3 DIFFERENT GENERATIONS, 3 VERY DIFFERENT VALUES

You know how we're always trying to compare yesterday's heavyweights and quarterbacks with today's? Problem is, you can't, because you're working with that proverbial apples-and-oranges thing. But maybe today's millions of blogs and twitters can help us compare, if not celebrities, perhaps cultures....!

Here's how this might work. Surf today's blogs and twitters, and you've got yourself some hard evidence as to what's on a lot of people's minds. By one survey, the top five topics with the 20-50 age group: Celebrity gossip, political gossip, connecting, hobbies and musical favorites. Fifty years ago there was no blogging/twittering to surf, so you have to check the major newspapers. Among the top five topics with the 20-50 age group: Vietnam, the sexual revolution, political correctness, NASA and musical favorites.

That was the Sixties Generation. Fifty years earlier, the Greatest Generation's 20-50 concerns had to do with: Finding a job, getting an education, earning enough to raise a family, surviving the war and musical favorites.

We at least know one thing here. Music always has a place in the minds and moods of the young. But what about arriving at some value judgments among the three generations? Can any be made? The nation's most prominent survey institute, the Pew Center, usually prefers not to quantify generational values. Only generational views. So some sociologists at the University of Iowa are planning to take up the slack.

They're noodling this question: Does the blogger/twitter generation have less significant matters on their mind, or is it mostly the ubiquitous technology that makes it easier for them to talk about the insignificant?

The study is not yet underway, but one thing seems likely. It's results won't be tweeted!