Gen Y Gives Thanks: The opportunities of technology and the romance of more simple means

November 3, 8:27 AMGeneration Y ExaminerSharalyn Hartwell

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Gen Y loves technology but appreciates it, as well
as more simple means of communication.
(Photo: Photoxpress.com)

Generation Y loves our gadgets. It’s true that we are rarely more than an arm’s length away from our cell phone, computer or iPod. Technology has become such an ordinary, and necessary, part of our lives one could likely assume Generation Y takes it for granted and does not appreciate the beauty of more simple means of communication.

Such is not necessarily the case.

Vadim Lavrusik is 23 and attending the Columnbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York. He emigrated to America with his family when he was 8 years old and now clearly sees how being an American citizen has blessed him with opportunities, particularly technology-related opportunities, he probably wouldn’t have had otherwise.

“I am most grateful to be an American citizen and the opportunities I have been given since coming to America--getting a first class education at respected institutions, gaining the skills needed to become a journalist and meeting extraordinary people along the way. I’m grateful for the small things many of us take for granted each day, such as access to the Internet, most people in my hometown in Belarus don’t have access to. Many don’t even have access to a landline or cell phone. And yet today, my profession, and many of my interests, is focused on the Web, something I wouldn’t have had access to had I not come to America.”

David Stehle, 28, also spends most of his time dealing with technology in some capacity (he is the CEO and founder of his own network security business in Pittsburgh) but has a passion and gratitude for something that is often forgotten in Generation Y’s era of emails, instant messaging and cell phones--the handwritten letter.

“The romance of a ribboned notebook. The smell of the oiled leather cover. Inside, virgin paper awaits, just begging to be touched with the thrill of violet ink. A Moleskine notebook has real pulling power on me, as does proper stationary. Stationery is romantic, poetic, sensual. Typing on a computer keyboard feels anonymous, anodyne, soulless. I'm so grateful that I’ve rediscovered my childhood love of writing. It has given me the creative outlet in which I so desperately craved. And through it, the ability to express the things in my everyday life that are often too difficult for me to verbalize.

Writing an e-mail is just something you do, perfunctorily and without much thought. Writing a letter or a card is a careful considered act and one that makes the recipient feel as if they’ve received a tiny present. Tragically, letter-writing is a dying art, even when it comes to love letters. It seems people are perfectly content to be wooed by text these days. I know this sounds shocking coming from me, a self-proclaimed tech whore. I do love my gadgets, but I also love the written word. There is just something about the feeling of a pen between my fingers and paper beneath my palm. To me it’s intoxicating.”

Lavrusik and Stehle seem to be stereotypical Gen Y with careers based on technology, but go far beyond the stereotype with their appreciation for both technology and the simpler ways of earlier eras.

Lavrusik’s work as an online journalist and social media consultant can be viewed on his Web site. Stehle loves the intimacy of a handwritten letter, but still enjoys the community of his blog, The Rest is Still Unwritten. 

For more on “Gen Y Gives Thanks”: Click here to read how the series got started and here to read all “Gen Y Gives Thanks” related articles. Join the #GenYGivesThanks conversation on Twitter and check out what the participants in the series are tweeting about with my GenYGivesThanks Twitter list.