Are those born in the 1960s the Golden Generation?

I was thinking earlier how being born in 1968 has meant that I've been able to be part of the biggest change in human history.

Think about it. As a kid I could roam pretty much where we liked without my parents having this paranoia of being abducted, you didn't always need to lock your door for fear of a break-in and over the last 20 years we have seen the birth of some incredible technological advances.

The true benefit for me as a person was that I saw what came before and the relative scarcity that I lived through.

We didn't have colour TV in our house until the mid 1970s, no telephone until 1984 and was grateful for whatever little thing we got - it meant so much more. We didn't have four TV channels until I was nearly 14, there was no internet never mind mobile phones and CDs were space age. I never had a video player until I was 20 and even then it was a second hand Betamax - how did we ever manage?

It amazes me to think back to when I started in design in 1989. We used drawing boards and worked with darkroom cameras and camera ready artwork and overlays. We had Apple Macs but it was very basic technology back then. Actually I'm quite thrilled to have been part of the crossover to computer technology in that sense.

And despite all this we are still relatively young to appreciate youth culture for what it is but have the experience to have lived a little too. It seems to me that youngsters these days don't appreciate the true value of the benefits they have and with the ability to buy so much on credit (until recently that is) the achievement of getting what you really want is diminished too.

Are those born in the 1960s the Golden Generation and fortunate to have lived through the crossover or is another decade the ultimate in your eyes?

I don't know.
I suppose every decade has its big changes.

For example most of my time spent at school nobody had mobiles, or the internet at home.
That seemed to happen over the space of one year when I was about 16. Suddenly everybody had both.

Quote: Tuumble @ January 28 2009, 5:18 PM GMT

Think about it. As a kid I could roam pretty much where we liked without my parents having this paranoia of being abducted, you didn't always need to lock your door for fear of a break-in

View original

I could do that too. But then I did live in the countryside.

Quote: zooo @ January 28 2009, 5:21 PM GMT

I could do that too. But then I did live in the countryside.

View original

Same here, I'd be gone all day, roaming about with no way of contacting me, when I was only five years old!!

I was never groomed once over the CB.

Me too. I lived in a farming community.
- We rarely locked our doors (I noticed my folks started locking their doors before they go to bed).
- Even now when I go to my friends houses back home their doors are never locked even when they're not home.
-I didn't see a cellphone until around 2001 or 2002. When the towers did go up they were unreliable and didn't reach the small town outside of Sudbury that I lived in.
- We didn't have cable until I was in late high school. It was 4 channels...and two of them were French.
- With so little to do my friends and I were usually just in the bush, building a cabin or exploring looking for abandon mines.

I was driving around the small town this Christmas and I was so happy to see kids outside playing in the snow. They were taking turns doing flips and somersaults into the snow. I don't see that around here (Ottawa). The kids are inside or doing an organized sport mostly. They come out a lot when the canal is good enough to skate on but that's about it.

EDIT: Oh yea I was born in 1980...but I guess time often stands still in small isolated towns.

I grew up in nowhereville. You either played outside or stared at your family members in small quarters. I played outside, no matter what the weather.

Quote: Curt @ January 28 2009, 6:09 PM GMT

EDIT: Oh yea I was born in 1980...

View original

*high five*

Quote: Matthew Stott @ January 28 2009, 6:15 PM GMT

*high five*

View original

*high fives back*
It was a good year for baby popping.

I'm a 1980s child. When I was little I'm pretty sure kids didn't give as much lip as they do now.

Quote: RubyMae - Glamourous Snowdrop at Large @ January 28 2009, 6:55 PM GMT

I'm a 1980s child. When I was little I'm pretty sure kids didn't give as much lip as they do now.

View original

Definitely, tis true. But then a kid was a kid then and not a fecking 18 year old!

They give you sooo much lip. I hate doing workshops with kids, they are so bloody rude and evil. I've worked with prisoners more behaved than the girl guides!

ouch! Is that what I have to look forward too if I teach in the UK?

Just learn to duck quickly and to always check your chair.

gah! For what?! Fires?!

No just glue and the odd landmine.