Generations

People in their late 20s and 30s have all seen this picture with the radio cassette on the Web. It most certainly reminded them memories of the time they used to own a radio cassette. I remember spending afternoons at my friend Sarah’s in first year of middle school recording ourselves on her parent’s recorder. I also remember digging through my cassette shoe box and listening to the tapes 5-6 years later laughing at the goofyness and the high-pitch voices of two overly excited teenage girls. Radio cassette is an item that belongs to ‘our’ generation, a some kind of hybrid ‘radio cassette XY Generation’.

So, Generation Y, Generation X, Baby Boomers, we all belong to a ‘generation’. But what does it even mean, ‘generation’?

gen·er·a·tion [jen-uh-rey-shuhn]

noun

1. the entire body of individuals born and living at about the same time: the postwar generation.

2. the term of years, roughly 30 among human beings, accepted as the average period between the birth of parents and the birth of their offspring.

3. a group of individuals, most of whom are the same approximate age, having similar ideas, problems, attitudes,etc. Compare Beat Generation, Lost Generation.

4. a group of individuals belonging to a specific category at the same time: Chaplin belonged to the generation of silent-screenstars.

5. a single step in natural descent, as of human beings,animals, or plants.

The present definition focuses on the idea of a group of individuals born at the same time, that experience a similar context and often share the same values. Each day there is an article about the Generation Y, the one for which everything must have a purpose and who was born with Internet, grew up with Aol and tweeted first. Do Gen Xers and Baby Boomers understand Generation Y and vice versa? Intergenerational gap happens everyday and everywhere: at home, at work, on the street. As we’ve seen before, Technology ‘made easy’ makes it possible for generations to talk to each other (better?) and to learn (more?) from each other. With the Pentales Life Lessons Project, we want to bridge this intergenerational gap, not only by using the Web as a means, but also by fostering real-life exchange between generations. We want each of your stories to help building a bridge between different generations from Baby Boomers to the upcoming generations.

Shoot us a “Generations” email today at writepentales@gmail.com with examples of sad, funny, hilarious intergenerational gaps you experienced. We would love to feature them on PenTales!