Guess Again, Grandpa! is a brand new column by Rachel Wong. Each week Rachel argues against her grandfather’s perspectives, presenting insights into the differences between generations. Check back every week for new content!
[dropcap]O[/dropcap]ur grandparents have led extraordinary lives, and they always have amazing stories to tell to prove it. But sometimes, those ‘I remember when I was your age’ beginnings can push us to direct our attention elsewhere.
Our grandparents had attention spans much longer than we do today. In fact, the attention spans of millennials are now shorter than that of a goldfish, according to a 2015 study by Microsoft. For our grandparents, hard work has always been a driving factor behind anything they do, even if it’s not the most interesting. My grandpa hated cleaning the house, but when my grandma was busy, he would roll up his sleeves and begrudgingly do his part.
Despite his deep-rooted hate for dusting and window wiping, he did it out of love, and he got it done fast. Even with things he did love, like building model boats, he would start the job and keep at it. There were no such things as distractions; he took his time and put 110 percent in. Our grandparents didn’t chase after instant gratification, just completion and perfection.
But fast forward to now and it seems like we can’t get anything done. Our less-than-a-goldfish’s attention span is eight seconds. We only have the capacity to pay attention for eight seconds before we get distra — I wonder what my crush is up to?
My grandpa always shakes his head and wonders how I get anything done. How do you hand your homework in on time? How do you meet your deadlines?
Well Grandpa, sometimes I get by. I guess this ‘all about me’ culture isn’t really working out for us. We’re all about the ‘now’ — I need it now, I want it now. If results don’t come fast enough, then we get bored or just give up.
Take the task of cleaning the house: I’m sure many millennials would rather not lift a finger, let alone clean anything. Chances are we’ll begin dusting and suddenly find ourselves preoccupied with crafting the perfect tweet to describe our current predicament. And after finally sending the tweet and scrolling through our timelines (again), we’ll decide to clean up our acts (no pun intended) and get back to work.
Repeat this 50 times, and what is supposed to be a 30-minute task has now been drawn out to two and a half hours.
But that’s just who we’ve become. Smartphones have heightened all of our senses, and the flickering lights and chimes of new messages make it impossible for us to tear our eyes away from glowing screens. I admit that when lectures get boring, the phone comes out to play. And even though I’ve creeped my crush’s Instagram profile five minutes ago, it doesn’t matter — I’ll do it again anyways.
ADHD has become a common diagnosis in our youth, but maybe this is a sign that we need to look up and pay more attention to the world around us. If anyone is still waiting for a zombie apocalypse, this might be it — but we’re too busy Snapchatting to notice. Grandpa, I’m happy to say that you would survive a zombie apocalypse; I wish I had your self-control.
You won this time, Grandpa. I’m a narcissist and can’t get anything done, but I’m trying. Maybe together, you can keep me accountable and help me build a bridge so that I can get over myself.
