Extra! Extra! Read a Rather Conflicted and Convoluted Piece, Of Journalism

It's not like I had much say in the matter of when I was born, but excepting, perhaps, the physiological desirability of youth, I'm glad I grew up on the far side of the digital divide.

This isn't to say I have a disdain for modern technology. Quite to the contrary, I readily embrace the expediency, inter-connectivity and environmental benefits provided by the internet, e-mail, cell phones, text messaging, Facebook, blogging, mp3's, Netflix streaming, Google, online maps, YouTube, e-books, iPods, iPads, iPhones, Kindles, digital cameras and other ubiquitous technologies that have largely arisen in the last 10-20 years.

But while it might seem rather arbitrary to the younger folks, I feel fortunate to be old enough to recall when the primary means of acquiring music was the vinyl record, as the cover art (and even the sequencing of album sides) was as much a part of the artistry as the music itself. And shopping for records--at Record City on Oakton Street--was one of the cooler experiences of my youth.

I also can see genuine benefits to growing up when the cost of making a long-distance phone call was still something that had to be considered. When I was away at college or subsequently lived in L.A., I couldn't share my every thought, instantly, with everyone. Thus I looked forward to more substantive, periodic telephone conversations with family and friends. Hard for even me to believe, but I actually wrote people letters. (Couldn't help but think of this pertinent song, "We Used To Wait," by Arcade Fire; nowadays waiting to express yourself, even in a darkened theater, seems quite foreign to many.)

Believe me, I'm aware that every generation can shake its head at how much easier, or just different, new technologies have made things for younger generations. When I see old paintings--such as the one at right by Canaletto of Venice in the 18th century, where the buildings look as they do today but the people are dressed in wigs and tailcoats--sometimes I wonder how people back then filled their days, with no television, no phones, no computers, no cars (not that the latter have much need even today in Venice), etc.

But while realizing I may sound like a fossil, I genuinely believe there are detrimental effects that accompany the benefits provided by the advancements of the digital age. One of these is the erosion of cursory or associative learning due to the simplified processes of finding the specific information one is seeking.

Recently, one of my nephews told me he had to do a school report on Johann Sebastian Bach for his junior high class. This seemed pretty cool, as each student was to do a research report on a different creative genius, something I fully endorse in the name of cultural literacy (although I would have advocated the reports being read out loud, so each kid could learn something about 30 innovators, not just one, but this wasn't the case).

There still appears to be an academic snobbery about Wikipedia--oft shown to be just as reliable, if sometimes flawed, as other reference sources--but I was told the kids could use WorldBook.com and another online source. In today's times, I can't really argue with this methodology. But when I was a kid--oy vey!--to do a report on Bach would involve riding my bike a few miles though the streets of Skokie to the library (perhaps stopping at Record City or elsewhere) and then walking past numerous stacks (where maybe some books or magazines might catch my eye) to the reference section at the back of the second floor.

And then even in pinpointing the World Book "B" volume, I might notice articles on baseball or ballet or The Beatles or beetles or Barcelona or backgammon or James Baldwin or birds or bees or blues or bebop or something else that might distract me from learning about Bach, but also conceivably teach me much else in the process. (I was surprised to learn that World Book is still printed, but given Encyclopedia Britannica recently ending its print edition, who knows how much longer actual World Books will exist.)

Now certainly, all the topics I just mentioned can be readily found online, likely covered in much more depth than they were in World Book circa 1980. With Google Earth, one can take a virtual tour of Barcelona and see all its Gaudi splendors in 3D. Anyone interested in backgammon can go to Pogo.com or other game sites and play beginners to masters from around the globe. And any kid with access to Spotify can hear any song the Beatles ever recorded in a matter of seconds.

But accessibility is one thing; the prompting of curiosity is another. And that's the bridge that may not be as readily crossed, if my suspicions hold a grain of salt. Undoubtedly, a child's parents, teachers, friends and siblings play a major part in expanding the sphere of awareness--as they always have--but my guess is that most current high schoolers don't know all or even several of the following names:

Humphrey Bogart, Buddy Holly, Vincent Van Gogh, Shirley Temple, Alfred Hitchcock, Roberto Clemente, Janis Joplin, Scott Joplin, Abbott & Costello, Ginger Rogers, Joe Louis, James Dean

This isn't shocking, nor even particularly distressing, but I'm pretty certain I--and most of my contemporaries--knew all of the above by my mid-teens, despite their fame (and often full life-span) coming prior to my birth or conscious awareness.

So although there are--unequivocally--many advantages borne from modern technology, there are also a number of consequences, some less obvious or acutely related than others. I talked to a few people to gather some insights for this post and no sooner had one friend--Laurence Mesirow, who writes in depth about related topics on his Techno Turmoil blog--shared his opinion that "People aren't living in the world, they're living in their screen," another--Paolo Palazzi-Xirinachs--posted this on Facebook:

To me, there is a definite connection, although it's not as if meanness and thoughtless have only developed in the past 20 years. But I do perceive--at the risk of sounding like a "Get off my lawn!" grump--that...

Our electronic hallucinogens, interconnected isolation and (anti-)social networking-inspired delusions of self-importance have served to not only erode cultural literacy, but public decorum & decency as well.

Now I realize that the three of you who might still be reading this--abbreviated attention spans are yet another consequence of the digital age, along with the aforementioned delusions of self-importance--may be saying at this point, "Wait, I thought this was going to be a piece about journalism."

It is, albeit in my convoluted, roundabout way. And while I'm certain that my college journalism professors would have given this piece an "F" for so circuitously introducing the topic, I believe all of the above helps to explain why I continue to subscribe to a daily newspaper. Although the impetus for writing this piece was recently considering canceling my subscription to the Chicago Tribune.

As evidenced by getting some daily editions where the sections combine to be less than a centimeter thick, the Tribune is a shadow of what it used to be. And for the 4-day a week subscription I was getting since returning to live in Skokie in 2007, with a slated price jump I would soon be paying about 4 times what I did when I started.

Especially for someone still looking for my next employment opportunity, it was getting hard to justify paying so much for something that, to a certain extent, is replicated for free online. Certainly, there is no shortage of ways to get "news" these days.

But excepting the three days/week gap since fall 2007, I have never not gotten a daily newspaper. Growing up at my folks' house, also in Skokie, there was a Chicago Tribune every morning. When I went to college at NIU in DeKalb, I always subscribed to the Trib and when I moved to Los Angeles from 1990-1992, I subscribed to the Los Angeles Times. Since being back in the Chicago area since 1993, including the 12 years I lived in Glen Ellyn, I've always subscribed to the Tribune.

This is due to more than inertia. I have always loved journalism--I was on my high school newspaper, minored in Journalism at NIU, have written numerous professional press releases over the years and consider this blog a form of personal journalism--and have found reading a newspaper to be an essential part of my everyday life.

Though I never made my living directly from the news media, I very much did so indirectly as for many years I was a copywriter specializing in recruitment advertising. I can honestly say that my words have been published in every major newspaper in the country and many smaller ones as well.

One of my favorite newspaper
recruitment ads that I wrote

I certainly can see how the reduction in the size of the Tribune, the slow death march of newspapers in general--longstanding papers like the Rocky Mountain News and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer have either entirely ceased to exist or ended print production--and my own career struggles are interrelated.

When the internet became the primarily vehicle for help wanted ads (on CareerBuilder, Monster and elsewhere), as well as general classified ads (on Craigslist) and automotive advertising, newspapers had no choice but to shrink. And with the lower cost of internet recruitment advertising combined with drastically reduced hiring caused by the recession, those of us gifted in creatively promoting job openings through newspaper display ads, well, we're sitting here writing overwrought blog pieces about the decline of newspapers.

According to Clay Shirky, a Professor of New Media at NYU quoted in the recent documentary, Page One: Inside the New York Times:

"Reduction in ad revenue couple with competition for attention, both at the same time, had turned this [the decline of newspapers and rise of online news outlets] from a transition to a revolution."

But just as I've always believed, economics aside, that newspaper Help Wanted sections are a more commanding (and importantly visceral) venue for advertisers to place and job seekers to peruse job ads--similar to my encyclopedia example above, in a printed classified section you see a spectrum of ads, some of which may catch your eye due to how they're designed and/or worded, rather than simple listings of search results--I believe the news sections of print publications continue to offer something of vital importance.

Yes, reflecting the somewhat superfluous tastes of the public these days, the Tribune seems to include a surplus of celebrity news or fluff pieces, and they no longer employ any news or sports columnists that I care to read on a regular basis. But on any given day, in looking through the news, local, business, sports and arts sections, I find interesting articles to read that I never would have noticed online.

For example, in today's Chicago Tribune--which, ironically, I had to read at my mom's house since my paper was missing--I read the piece on front page (shown above) about the lag in Chicago tourism and also the one on how the FTC is cracking down on online ads designed to look like legitimate news stories.

Although I've never been a big reader of the editorial pages, I enjoyed the Commentary piece at left by syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts about Bruce Springsteen--"the new Bruce Springsteen album, "Wrecking Ball," captures more raw emotional truth about the state of the American dream than any politician ever could"--and in the Business section, I noted a small sidebar piece about how there will be new paperwork required for people collecting unemployment benefits.

As always, I took a look at the obituary stories--not the death notices, but the articles about notable people (usually non-celebs) who have passed. These are often great sources of interesting tidbits you don't readily find on the internet.

Whereas the Sports section was always the one I grabbed first in my younger days, now I don't spend much time with it, as the news here is the most readily duplicative of what can be easily seen on the net.

Whether on a weekday or a Sunday, the A&E section is often where I spend the most time; I like the Tribune's theater critic Chris Jones and movie critic Michael Phillips, and though some of the feature pieces can be rather fluffy, there's usually something worthwhile.

Today I liked reading Patrick Goldstein's piece about recent movie & TV flops (John Carter, Luck, Terra Nova) created by notable directors and a story about a longtime Chicago music event programmer, Michael Orlove, who is taking a position with the NEA in Washington.

My favorite piece today, though far from the most newsworthy, was the one shown at right. It's about how the Parents Television Council has its knickers in a bunch over the marked increase in the utterance of "penis" and "vagina" on broadcast television.

In the piece by T.L. Stanley, Tim Winter, President of the PTC, says, "It's a broader reflection of the progression of raunch." But Marty Kaplan, a USC entertainment and media professor, suggests, "Words that you can hear in any 10th grade biology class are probably the most benign end of the spectrum. I don't think there's a danger of growing up culturally malformed by hearing those words."

This last article was actually written for the L.A. Times, which is also owned by the Tribune Company. Online it is on LATimes.com, but not ChicagoTribune.com, so this is a case of something only readers of the print Tribune would come across.

All told, I spent less than 30 minutes reading everything I cared to in today's Chicago Tribune; that's about average for a daily edition. I find a bit more to read on Sunday, though there is also an increase of fluff. I acutely miss the old Chicago Tribune magazine that would have in-depth articles about a given cover subject. I also miss, though they've been gone for many years, Calvin & Hobbes and The Far Side; there are no comic strips I read anymore, though I know many value print papers for the daily dose of Doonesbury, Dick Tracy, Blondie, etc., as well as the crossword puzzle, Sudoku and Jumble.

It's been said--I believe in Page One--that newspapers are printed at a loss to the publishers. Even with higher subscription rates and news stand prices, it costs more in ink, paper, delivery services and personnel than publishers recoup from newspaper sales. The real revenues have always come from advertising, and although every newspaper has an online edition for which advertising is sold, according to the just published Pew Center State of the News Media study:

"In 2011, losses in print advertising dollars outpaced gains in digital revenue by a factor of roughly 10 to 1."

Consider this information found on the Newspaper Association of America website: In 2005, newspaper ad revenues across the United States, including both print and digital, were $49.4 billion, with only $1.5 billion coming from online advertising. By 2011, online advertising on newspaper sites had doubled, but still only amounted to $3.2 billion total. Print revenue has shrunk to less than half of what it was just 6 years prior, with $20.6 billion bringing total print + online newspaper advertising revenues to $23.9 billion, or roughly 52% less than 2005.

See full chart here

Understanding that newspaper publishing is a business despite news reporting often seeming like something of a civic service, with numbers like the above and circulation figures that show the Tribune selling about 42% fewer print copies than it did 20 years ago--that it still averages 425,000 in daily circulation is actually a bit surprising--it isn't hard to grasp the economic realities that have affected the quality of the product.

As a newspaper junkie, I like the Newseum in Washington, DC and regularly
check their online gallery of Today's Front Pages (The New York tabloids are
always fun.) Kiosko.net is a similar site and also offers a great iPhone app.

Like businesses in many sectors, news rooms across the world have experienced rampant layoffs. The Tribune Company is still under bankruptcy protection, somewhat due to financial choices beyond my comprehension, but undoubtedly caused in part due to the drop in advertising and circulation. In turn, the Chicago Tribune employs fewer columnists, foreign correspondents, reporters and photographers, and its quality is indisputably diluted.

So when, following periodic price increases over the years, they were going to charge me $208/yr. for the 4-day/wk. service I began at $52/yr., I was--despite very much wanting to support newspapers just on principal--intending to cancel my subscription. Though I understand why they had to charge more for an inferior product just to stay in business, I couldn't justify the increased expense.

But the Chicago Tribune made the mistake of messing with my mom first.

As a daily subscriber for at least the 45 years she has lived in Skokie, my mom noticed a recent doubling of her Tribune subscription rate. Resigned to canceling her subscription if the new rate was enforced, she Googled "Chicago Tribune Subscription Offers," entered her zip code and found--direct from the Tribune--an offer amounting to half of what she had been paying and a quarter of the new rate she'd been billed. So she called up the Tribune (1-800-TRIBUNE), they honored the rate shown online and thus, she cut her expenditure in half rather than seeing it doubled.

No wonder the company went bankrupt.

When I was on the verge of canceling, I did the same thing--over the phone, for me, they wouldn't honor the rate posted online, so I just signed up as a new customer and canceled my existing rollover--and am now back to getting the Chicago Tribune delivered to my door 7 days a week for less than I was paying for 4 days. (I could've saved even more with the 4-day price shown online, but I like getting the paper every day and to the extent I can, I like supporting the existence of print newspapers.)

Historic newspapers adorn the walls of the Magazine Museum,
4906 W. Oakton St. in Skokie, IL

As Bob Katzman, who used to run news stands in Chicago and now owns a back-issue magazine emporium in Skokie--I wrote about it here--says:

"I think it's sad that the generation of people who would tuck a newspaper under their arm and go read under a tree is nearing extinction.

"When I look at things on paper, things pass easier into my consciousness than when looking at a screen."

This is echoed by my friend Paolo Palazzi-Xirinachs, for whom a physical newspaper has been a lifelong constant and was once an editor for The Harvard Crimson:

"Newspapers foster a sense of community that electronic mediums don’t."

Although like me, Paolo predominantly gets his breaking news online these days, he also notes that "newspaper reporting is generally much more in depth and it backfills certain information gaps in other reporting."

So while we all want maximum value for our dollar, especially me especially now, and it's unlikely that print newspapers will ever again be what they once were, it's also unlikely that online news dissemination will ever sufficiently replace what I get from the daily paper.

And thus I--even if a bit conflicted about it--continue to get it. While hoping I can for years to come.

Latest "Mindset List" Seems Terribly Out of Touch

(Click image at left or here to see the full list compiled by Beloit College)

Yesterday, when I saw a news tidbit relaying that Beloit College has just released the newest edition of its annual Mindset List--this one covering tendencies and trends for the incoming Class of 2014--I was actually, relatively speaking, quite excited.

Although I haven't seen the college mindset list every year since Beloit's Ron Nief started it in 1998, at times that I have, I remember it having some shrewd insight about generational differences and societal changes over the years. Professionally as an advertising & marketing copywriter, I need to stay abreast about the interests, motivations, activities, aversions and lingo of people considerably younger than me, and maintain awareness that what might seem like a commonplace reference to me is ancient history, or completely unknown, to them.

Personally, although I don't have kids of my own and am not often around teenagers, I like to be aware of modern trends and demographic-fueled changes in music, movies and TV. I've also long been intrigued by the societal impact--both good and bad--of advanced technology and have been saddened by stories of schoolyard killings and teen suicides--combined with less overtly tragic effects of peer pressure, bullying and ostracism--to the point of wishing I had the means and background to conduct relevant high school presentations and counseling.

If nothing else, I figured the new Mindset List should provide good fodder for a blog post and perhaps some pithy Facebook updates. So even when the few list items cited in the news story I read didn't seem all that eye-opening, I still looked forward to going to the Beloit website and reading the entire list.

But when I found the time to do so, boy was I disappointed. The 2010 edition is just, as a teen might say, totally lame. It was a chore just to read through the entire list of 75, as many of the items seemed mundane and not particularly intriguing (and those were some of the better ones).

Perhaps open the full list in a separate tab and let's take a look at some of the fascinating, mindset-defining factoids are provided by the folks in Beloit:

11. John McEnroe has never played professional tennis. As Mac once famously exhorted, "You can't be serious!" First off, although he technically retired in 1992--the birth year for most of the incoming class of 2014--John stopped being an elite player around 1985. Secondly, is this something that is really shaping a teenager's mindset today? There are thousands of star athletes from before their lifespan; ironically McEnroe is one that remains semi-relevant today as he is a prominent tennis announcer. Plus his legendary stature is based as much on his temper as his victories; Borg, Connors and Lendl were all more accomplished contemporaries. Similarly, #29. Reggie Jackson has always been enshrined in Cooperstown. references a great athlete very relevant to a generation born at least 20 years earlier, but likely much not at all to kids today. I understand that one's mindset is somewhat shaped by what you're oblivious to (as per my last point far below), but these are rather tenuous and chronologically-deficient reference points in trying to fairly portray a sphere of knowledge for incoming freshmen.

31. The first home computer they probably touched was an Apple II or Mac II; they are now in a museum. I know of nobody who had an Apple-branded computer at home in 1992, or until at least 1998, when the iMac came out. In 1992, Bill Gates was already the richest man in the world due to the dominance of Windows. And even if factually correct, this wasn't enough of a watershed moment in evolution of computer technology to have affected anyone's mindset.

34. “Assisted Living” has always been replacing nursing homes, while Hospice has always offered an alternative to the hospital. Perhaps I haven't been around enough of today's teenagers to know that this is often a topic of schoolyard conversation.

40. There have always been HIV-positive athletes in the Olympics. I imagine this references Magic Johnson playing on the '92 Dream Team; I'm not personally aware of any more recent HIV-positive Olympic athletes, but not only is the inferred comparison to the way things were only relevant to one or two previous Olympic years, but in 1988, HIV-positive Greg Louganis won two gold medals. Hence, this one seems flawed in multiple ways.

54. The historic bridge at Mostar in Bosnia has always been a copy. Gee, I can't tell you how my mindset was affected during those formative years when the "what bridge, where?" was still the original. (Information on the bridge)

46. Nirvana is on the classic oldies station. I get it, Nirvana isn't current anymore, but I defy the listmakers to cite one oldies station that is playing "Smells Like Teen Spirit" or "Lithium" or "All Apologies" alongside "Tracks of My Tears" and "Hot Time Summer in the City." Even funnier, on last year's list they said "Britney Spears has always been heard on classic rock stations." Sure, because she's always been a staple on The Loop in Chicago.

While I realize that the word "Mindset" is used universally rather than in trying to surmise the likely thoughts of any one individual, it still seems unlikely that this listing actually illustrates much in the way of worldview or  perspective of new college freshman. I do like the first item on the list, for it does provide some real insight to how things have changed:

1. Few in the class know how to write in cursive.

But even that follows the statement that For these students, Benny Hill, Sam Kinison, Sam Walton, Bert Parks and Tony Perkins have always been dead. Bert Parks, really? I looked up celebrity deaths of 1992 and there really weren't many big ones, but don't Isaac Asimov and especially Robert Reed (Mr. Brady) have higher Q ratings?

Throughout the list, with a few worthwhile ones, all too many observations cite things that no one ever much cared about--let alone teens--and doesn't help me better know the Millennial generation. A few more lesser examples:

42. Potato has always ended in an “e” in New Jersey per vice presidential edict. A Dan Quayle reference completely lost on anyone born in 1992.

49. While they were babbling in strollers, there was already a female Poet Laureate of the United States. I offer my deepest admiration to anyone who can name her without looking it up. (Oops, I just did and found that Louise Bogan was the first female Poet Laureate, in 1945!!!!!)

50. Toothpaste tubes have always stood up on their caps. Hmm, truly a tectonic cultural shift. 

58. Beethoven has always been a good name for a dog. And Shakes a good one for a clown.

66. Galileo is forgiven and welcome back into the Roman Catholic Church. Sorry, but it's Copernicus who rocks my world.    

75. Honda has always been a major competitor on Memorial Day at Indianapolis. I can honestly say I've never know about participating Indy car manufacturers and still don't care. There are myriad better ways to convey globalism.

Instead of "College Mindset," I think the terrible 2010 list should simply be titled "Some things that happened in 1992."

I realize that in attempting to keep each year's list novel, the people who compile it likely feel a certain compunction to tie most of items directly to 1992. To include nuggets referencing the preponderance of texting and ubiquity of Facebook would not only be obvious and trite, but could apply to last year's list, next year's list, etc.

Rather than simply an amalgamation of things that didn't exist before one's birth year, I tend to think "mindset"--whether individual or collective--is primarily culled from things that occur after we develop an awareness of the world around us. Though I have no kids, I'm apt to believe that most 18-year-olds don't acutely remember or have much affinity for the way things were before Y2K, plus or minus a year or two in regards to certain things.

Yet even when the list becomes inconsistent and moves beyond 1992 milestones, it seems faulty in the timeline or relevance of certain inclusions. Like #6. Buffy has always been meeting her obligations to hunt down Lothos and the other blood-suckers at Hemery High. Buffy the Vampire Slayer came out as a movie in 1992, but is largely irrelevant to almost everyone, except for sparking the popular TV series. Which ran from 1997 to 2003, making it both too late to be factual and too early to be a cultural touchstone for kids of the assumed age (yes, I know it could be watched in reruns, on DVD, etc., but am doubtful a preponderance of 18-year-olds have done so).

Similarly, I'm stupefied by 13. Parents and teachers feared that Beavis and Butt-head might be the voice of a lost generation. B&B stopped running on MTV in 1997 and the movie came out in '96. Were pre-schoolers really watching, as part of a lost generation no less? Besides--and I'm elated that Beavis & Butt-head have been resurrected with new episodes planned for MTV--intelligent parents and teachers should have observed that B&B were brilliantly representing teenagers disenchanted by being spoon-fed a bunch of overcommercialized crap.

I'm also personally insulted by 10. Entering college this fall in a country where a quarter of young people under 18 have at least one immigrant parent, they aren't afraid of immigration...unless it involves "real" aliens from another planet. I entered college in 1986 and was never afraid of immigration and didn't know any classmates who were either. Besides, isn't it only "illegal" immigration that's controversial? I would think going back a few generations, an even higher percentage of children had immigrant parents.

Finally, in terms of berating the Beloit College Mindset List for the Class of 2014, I'm truly stumped by this one:

56. They may have assumed that parents’ complaints about Black Monday had to do with punk rockers from L.A., not Wall Street.

Using Wikipedia, Google, YouTube and AllMusic.com, I barely found one reference to an obscure band named Black Monday with only one EP to their credit, and no notable songs. I guarantee that no parents were complaining about them.

Speaking of complaining, I really shouldn't bitch unless I can do any better. Actually that's not true. Beloit College is a private institution charging $33,000 a year for undergraduate tuition that can dedicate a full year of research to the annual Mindset list, which gets it far more publicity than anything else (as illustrated by 850 news articles accessible through Google). I'm just one unemployed guy who was up until 3 in the morning. So even if my list isn't all that sensational in its own right, at least it points out what a better list should constitute.

Rather than 75 items, here are 20 things that in all likelihood unify the new members of the Class of 2014:

1. They don't realize that before it became a search engine, the most famous Yahoo was Serious.

2. They have likely never used a physical phone book or map.

3. They have never worried about the cost of making a long-distance phone call.

4. Most have probably never seen a baseball box score in a newspaper.

5. Seinfeld has only been consciously seen in reruns or on DVD.

6. They will never speak to an actual travel agent.

7. They probably cannot name all the members of their favorite band, let alone the Beatles, Led Zeppelin or U2

8. OJ Simpson is famous primarily for having been an alleged criminal.

9. Auctions have never ended with "Going once, Going twice...Sold!" only an online countdown.

10. They can't conceive of not knowing who's calling before picking up the phone.

11. Guitar Hero is a video game not Jimi, Eric or Eddie.

12. An encyclopedia has never sat upon a shelf in multiple volumes.

13. Quentin Tarantino is, to them, the most legendary living movie director.

14. Entertainment advice comes from friends and strangers, not professional critics.

15. Saturday morning cartoons--if ever even watched--have never included Bugs Bunny or Road Runner.

16. Many have never had to spend money for music they can listen to by choice at any time. 

17. Most have never opened a car door with a key, and many have never seen their parents do it.

18. They can't recall a world without online shopping.

19. If they know why Monica Lewinsky is famous, they probably haven't discussed it with their parents.

20. Reality shows have almost always been a regular part of their television viewing.

OK, one last thing. My guess is that most new college freshmen would be hard pressed to recognize 5 of the following 30 names. If so, I wouldn't be aghast nor hold it against them. But I am certain that I knew who all these people were prior to entering college, despite all of them becoming famous well before my lifetime, without having the luxury of the internet and to my recollection, not having learned about any of them in school classes.

Joe Louis              Bela Lugosi           Amelia Earhart
Janis Joplin           Scott Joplin           Dizzy Dean
John Wayne         Mae West              WC Fields
Jackie Gleason      George Martin        Leonard Bernstein
Orson Welles        Richard Rogers      Ginger Rogers
Lauren Bacall        Benny Goodman    Wilma Rudolph
Cary Grant           Margaret Mitchell    Vivien Leigh
Edward Hopper     Ian Fleming            Johann Sebastian Bach
Louis Armstrong   Stan Laurel            Jonas Salk
Sam Snead           Jack Benny            Frank Capra