The generation’s struggle is not only a metaphoric statement about different generations. It reflects rather a reality that can be illustrated through the different characteristics that different generations have. However, those differences are due to different approaches to life which include a totally different lifestyle for new generations than the one the older generations have. Personal space, overvalued technologies, fast-paced lifestyle, and other characteristics are among the matters that characterize new generations. As one of these generations, we are effective people who have a pragmatic view of the world and we value time extremely as an important aspect in our life. At the same time, we are aware of matters that older generations never considered and one of our most valuable characteristics is that we think critically and never take anything for granted. Our generation is rather a unique one because we could witness and be a part of probably the most important global shift to the digital world and information society which enabled the most revolutionary modern discoveries. Therefore, we are a communicative generation as communications have never been easier than in our time. Another interesting aspect about new generations is about being independent already when we are 18 years old while at the same time, our parents’ role has become limited. Ellen Key emphasized this fact in her Speech to the Youth of Sweden already in 1910 when she said:
“Our youth are becoming freer from the pressure, parents have formerly practiced on young people’s faith, work choices, and love.”
Surprisingly, Socrates referred to our generation already 400B.C and described many interesting aspects in a few sentences. Socrates mentioned many interesting features of the new generations of his time and still, they are highly applicable to modern generations almost 2400 years after his statement.
On the other hand, there are the older generations who, to some extent, are held responsible for a lot of destruction in the world. Starting from the first world war and not ending with nuclear attacks and the cold war. Regardless of who is responsible, many destructive events took place in the world during their time and we still are suffering from the consequences. Older generations have a slow-paced lifestyle and, to an extent, are ineffective. They are thinkers and wise men or at least claim to be wise. An important matter in this context is that they, the older generations, made the industrial revolution but never thought about its future effects which we still suffer from. Not only that but even the older generations are the ones who had the most unequal societies and their time was characterized by normalized racism. Regardless of all this, the older generations are our beloved ones who we accept in all their complicated ways of thinking. They are the ones who put the ground of the modern world as it is today even though they created so many negative matters in our world.
Comparing old generations to new ones is rather unfair in this context. That is because comparing them without considering all the different circumstances that each generation had and the huge gap between the new and the old would result in biased comparison and consequently unfair results. However, young p have many possibilities that enable the above-mentioned fast pace lifestyle while the older ones never had those possibilities before. Furthermore, new generations are well informed about different global matters such as environment and nature due to developments in our world. While the older ones lacked sufficient information by that time to address and tackle these matters. They created wars in which our new generations took love stories and spread love from. We take the matter of gender equality seriously while they consider power. Finally, one main fact remains which is that we love older ones and have a nostalgic feeling about their world. We create a passionate image of their world and state that their times were better than ours.