Book Excerpt: The Life of Z: Understanding the Digital Pre-teen and Adolescent Generation by Debashish Sengupta

Title: The Life of Z: Understanding the Digital Pre-teen and Adolescent Generation

Author: Debashish Sengupta

Publisher: SAGE India (SAGE Select), 2020

Links: Sage Publishers 

A radio buzzing in a corner, the transmission is unclear, the signal seems to be wavering. I adjust the antennae that we have fixed near the roof of the room. The voice on the side becomes better. By this time, I had repeated this ritual several times. However, the crackling commentary of the cricket match on the other side made up for all the hard work and irritation. Both me and my younger brother are stuck with the radio for the whole day. Our parents are not at home. My mother wanted to call our grandma and therefore she went to the post office to book a trunk call. It would take few hours of waiting before her turn comes and she can speak over the government run public land phone, before returning home. We had the whole day to ourselves. It took longer than expected for our parents to come back home. They could not find a taxi near the post office and had to walk for nearly a kilometer before they found a transport. Poor mom, she had to cook the dinner after a long day. Meanwhile, India had lost the match. We spent the whole evening helping our mom in the kitchen. Another uneventful day had come to an end. But we had some excitement coming-up. Sunday was just a day away when we will catch another episode of ‘Star Trek’ and by that time we should also be getting letter from my cousin brother who was sharing our secret encryption code, as he had promised in his last letter. This was to prevent elders from finding out the contents of our letter. And yes, he was also sending some photos from his recent vacation.

When I tell this childhood story of mine to my son, after listening to me with rapt attention, he tells me that there are technical flaws in my story. What? Technical flaws… I find his expression amusing, he finds it even more. He asks me – ‘Why were you listening to the radio and not streaming live cricket over internet?; Why did your parents go to the post office to make a call and not use their mobile to make a video call?; Why did your parents not call an Uber instead of walking a long distance?; Why didn’t you order food over an app instead of letting your tired mom cook the dinner?; Why did you wait for Sunday to watch your favourite show and not stream it over Netflix?; And why were you waiting for days for a letter instead of using WhatsApp or Instagram?’