Having just returned from an essential jaunt to my local shopping centre, I thought I would share with you the debatable joys of driving around Switzerland on a Wednesday afternoon. Wednesday is the day when our exhausted, but notwithstanding active youngsters enjoy the afternoon off school. Whilst I understand that modern methods of communication don’t involve swatting up homework with each other, it’s astounding how much they seem to revel in writing. Not in the customary sense of the word – rather more, digging their heads into their mobile phones and seemingly typing books to each other on microscopic displays. It defies nature to pulsate the thumbs at record speed, until they nearly drop off, but I understand, it has produced a medical condition which is hard to heal. Who knows how the world will evolve with a generation of humans, unable to use their thumbs. How will they ever de-top a bottle of coke?
The problem isn’t their aspiring journalistic affinities, but rather more, their location of choice for this diversion. Their command of local geography is first rate, so that they can veer impulsively off the pavement onto the road, without raising their eyes for the briefest of moments to assess the danger. Not a blink is afforded to the potentially lethal street beneath their feet, while they continue undeterred with their crucial communiqué to Tom, Dick or Harry (or all three). Now, despite my advancing years, I am blessed with providential and breakneck reactions, to accommodate most crisis. But I confess to having developed a rather twitchy foot, ever-ready to precipitate the next unforeseen episode of voluntary street-insanity.
It must be a wonderful experience for youngsters to grow up in this age of instant interaction by means of contemporary technology. It must also be inspiring to be reared with such an unquestioning faith in the folks around them. It would seem that they possess a blind trust in their elders, to adapt to their lifestyle idiosyncrasies – after all, we are there to show them the way. Most of them will survive, more or less intact. I wonder what advances in technology will provide for their offspring, when the time comes. Probably by that time, there will be self-driving cars, which will divine any hurdles and react accordingly. Interesting times await us!
Photo: pixelio.de / Rainer Sturm