ENTRY 42 GOOD OLD DAYS? REALLY?

I'm confused. There is nothing much new in that, but I've become aware of a major contradiction, and it has my brain in a knot.
Let us delve into the land of myth, nostalgia and wishful thinking.
Statement one: Back in my day, things were simple. Mama dried the laundry on a rope out back, and we walked to school. Life was so much better.
Statement two: These kids today have it so easy. They don't know how easy they have it. We walked ­ walked ­ to school, five miles, uphill both ways, and most days it was 110 degrees and there was five feet of snow. PlayStation? Ha. We had a stick ­ yeah, one stick for every kid on the block ­ and we used it to hit home runs, gun down Nazis and catch fish for dinner. Soft. These kids today are soft.
So which is it? Life was better then, or life is better now?
I'll say life is just different.
Sure, simpler always seems better ­ in the rear-view mirror. But are any of us willing to trade in ESPN, the Discovery Channel and 24/7 weather and go back to the days of three over-the-air local network affiliates and one fuzzy public station? I doubt it. If complexity means clicking and clicking the remote to sort out the dozens of viewing options, I can handle it.
Those same dozens of channels do their in-your-face part to throw so much of the world right into the laps of young people, and that's not so good. When I was young, none of us had much sense of our purpose in the great adventure as little consumers-in-training. Today, as you flip past Nickelodeon and other channels, it's hard to escape the idea that being a marketing target is just one of the facts of life.