I was talking to my sister recently about this idea, based on the feelings of nostalgia, that kind of melancholic, sometimes bittersweet, loneliness combined with an inexplicable kind of ASMR when your mind gets teleported back in time to, say, the 80's/90's.
I pondered the possibility that kids today may not actually experience the same feelings of nostalgia that we 90's kids did. I think the development of technology and the sterilisation of cultural artifacts of our time means that, in 20-30 years, sure technology will have advanced, but I think much of the damage has already been done and there's not much more to 'lose' for kids now compared to before.
For example, playing outside was the thing that kids did back in the day. Each decade you go back, the more hours outside kids would spend. Millenials like me were essentially the final generation of this concept. We would go out and adventure, unattended by parents, cycling miles and miles away, losing our shoes in random swamps and falling out of giant oak trees we climbed to collect conkers or a ball that got stuck up there.
Maybe there are some small towns around that still live this kind of life but for the most part, this is seemingly an extinct practice among kids, who are already all-in the iPad experience. Sitting at home, scrolling and swiping.
There's terrifying videos out there of kids who swipe thin air after their ipads are taken from them, our of pure muscle memory or something. Other videos show kids staring and swiping, being mindlessly fed a slice of lemon. Their face screws up a bit, but they don't otherwise react, they don't look away from the screen.
Eventually, as that generation starts to bear what few kids are to be born, the very idea of kids 'playing out' with 'friends' is going to be considered a 'weird' artefact of past, primitive times.
Without really noticing, this generation has lost a major human experience. But this is but one example of so many.
These things may, on their own, seem small to most people, significant to others. Combined, it feels catastrophic to me.
Cars
Jeremy Clarkson has been the poster boy of car fanatics for decades. Top Gear was, for the longest time, one of the most popular shows in British history. They didn't just talk about cars, it was a hilarious show of adventures and misdemeanors, but it also talked about cars a lot, in a way that engaged non-car people like myself, and probably got a LOT of people into cars who otherwise wouldn't have.
Jeremy has come out and said he no longer cares about cars. Sure, he still loves the old cars, but now with electric cars, the kind of sterile, white, minimalistic, iRobot-esque Teslas and such, there's nothing to love.
There is no art to them, no human character, no colour. They're of a dystopian movie where everybody is lobotomised and 'functioning' as part of the wider economy. Sure, they're efficient, or quiet, or safe, or sustainable. But they're devoid of humanity.
Rather than learning to build, renovate, repair cars yourself, or take to the local mechanic who may also be a friend, now you have to ship your cars off to a manufacturing hub, a giant central factory with computer nerds looking into the cars code.
Joy.
Again, not too far from today, there will be a time when the very idea of having a vintage car and knowing its guts inside and out, cherishing a rare, custom... engine or whatever, will just come across as weird, as we all become born into a world where cars are subscription-based, replaced every year like an iPhone, and stop getting 'updates' if you don't replace it before too long.
HUmans will have no idea what it was like before.
Dating
There was a time where we would meet people within our local community. Friends or family might set us up with people they know. We'd bump into people in the streets or at a pub, a high school sweetheart. Eyes would lock and we'd learn subtle signals to express interest or lack thereof. Some of this was to 'hook up', but not exclusively. People would do this looking for 'a mate'. A partner, somebody to spend their lives with.
You had to learn how to present yourself, how to speak, how to portray confidence even if you were a nervous wreck. How to be a man, but not too macho to be off-putting or threatening. It was an art.
Not anymore. Online dating has become by far the primary way to meet.
In isolation there's probably nothing wrong with this - I met my wife online, but it was through an ocean of garbage, my perserverence in a time of boredom and depression, that got me there. I got very, very lucky. When I realised what I had 'caught', and how it was unique among all other potential matches, I cut the online nature out immediately, within a couple of days, and met her by surprise outside her office as she clocked out.
She was on her way to look for a new apartment, so I simply joined her for the evening and things continued from that point to today. I even had a poster custom made as a gift and this moment is one of the cherished memories included:
I recognised the importance of charm, even if I might not be a classic suit-wearing gentleman myself. I don't think this is going to be the norm for much longer, if chivalry is not already dead.
Now, we swipe images of thousands. we conjure profiles that depict us in the best possible light - a fake parody of oneself. Photos at good angles, statements probably prepared by chatGPT, meme quotes taken from the internet. As if that somehow reflects who we are. We meet and greet without seeing any body language, without seeing social status or anything human. Just a digital image, and a fictional portrayal of perfection.
Again, this is already standard, but the idea of meeting somebody at school at the library will just be bizarre in the near future.
More
There's so many examples of things we're losing. So many desperately worrying and sad losses. It's something we should all think about, depending on what you find valuable:
- Letter writing, the time it takes to do so. The scarcity of it.
- The rickety quality of a video cassette tape, the warmth of movies made by painstaking handcrafted architecture, dolls and models
- Close communities and neighbourhood interaction. Unlocked doors. 'Yo can I borrow a cup of sugar?'
- Silence. All silence is immediately wiped out by a desperate reach for social media, Friends, sound. Being alone with thoughts will be a terrifying concept (It already is for so many I know today)
- Any general long-form content that requires deep thinking and concentration
- Fitness by means of activities outside of a gym, just daily lifestyle should be enough.
- Charity
The list certainly goes on. What will humans become, without even noticing they are barely human anymore?
And come to think of it, how inhuman would I come across in, say, the Victorian period? Perhaps sharing an arse-wiping sponge in the Roman times was considered a communal experience lost in modern society.
I can definitely feel the differences you're talking about. We live in a world that's so connected, but sometimes it feels like we've lost something important.
Even dating feels different, like it's all about the perfect image instead of meeting someone naturally. I sometimes wonder what we, will miss out on as we grow up. It's kind of sad to think about how different things will be in the future.
Yeah but the people of the future won't know the things they've lost so they might not think they're sadder, but their concept of happiness will just be a lot weaker than it could be. Their ability to feel joy will be diluted...