The Van Winkle Project- Undoable with the rising generation

Reading about The Van Winkle Project will leave the readers asking themselves if they could participate in falling “asleep” for a whole year.  Our society today, on the contrary, has become so technologically dependent that it would be a miracle if a person from the current rising generation (anyone born from 1990-2014) could participate in an experiment like this.  The college professor, named Birdie, in his experiment, isolated himself from all news: weather, sports and entertainment.  Birdie’s main reason for participating in this is to cure, as he describes, his relationship to all of these things or his “news addiction”.  He states, “It’s not much of a stretch to say that I’m addicted to the news. Give me newspapers, magazines, reliable websites, and interesting television programming and I’m ready to devour them all” (About me page).  Birdie describes this news addiction as abnormal; however, with this new generation a news addiction is completely normal.  It is very rare to find someone who does not know about the new iPhone, latest football game or the newest dirt on a celebrity.   He describes it as an “insatiable curiosity,” but someone who does not have this is considered out of the norm.  Moreover, especially now a days, technology is advancing at such a rapid pace that someone will be at a huge disadvantage when the “wake up”.  To give an example, five years ago the first iPad came out and now the tablet a common household object.  This advancing is something no one wants to miss out on because of all the innovative products that are arriving faster than ever.  Therefore, with this new generation, an experiment like this would be a remarkable accomplishment.