The Millennial Generation, Cell Phone Oblomovs
I studied Russian Literature and Russian culture in college. My Russian Literature teacher was a White Russian emigre, his family driven from Russian soil by the Communists. Most of his relatives were killed. He had a club foot, thick glasses and a lisp(in both English and Russian). He was the precursor of Professor John I.Q. Nerdelbaum Frink, Jr. on THE SIMPSONS.
He was drop dead brilliant. His favorite Russian novel was OBLOMOV by Ivan Goncharov. In the book, OBLOMOV lets life pass him by,”Oblomov is a young, generous nobleman who seems incapable of making important decisions or undertaking any significant actions. Throughout the novel he rarely leaves his room or bed and famously fails to leave his bed for the first 150 pages of the novel”
It was a funny yet ringing denounciation of the young Czarist aristocrats, turned into slothes by their wealth, unable to cope. Their serfs doing everything for them except breath for them.
Three young college coeds drowned in a farmers’ stock pond in North Dakota while stargazing. All I could think of was OBLOMOV.
This blog is not about the three girls, who seemed to have been delightful people, softball players, stargazers. This blog is about their generation. My sympathy to all their grieving friends and relatives.
Something happened relative to that drowning, which has me concerned about our youth, and their OBLOMOV addiction to technology; that technology makes them, “incapable of making important decisions or undertaking any significant actions.”
“Generation Y, also known as the Millennial Generation or Generation Next or Net Generation,it is generally marked by an increased use and familiarity with communications, media, and digital technologies.” All three girls were Millennials, one 22, one 21, one 20.
DICKINSON, N.D. – Authorities say preliminary autopsy results show drowning as the cause of death for three North Dakota college softball players found dead inside a sport utility vehicle that sunk in a rural farm pond.
Stark County Sheriff Clarence Tuhysaid Friday that two of the women’s bodies were found in the SUV’s rear cargo area and one was found in the middle of the vehicle.
Dickinson Rural Fire Chief Curtis Lefor told “Good Morning America” today that with the “panic and cold, coldness of the water, they probably just didn’t have time” to escape.”
What I find markedly disturbing about this tragedy is this>
“The women had been reported missing Sunday night after placing two frantic phone calls to friends in which they talked about water before the line went dead.”
My God, are our children so consumed with technology that rather than try and escape from the SUV, they made cell phone calls?
The cell phone as a magic amulet.
Rather than depend on their own devices and reactions, they called friends, with the surety that the phone call, in and of itself, would save them.
Have we developed a generation of Cell Phone OBLOMOVS?
Tags: Czarst, Generation Next, Generation Y, Ivan Goncharov, John I.Q. Nerdelbaum Frink, Net Generation, North Dakota, OBLOMOV, Serfs, The Millennial Generation, The Simpsons