Have you ever tried to explain a concept to a person much older than you, but couldn't due to misunderstanding, or different views or perspectives? Why did that happen? The word needed to sum up the above scenario is a generation gap, but what does the generation gap mean exactly, why it exists and how we can narrow it? In the following paragraph, I will cover the above questions.
The definition of generation gap according to Cambridge Dictionary is
A situation in which older and younger people do not understand each other because of their different experiences, opinions, habits, and behaviour.
Let me explain the meaning of the generation gap in short through a story which was told by Gary Vaynerchuk a.k.a. GaryVee. The story starts with Gary in his teens trying to explain to an adult how the internet is going to change lives and is going to be the next big thing but the adult thinks it is just a trend/one-time thing and thinks that Gary is just talking about a pipe dream called the internet. Fast forward to now, the Internet is booming with ideas, businesses that changed people's lives. So we learn two things from the above story,
It's better to make a choice than to regret 'cause Gary believed in the internet and it became a big thing but on the flip side the internet could have flopped, but still, it's better to at least make a choice than regret and resent yourself later.
The older generation will always be foreign to new ideas or innovations and have a hard time adapting to changes as they grow older. This will only widen the generation gap between the two of them.
The next question will be why does it exist? The last point explains that in a nutshell. The thing is if a generation has seen events happen during their youth, they are influenced by it and understand it because they are at an age where they are willing to learn new things, acquire knowledge if they try to sell the idea or a perspective of their era to the next-gen, then the new ones will think it's outdated and this is what happens every single day in the world. Remember this, every generation will get old one day and will be replaced by the young people, it is an endless cycle that's going to happen no matter the time or place.
What we can do to narrow the gap? The short answer is we can try to understand it from a different perspective and reach a conclusion that everyone can agree on, if possible. Let me be honest you can't always try to agree with everyone, all of us have our own opinion and we can voice out our opinion.
At the end of the day, nobody is neither right nor wrong.
If you liked this blog then I appreciate it and if you don't it's still okay because it's a matter of perspective.
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