Generation Gap: How Today's Generation is Different from Their Parents' Generation

Introduction

Today’s generation is very different from their parents’ generation. Essay on the topic of the generation gap will shed light on these differences. In today’s generation, people are more likely to have more freedom, but parents’ generation was fully controlled by the guardians and the government. That means in some countries like Myanmar (Burma), children were under extremely surveillance by their parents. They need to follow the advice of their parents whether it was correct or not. However, the people from new generation in Burma need to adapt with different people and different lifestyle because they are living in the developing country, so they will face new changes and challenges every day. They tend to have more opportunities and they can decide their own opinions because the world is more universal. Someone can distinguish the two generations because of the use of the technology, their mindset and their age. The parents’ generation usually depends less on technology while the new generation relies on their new technology. The major differences between these two generations are jobs, educational opportunities and technology.

Difference between Old and New Generation

Jobs fields

First, one of the most recognizable differences between these two generations is in jobs fields. For new generation, they have more opportunities for selecting their career. They can work part-time and full-time jobs if they are qualified with job purposes. Due to the part-time jobs for young people from this new generation, they can even study while working, so they can stay more independently from their parents. They can provide facilities to their parents when their parents age become old. Today, more and more jobs are being provided, so people can easily change to another job if they are not satisfied with their current job. In addition, if a person works very hard and pays attention to everything that he/she needs to, he/she can get promotions, health insurance and life insurance from his/her employer. That means opportunities are available for many hard workers. However, people from parents’ generation had less opportunities than new generation. They were paid lower amount of salary and they tended to have less career choices. For example, if the people from old generation graduated from their college, they could only apply for one specific job and they tended to remain in same position with fixed amount of salary. At that time, the expenses for them were not cost as high as today and they preferred to live happy lifestyle rather than expensive lifestyle. Employers did not give high salary to people because they already know that people only worked to get food and shelter. They did not need to spend extra money on unnecessary things. Once they got a job, they could not move to another job because and they needed to stay in one job even they were satisfied with their work or not. People worked in one place for a longer period time because they could not search for a job easily on online after they got fire from their current job There were only few work fields and they needed a higher level of education because amount of people are higher than amount of jobs, so it was very competitive to get a good job.

Educational prospects

The second difference is in educational prospects. There are vast differences in providing education. The education level for new generation is probably superior, and there are several sources for people, so they can learn with comfort and flexibility. For example, if people have trouble scheduling with the school and work, they can even learn online course, weekend course and night-time course. Nowadays, there are several community colleges, universities and outside learning resources. If people do not have money, they have access to free education from internet and they can also use community libraries and school libraries. Furthermore, people do not need to worry about their interests and majors. For example, if someone gets admission only to business but his/her interest is in medical field, he/she can study by taking admission test. On the other hand, the education system from parents’ generation was not as high as today, and there were only few resources for people, so it was not convenient to find information as they needed. At that time, there were only few schools and few courses, so people could not choose for their inclination. The education system was too strict, and people need to put much afford to find the materials. For example, if people want to find something that they do not understand, they could not search quickly because there were no smart phones and electronic devices. They need to read a lot of books step by step to get their sources, so they need to spend more time to get information

Technology

Last, the final difference is in modern technology. For today’s generation, people can easily get information depending on what they want from the internet. For example, if people want to go somewhere and they do not know place, they can simply use the Google maps to navigate their routes. Because of the modern technology, people could easily call and text each other by using social media like Facebook, WhatsApp etc. even they are living in different places because everyone has social media applications on their phones. Due to that, people can stay in touch with their friends and, so they can easily know one’s information without seeing each other. Because of the technology, people can easily learn and work at anytime and anywhere, so it saves their time and they can improve more skills in their future. Even though technology gives advantages for new generation, people from parents’ generation do not have the internet, so they could not watch videos, read news online and use social media by staying at home. They need to ask someone else or they need to read books, so it was not as comfortable as now. The communication system at that time was also poor. For example, if people wanted to tell something to their friends or family, they needed to write a letter and it took several days to reach to someone else.

Conclusion

In conclusion, there are numerous differences between new generation and parents’ generation due to the career, education services and technology. It is very hard to say which people have more advantages because they have their own happiness and progress in their time. People struggle with hard time and they try to do their best for their future whether the world is changing or not. It is very important to do something that is valuable for ourselves and for other people no matter where we grow up in different countries or different generations.

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