Kathryn Ross column: Is social media fueling questionable behavior in our national parks?

I'll admit it, I'm confused, but I guess that's because I'm a baby boomer. I'm confused by the names that have been given to the different generations. For example, the baby boomer generation covers a very broad spectrum of people ranging in age today from 59 to 77 years old. They were born following World War II from 1946 to 1964. That's a big range, bigger than all the rest of the designated generations.

According to Pew Research, the generations after 1964 are divided into approximately 15-year increments. So, from 1965 to 1980 the generation is called Generation X. Today those people are anywhere from 58-to 43-years old.

Millennials were born from 1981 to 1996 and range in age from 42 to 27. They are also known as Generation Y.

Generation Z is anyone born from 1997 to 2012 and they range in age from 26 to 11-years-old.

According to The Atlantic, the current generation of people being born is Generation Alpha. Generation Alpha ranges from 2012 to 2024.

Brittanica says these generations are divided by their life experience. Take, for example, the telephone. Baby Boomers talked on phones attached to the wall, and oftentimes there were other people on the line. Generation X had big bulky phones that they could carry with them. The Millennials had the first small flip phones. Generation Z had the first flat phones. Today I guess you can speak into your wristwatch — like Dick Tracey, for us old enough to remember the square-jawed, fedora wearing detective.

Here, I would just like to point out that the baby boomers have lived through all of it and use current technology or not, to our liking and advantage.

I looked into this generational divide because I wanted to blame the sudden wave of entitlement on a certain generation. But I guess that wouldn’t really be fair because according to Psychology Today, it happens at every age level. This feeling of entitlement is suspected to be part of the spoiled child syndrome where the child gets everything they want and suffers no consequences for bad behavior.

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I’d like to say that lets us baby boomers out of the mix because we suffered consequences for our actions, whether it was a smack on the behind when we disobeyed our parents, or tear gas in the face at a demonstration when we questioned our government and the authorities. But that’s not true because according to psychologists, the Sense of Entitlement is not generational.

Why am I dwelling on this? Because of recent incidents taking place in the National Park system. You have people chasing bear, and wondering why they get mauled. You have people petting baby deer resulting in the fawn being abandoned and eventually euthanized because it can no longer live in the wild. You have people stalking elk mothers and wondering why they are getting chased by the elk. You have people taking selfies with bison bulls and wondering why they are gored or flying through the air or both.

There was one person, probably more than one, who decided to walk up to a Yellowstone hot spring and stick her hand in it to see how hot it was. What, she couldn’t read the warning sign?

Where do these people come from and what makes them think they can do these kind of things and not be held responsible? Entitlement.

The hot spring in Yellowstone was about 172 degrees Fahrenheit. Water boils at around 212 degrees Fahrenheit. What person in their right mind would put their hand into a pan of near boiling water?

I don’t know if these kind of things are happening more often, or if it is because we are hearing about it more often because of the pandemic of social media. It seems people do many of these things for social media attention.

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There is a scene in a recent Tom Hanks movie, “A Man Called Otto,” where an elderly man stumbles from a platform onto railroad tracks. There are screams and everyone is holding up their cell phones taping it. Finally, Hanks’ character jumps down onto the tracks and gets the man to safety, while everyone else, except whoever offered Hanks a hand, taped it on their phones. Nothing is ever said in the movie about the lack of empathy, but it is clear that it is a social message from the director, because it wasn’t written in the book.

My fear is that this sense of enlightenment will result in the rest of us being penalized and that, for example, the wildest parts of the parks, the most uniquely beautiful parts will be placed off limits, due to the actions of a few morons who think everything is their right.

— Kathryn Ross writes a weekly column.

This article originally appeared on The Evening Tribune: Kathryn Ross: Social media fuels questionable behavior