Millennials And Their Tools
Millennials. Are they lazy? Nope. However some can be, and maybe in a greater proportion than past generations, but that’s only due to their relative and steeply-alternative integrated relationship with technology. Sometimes, what is productive in the eye of a millennial such as myself can be misrepresented as laziness from the misunderstanding perspective of a past generation. Many participants of past generations see technology as a necessary device to achieve blatant ends - “I need microwaves for I am instructed to use microwaves to make popcorn”, for example, or “I use the internet to buy cheap Angloparisian towels.” However, Millennials seem to use technology as a dynamic tool, one for improvisation and personal existence, to keep from boredom, to work, to make and communicate with friends, to communicate social ideas, and to understand humanity - in two decades, an entire means of cultural existence has formed and developed, seemingly underneath everyone’s heads.
I became aware of this phenomena when my parents violently and viscerally used their mouths to melt and eat the chocolate off of KitKat bars, repeatedly and noisily sucking upon their bars like animals until the chocolate had no choice but to peel off. I showed them their error, their blatant fault, as with my god-gifted millennial prowess with technology I placed my KitKat bar into a dish, and placed that dish into the microwave. The chocolate slid right off and my parents were amazed, yet underwhelmed for their own discretion. They don’t understand - this wasn’t the machine’s work, this was my own. There’s no laziness or automation in reaching an easier form of existence using the tools at hand. It wasn’t necessary, there was no recipe, and I didn’t use my own body as a tool, but mentally… mentally I used my natural environment to my god damned advantage.
Socially, we make friends online and they don’t understand the reality of these friendships. They don’t see technology as a universal tool for personal connection, they see it purely as a distraction, a sub-existent form of subversion from the traditional reality their minds have developed from youthhood. They see us melting chocolate in the microwave and they see that as lesser than using physical and personal means to melt chocolate. They see us playing Overwatch or Runescape (2007) with friends and they see that as lesser than playing hopscotch or scrabble out by the roadside with their posse, next to a badgered, beastly cadaver. Technology is now a form of environment, it is an extension of oneself, and it is a new, alternative form of reality - this is purely contemporary development, and while it may lead to existential qualms in the future, right now I find it’s sudden existence beautiful.