Generation Gap – a Major Problem of Society
Generational gap has been there in every generation since the beginning of human race as every generation is more capable and modernized than the previous one but that generation gap was a natural process and it was not harmful as it was healthy and necessary for human race.
Now the generation gap for the past few generations has started increasing and the gap between our generation and our parent’s generation has increased to such extent that it is no more natural and has become a major problem of our today’s world.
In order to define the term ‘generation gap’ it refers to the conflict between the opinions, attitudes, lifestyle and the behavior of the younger and the older generations. Yet again new ideas, values and believes are prevailing in our daily lives due to the progress and advancement of time and technologies. These differences have added more to social, cultural and political conflict.
Generational gap has been there in every generation since the beginning of human race as every generation is more capable and modernized than the previous one but that generation gap was a natural process and it was not harmful as it was healthy and necessary for human race. Now the generation gap for the past few generations has started increasing and the gap between our generation and our parent’s generation has increased to such extent that it is no more natural and has become a major problem of our today’s world.
There are many consequences and reasons for this problem on of which outlaid in his article ‘The sociology of parent youth conflict’ by Kingsley Davis, he explains: “The first important variable is the rate of social change.
Extremely rapid change in modern civilization, in contrast to most societies, tends to increase parent-youth conflict, for within a fast-changing social order the time-interval between generations, ordinarily but a mere moment in the life of a social system, become historically significant, thereby creating a hiatus between one generation and the next.
Inevitably under such a condition youth is reared in a milieu different from that of parents, hence the parents become old fashioned, youth rebellious, and As we know that every new generation has its own social norms and codes in terms of dressing, behavior and maintaining relations with others.
Along with that the older generations tend to have certain defined customs and traditions, which they consider as part of their social values and cultural heritage. The younger generation prefers to adopt modern values due to which they create their own ways of behavior. In other words, the younger people behave according to the current universal manners.
