Information explosion, the Internet, and updating technology are forcing
people from two generations to become more distant and more different
from one another. The distance and the difference between them are
called generation gap. It is no doubt that people nowadays are divided
because of the faster and faster pace of the times. However, generation
gap sometimes becomes an excuse for people to escape from communicating
with one another.
The existence of generation gap is understandable in this era. In
ancient times, people lived in their own communities. They seldom
contacted with other communities, even the ones in the nearby area.
Therefore, the access to information or knowledge was limited. Thoughts
and ideas were almost the same from person to person, and from
generation to generation. There was no need for one generation to take
a step forward in order to know another generation better because they
inhabited the same life world. Now the situation has changed. We used
to refer to thirty years as a generation, then ten years, but now three
years is one generation. The range keeps minimizing. The younger
generation is now using new technologies, which are quite unfamiliar or
even unknown to the older generation. Getting to know the latest
information faster and being connected with the world are what the new
generation has to possess. More and more differences make the
generation gap larger and larger.
Of course, sometimes people do not simply use the generation gap to
describe the difference between themselves and others. They use the
generation gap to express a sense of arrogance. When a person declares,
「we have a generation gap!」 to another, he/she feels extremely proud and
superior about himself/herself. Generation gap is a way for arrogant
people to distinguish themselves from others. People are too selfish
and too lazy to try to understand others. They just passively request
others to follow their own opinionated concepts. People who take
advantage of the generation gap to categorize others as unable to
communicate are actually unreasonable. Many people resort to the idea
of the generation gap because it can prevent their fragile, unstable
self-identification from being challenged.
Time is moving faster and the relationship among people has become
different. It is improper for people to request members of another
generation to be responsible for bridging the gap without improving
themselves even a little bit. People ought to try to know others better
before rudely placing the generation gap inbetween.