It really is becoming extinct!
I was talking on the phone to a friend over the weekend, who is my age. She told me, "A young co-worker brought back lunch for me when she returned from being out on errands. I gave her a ten dollar bill to pay her. She looked uncomfortable and then left. Then she returned a few minutes later with the ten dollar bill and said, 'This is really embarrassing, but I don't know what to do with this.'" Turned out, she'd never handled cash in her life! Her parents had always given her an allowance by moving money from their bank account into hers electronically.
Obviously, there's been a trend in place for decades of there being a less and less need for "real" money -- bills in hand -- but I had no idea it had gotten this extreme with the twentysomethings.
This "cash" shock was on top of hearing in the past year or so that teenagers are no longer eager to learn how to drive a car. (HUH????) As long as services like Uber are available, who needs to be bothered with driving?
I well remember the first time I had a "deer in the headlights" moment with a generational switch, in fandom. It was early in the new century, when I was in Sentinel fandom. I told a new beta, who was in her early 20s, that I'd snail mail her my recent novel, so she wouldn't have the burden of printing out the 200 or so pages of the manuscript to mark it up with comments. She wrote back, amazed. "You mean people used to send manuscripts through the postal mail?" Uhhh... yeah. How do you think writers like Ernest Hemingway got their books into the hands of their publishers?
Actually, a few years before I was totally exasperated when I'd announced to Starsky & Hutch fandom that I was reprinting all my Heart and Soul fanzines, and the two standalone novels I'd self-published. But first, I needed to know how many to print, so I needed order commitments. Lots of people responded in email that they were interested, so I emailed them back with instructions on sending me their checks. As the deadline for receiving checks approached with just a few from old-time fans, I got back in touch with those I hadn't heard from. Were they still interested? Oh, yes, they were! But they were baffled as to how to pay me and didn't seem to think I was serious about my deadline. They were supposed to write out a check and put it in an envelope with my address on the front? It was like the idea of sending a check through the mail was completely foreign to them. And that was around the year 2000. I wondered how they functioned. How did they pay their bills?
Despite the sometimes jarring realizations of the attitudes of the younger generation(s), I'm very much pro-change, because ultimately all change is good. It's the natural way of things. I'm certainly all for the "dress casual" trend that is apparently the status quo in the modern corporation.
In my bookkeeping business, I've certainly enjoyed the incredible advances in technology that have allowed me to do the same amount of work as years past, in considerably less time. Based on comments from someone who attended a recent convention for accountants, even more astonishing changes are on the horizon.
Then I recently discovered Door Dash -- one of those services that delivers food ordered from real "sit down" restaurants. Boy was that a (expensive) treat -- having a restaurant-cooked thick, juicy steak, and enjoying it in my own home, with all the sides and condiments.
For that matter, the twentysomethings are said to have little interest in cooking. Between services like Door Dash, and subscription-based food delivery services, why cook when prepared food can be brought right to your doorstep?
The big dichotomy is that while the youngest adult generation doesn't like to put much effort into doing for themselves, they also don't have much money, overall. So, the dream of their own home isn't as interesting to them as the cheaper alternative of continuing to live with their parents. (Ugh.)
I use credit cards to buy things as much as the next person. Still, there is something that feels very rich about being able to have (and spend) cold, hard cash.
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