(02-01-2021, 04:25 AM)nguyenivy Wrote: Will the shared experience of being in school & university during the pandemic forcing the switchover to online ed by a generational marker? It seems to match up pretty well as a defining characteristic, so the generation would have birth years around 1998 - 2016 which cuts into the S-H Millennial birth years a bit, with the oldest finishing university about now and the youngest having been in their first year of school last spring when everything switched, and people born after 2016 not remembering either Trump or pandemic (assuming the pandemic ends soon). Given how long this has gone on for, it may make a huge impact down the line, especially with all the resumption & closures going on every so many months. There is bound to be a lot of anxiety around this unstable life from such a young age.
For most people, youth is a succession of coming-of-age experiences that typically appear more or less on schedule. The disruption of education is going to divide youth between those who somehow get some schooling and those who basically flunk who otherwise wouldn't. There will be some ceremonies from first communions to debutante balls put off for a year. Dating will be difficult.
Shared experiences are the norm for children, and many of them will be put off. Such will divide the Millennial and the Homeland generations.
Childhood experiences are practically butterfly effects in life.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.