Quality of Life Changes: Comparing People Born in 1955 and 2007

I tried to compare the quality of life between a white female, Anita, born January 7, 1955, and a black male, Torres, born January 12, 2007, and it seemed I was comparing apples to oranges. In Anita's case, we are dealing with historical data. In Torres's case, we are dealing with the unknown future.

We do not know their social class, economic group, ethnic group, religious affiliations, health, educational opportunities or the specifics of their family dynamics. Anita could of had a miserable middle class life filled with oppression , alcoholism and great financial success as could Torres in the future. I am going on the premise of what there chances were/would be for a higher quality of life.

One feature of Torres's life that Anita would never have to contend with is the current technologies and commercialism that invade most children's lives today. In so many ways children are bombarded with ads selling them a product that would bring them happiness or a technology to help them to stay in touch with family and friends. It may sound good to have more advanced technology but when the technology brings with it social pressures to conform to an unreachable standard of wealth, happiness or beauty it can also bring a lot of stress and despair at our inability to reach those high goals.

Computers during Anita's childhood were only a part of sci-fi movies or Saturday morning cartoons. Computers brought us a great wealth of information sharing and inexpensive communication with family and friends. Computers also brought us on line predators of children. Though pedophiles have always been with us, or so it seems, technology has given them new portals to access child victims and the laws are not keeping up with technology. We need to keep our laws current because technology constantly morphs allowing predators to walk through loop holes in the law .