I believe technology has a good deal to do with why people are living in the moment and not thinking ahead. In addition to the smart phone there are million TV channels to watch. When I grew up it was channels (2-13).
There are so many different kinds of music now. You can listen to music anywhere. The main source used to be the radio. People become distracted in their own little bubbles that they create. I work with a girl that is 30 years old. She doesn't know any old tv shows like. "Bewitched" she had heard of, " I love Lucy". She had no clue who Charles Manson or Jeffery Dahmer were. I actually worked with another girl (I swear on my mother's grave this is true) she didn't know what the Holocaust was. When I mentioned other key phrases like: WWII, Hitler, Nazi, Auschwitz, she had the blankest look on her face. She told me that she did know there was a WWII, but she didn't know what it was about because it was a long time ago. She was in her twenties. She wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, but I was still flabbergasted.
I think there are so many opportunities for people to be distracted and not have to think. The other thing is kids sports. You used to join sports in school in junior high or high school. Now they start young and the parents spend their weekends running from town to town for 2-3 games at a time. They end up in the drive thru for dinner, and then kids do their home work late at night and go to sleep. If there is any spare time, they are linked into a video game. There is no thought to the rest of the world. Kind of scary.
When younger people are approached with politics, there are so many sides that are customized to fit so many different beliefs. They are spoon fed information and they believe it. They have no history to base anything on, no personal experience. They go with what they are told.
