October 18, 2024/Midnight
Erie, Pa-– Gannon University is home to over 2,000 students at any given time of year. Within this student body, a variety of different people exist. We are united through our pursuit of education at Gannon University. However, our differences may lie in our ages, career choices, races, faiths, or a plethora of other things. In every aspect that we are different, there is one where we are similar. In roundtable, we explore the similarities and differences in the thoughts and opinions of Gannon students.
It’s an age–old debate of sorts: who has it easier? Is it parents, back when they were children? Or is it children growing up today?
While children today have much greater access to information and education, and often have a general better quality of life, there are certain benefits that prior generations enjoyed.
This week, three students discussed the question, “Do you think children today have a better or worse life than their parents did?
Junior Lana Florestal, who is majoring in healthcare management, says that she does not believe children have better lives than their parents. “The reason I feel that way is because everybody is glued to their phones...they are literally learning things online that they wouldn’t have been back then, whenever I was younger. Inappropriate things. Kids are not kids, and they just don’t go outside anymore.”
Florestal was not the only person frustrated with the prevalence of online technology and the things that children are accessing on the internet.
Anabel Franzmann, a junior studying marketing business, states her opinion. “I think that children, there’s no enjoyment to life now, cause they have to be on their phones constantly. If they don’t have a phone, they feel left out...in reality, they’re missing out on a whole different world, just going outside, going on a simple walk…even like the other day there was that Version outage. Everybody was panicking. Why can we not go five minutes without our phones?”
She continues, “I’ll admit, I do it too. It’s a habit. And, I think from an aspect of parents, their kids are so dependent on their devices, that when they take them away their kids are lashing out, having bad behavior, bullying and stuff. Where, the whole reason your kid is dependent on this device is because you gave it to them in the first place”
Franzmann also questioned how a device can affect and even harm both the mental and behavioral health of a child.
However, sophomore Anu Pariyar, a psychology major, has a different view on the subject. She believes that children do have a better life than their parents. “I do agree with that, because the country where I belong, I’m from Nepal, it’s like the literacy rate is not so great there. I mean, it’s been good now, but during my parents’ time it was not good as it is now.”
She describes that in her home country of Nepal, not only was the literacy rate much lower in her parents’ youth, but because of poor educational opportunities, they did not get well–paying jobs. Her parents sent her to Gannon, so that she could pursue better opportunities, and Pariyar says that “I 110% agree that we do have better days than our parents.”
With two students focusing on the negative impacts of phones and social media, and one student focusing on the positives of better education and opportunity, it is clear that our experiences shape perspective on the world.
