I teach high school. Yesterday, a scene from a documentary I showed to a class of ninth graders depicted a crew setting up a teleconference between two women who wanted to meet but couldn't for political reasons. These are some of my best and brightest, heading down an AP path, and they were genuinely puzzled - why didn't the women just use FaceTime? It wasn't a part of the lesson but I spoke for a bit about the capabilities of technology of the time, the early 2000s, when they were born.
It stuck with me for the rest of the day. On one side how difficult the study of history seems to be becoming if students have difficulty imaging even the world they were born into but also, will our definitions of generations condense in breadth if the experiences for people continue to change so rapidly. Growing up my father often talked of the innovations my grandmother (1918-2012) lived through but if people alive today reach old age will the changes in how humans live be even more dramatic?
