong, however, when it came to the growing pains. I tend to underestimate the fear of change. I also tend to underestimate greed, and both of those things are at play with the web. My son likes to say we weren’t ready for the internet. I tend to agree, but with a caveat: I don’t think we would ever have been ready. The only way out of growing pains is through.

The best toasts contain both a blessing and a curse. This appears true of technology and connectivity as well. Technological advancements bring us amazing stuff, but they can also have a nasty sting. We’re still tribal, and we’re easily sold and led, bad news when instant connectivity is possible.

I suspect the growing pains will be severe. The rise of authoritarianism and people’s willing embrace of it is just one of the issues. Water finding its level is another. It’s one thing to have a conspiracy theorist in your neighbourhood. It’s another when one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand of them meet up online, and then in the world, and then demand that the world cater to their insanity.

The internet can be an echo chamber, and that’s a problem, even when we think our point of view is good, benign, and correct. Because everyone thinks that about their own point of view. And we can’t all be right. Look it up. Research. Make up your own mind.

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