Open Letter to Previous Generations

To older generations,

Sometimes I fantasize about TVs on wheels and drive-in movies. Back when procrastination meant hour-long calls on the household phone and reading letters from the mail, instead of doomscrolling on TikTok and liking shared reels.

Somehow, I feel more connected and more distant. I can see what my friends are doing halfway across the world at my fingertips, though it substitutes for personal connection—in person. When hangouts turn into group FaceTimes, I feel lucky and lacking. Why is that so? What's so special about touch, seeing the person as more than a collage of red, green, and blue lights on an index-card-shaped piece of metal? Maybe you know. I wonder if you feel the same way? Do you miss something, something I never got used to?

Sometimes, I wonder how reading the news felt before AI, TikToks, and clickbait. Was there more trust? Like your propaganda posters with exaggerated cartoons of politicians, we have AI videos of world leaders walking the runway as babies. But we also have realistic videos—ones of politicians at conferences saying things they never said, or news being reported that was merely imagined. The lines are blurred between factual and factitious, creating a never-ending cycle of distrust, as factual events are based on fiction. News now isn't a messenger—a relayer of truth—but a drama starter craving views and engagement.

Although our situations are different, as technology and media advance, I feel we are returning to the past. We are sitting on the history wheel as it churns us back in time, as far back as 1776. Our First Amendment right of free speech is being toyed with by powerful politicians. We are losing co-hosts, books, and news coverage that challenges authority. The authoritative figures who were voted for using constitutional rights spin the history wheel, crushing us underneath as we are forced into the past. Maybe "history repeats itself" is more than a cliché.

Our country is redefining what it means to be an American in ways that don't align with our founding fathers' beliefs. There is fear of the unknown, of the mood swings of a judge, that determine which families are connected and which ones are torn apart. There is fear in speaking out. Who gets to speak out? Whose opinions and voices get to float in the air we breathe? Whose get stomped on?

Though if history repeats itself, then we need to look behind us. To previous generations. To you. If we had solved these issues before, we could solve them again. Turning the pages of the history book to the past can help us write a better ending for our future.