My Parents´ Generation vs Mine

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Every generation of people is different in important ways. How is your generation different from your parents’ generation? Use specific reasons and examples to explain your answer.

As compared to us today, my parents never had TV, video, computers and jet planes. Their lives are not cluttered with so many consumer goods that we find today in supermarkets and shopping complexes. For that matter, they never had supermarkets nor complexes. They did their occasional shopping in simple shops, devoid of air-conditioning or price-tags.

Nowadays, cars are a common sight. Traffic jams have become a daily affair. My parents never sat in a car when they were young. They says that in their youth, people got around on foot or on bicycles. Cars and buses were rare. Only a few rich people could afford cars. The streets were unpaved and not dangerous. There was no pollution nor the deafening roar of timber trucks.

The lack of effective mass communication during the old days probably meant that my parents were not besieged by all sorts of information, relevant or otherwise. They did not become square-eyed because they have no TV to watch. They knew one another better and willing to help each other. Today, we have too much free time. Our chores are done by washing machines, vacuum cleaners and the likes. So the more affluent of us join clubs and societies to fill in our free time. Status and snobbery are the result of growing affluence. Neighbours do not know one another anymore.

For us today, travel is a matter of hopping on to an express bus or an aeroplane, depending on the distances involved. London is only a few hours away and the moon is not unreachable. In the days of my parents’ youth, travel was a great event. Most people never moved more than fifty miles from their place of birth all their lives. So only a few adventurous people bother to travel at all. Even for these few, elaborate preparations were needed for the months of arduous travel by land and sea. It was no unexpected that they never return. Travel during those days was filled with danger. Today we take travelling far distances for granted. The risks are negligible. People are more concerned about whether they travel first-class or economy.

As a whole, life in the old days were simpler.

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