Generational Gaps

Grace Spratley

How has the way we live, speak and consume our news changed?

by Grace Spratley, on work experience from Bournemouth University

 

As technology rapidly improves at a rate most cannot keep up with we see the world changing every day before our eyes.

With consistent talk of millennials and gen-z being plastered all over our media outlets it’s hard to ignore the widening chasm between generations.

Never before has such a vast difference, even between parents and children, and how they experience the world, been so apparent. From the way we consume our news and information to the very way we speak and communicate with each other.

With the rise of social media and the internet, news is so much more easily accessible through this medium with most young people using platforms such as Twitter and Facebook to gain access to this knowledge.

Just a few years ago, news was accessed mainly through the physical buying of newspapers while many young people have never bought a newspaper in their lives and only encountered these in the hands of their parents.

Social media news and the internet has allowed for increased accessibility to various voices to be heard across the world and various opinions to be shared. This allows for a more eclectic view of our world and those who live in it. Compare that with the views of various traditional news outlets.

While it can be argued that the increase in voices and opinions shared online has allowed a more diverse world-view, oftentimes those who receive their news through social media outlets have created a custom feed; following only those who share their opinions and beliefs. Creating this niche bubble is increasingly easy and often leads to a, while better informed, often biased younger generation.

Even with the bias sometimes present among the younger generation there is no denying they are becoming better informed and more knowledgeable due to this access to instant news – often challenging the news they receive rather than accepting it blindly.

This instant access has lent itself to a change in the way we communicate with slang terms often widening the gap between generations.

The very language we speak has changed vast amounts in recent years. With slang words and abbreviations finding themselves in the everyday language of the younger generation due to the social media age.

Some argue that it proves the increasing laziness of this generation; their inability to speak in full sentences. While on the other hand, it can be seen to prove their ability to adapt, change and utilise the spaces they’ve been given to express their voices to its full potential.

With this gap between generations appearing to ever increase, what comes next in the development of technology and how we use it is for anyone to guess.

Continual adapting is human nature and is only sure to continue.