MediaJoltz

I wrote a post over at www.momsadvice.wordpress.com that I thought appropriate for this blog too.

So this past weekend being the New Years holiday I found myself listening to the “top songs of 2007 countdown” from several radio stations.

Most of the pop songs I didn’t know-I’m a country fan and haven’t listened intensely to anything else for about 7 years. There was one song that I had heard at one point during the year that seems to have made it into the top in most charts though that really caught my attention. It is a John Mayer song titled “Waiting on the World to Change:”

Me and all my friends
We’re all misunderstood
They say we stand for nothing and
There’s no way we ever could

Now we see everything that’s going wrong
With the world and those who lead it
We just feel like we don’t have the means
To rise above and beat it

So we keep waiting
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting
Waiting on the world to change

It’s hard to beat the system
When we’re standing at a distance
So we keep waiting
Waiting on the world to change

Now if we had the power
To bring our neighbors home from war
They would have never missed a Christmas
No more ribbons on their door
And when you trust your television
What you get is what you got
Cause when they own the information, oh
They can bend it all they want

That’s why we’re waiting
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting
Waiting on the world to change

It’s not that we don’t care,
We just know that the fight ain’t fair
So we keep on waiting
Waiting on the world to change

And we’re still waiting
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting waiting on the world to change
One day our generation
Is gonna rule the population
So we keep on waiting
Waiting on the world to change

We keep on waiting
Waiting on the world to change
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/johnmayer/waitingontheworldtochange.html

Okay so there is a lot I can say about this song and its lyrics-but I’m not going to get into the politics. What actually came to mind is how much sooner the younger generations are embracing information and how fast they are learning-they are definitely going to have to wait for the world to catch up with them.

We have friends who have a 3 year old. She is your average child, who likes to laugh, play, cry, eat and use the iPhone to watch her Sesame Street Podcasts???? Yeah, she knows about computers and gadgets and when she gets fussy at a store or in the car, her dad hands her his iPhone and she knows how to get to the podcast page to watch her show.

How about our nephew who loves to get on with his mom and talk with us through video chat? It was fun to hear and WATCH him play his new harmonica he got for Christmas even though he is across the country. Something like that for me still amazes me, for him, its something that happens in his everyday life.

I consider myself a pretty savvy computer user-not as technical as my husband or either brother-in-laws, but I feel like I’m more ahead than behind. But then when I see the commercials for kids playing these education video games I wonder if it will really help them. I grew up with paper and pencil to learn my numbers, letters and played “I spy” to learn colors and objects. Is this enough for a younger generation who seem to be leaps and bounds further than I was even 5 years ago?

Take a look at people like Christopher Penn, Chris Brogan, Jeff Pulver and CC Chapman who have visions for the future. They were able to adapt to emerging and changing technologies and make something out of them-but I’m sure they were told to “go play outside” many times in their youth.

Is this a good thing, are we doing a disservice? Are we going to be able to keep up with our kids or as the lyrics suggest are they going to have to wait for us “older and less knowledgeable” adults to move out of positions before they can truly reach their potential and change the world?

Posted in New Media |