If you play your cards right_其他_趣味英语-查字典英语网

If you play your cards right

Car ownership promised popularity, independence from the overbearing ‘rents, and, if you played your cards right, a little back seat romance. Though I never owned a car myself, my closest friend slaved at three jobs to buy a ’66 Barracuda, and ended up having its logo tattooed on his bicep. Cars, simply put, were cool.

How times have changed. Among teenagers, driving to school in the family car now has far less cachet than showing up with the latest MP3 player, tablet, or smartphone. In the United States, less than a third of 16-year-olds now have drivers’ licenses, versus half in 1978, and across the continent, vehicle miles travelled, the most reliable measure of automobile dependence available, have been in free fall since the middle of last decade. Car sales are down 20 per cent from their peak in 2000, and the declines have been sharpest among the young, who, in recessionary times, can’t afford all the lures carmakers are so desperately dangling (“eco-friendly” hybrids, Bluetooth, satellite radio, and iPod docks). In poll after poll, the majority of young people say they would rather have Internet access or a data plan than a car of their own. En-masse, the largest demographic out there — the Millennials now outnumber the Boomers — are turning their backs on modernity’s ultimate consumer item: the private automobile.

When it comes to cars, the generational divide is profound, its roots deep. As author Alan Ehrenhalt observed in his book The Lost City, the children of the ’50s were educated in overcrowded classrooms and raised in tiny bungalows or open-plan ranch style homes, without much in the way of privacy.