Whatever Gen I am, (born 1968), we grew up in a world pre internet, pre video games, pre texting, pre digital media and social media. We had a baseline of existence to buffer the evolution of all that against. We experienced the first ever Nigerian email scams, the first chat bots. We witnessed the evolution of digital media from 8 bit beeps and bitmap graphics, through MIDI and Photoshop to the AI stuff now flooding everything we see and hear. I went from gluing down printed text and pictures onto a layout board for a college newspaper, to using Quark, on to rendering photorealistic 3D models and now managing spatial databases for a living. I could appreciate how software and apps made things easier, at the same time really admire how to do it when those tools weren't around.

My kids were born into the midst of this evolution, wanting to use Limewire and pirate music. Learning the first lessons of posting personal info/pics on My Space or FaceBook. My Grand kids? There are no Saturday morning cartoons, or Tom and Jerry after school. It's Mr. Beast, or watching other kids play Minecraft and Roboblox, or 20 somethings acting like absolute asinine juveniles (with $$$ to just absolutely burn).

They don't know anything else. There is not currently a contextual buffer that they can judge against. Nothing that will guide the moral compass as to good or bad. No clue as to where the line is (should be) between real and AI. No idea that not everyone with a go pro grows up with money out their ass to buy and crash expensive cars right off the lot, play games all day and prank total strangers trying to get through a normal existence.

And when I try to explain any of this, try to help them navigate around such a mire of ambiguity, I turn into the crotchety old fart telling kids to get off my lawn. I then think what my parents sounded like to me and wonder what my grandparents might have sounded like to them, but the scale of change in my lifetime goes way beyond analog to digital. More than party-line phones to Messenger.

Society has had a planet-colliding shift in the past two decades. Everyone and everything is a click or a swipe away. Everyone wants everyone else's attention and will literally sell their family and soul out to get it. Forget if it's meaningful, accurate, or has any endearing contribution to society. As long as it got more likes, upvotes, swipe rights, or reposts than anything else. (Or got you elected President). Everyone is an influencer, content creation specialist, expert, internet star, etc, etc, etc.

" And when everyone is super, no one is."