“Blondie,” a slightly less up-with-the-times comic strip, took on the same subject Sunday by showing Dagwood’s coworkers extolling the benefits of new technology. Says a co-carpooler on the way back from work, “Did you know they have caller ID that flashes on your TV screen? Meanwhile, I get streaming videos on my cell phone!”

The fact is that Scott/Borgman (“Zits”) and Young (“Blondie”) decided to dedicate their weekly full-color, longer-than-usual strip to a depiction of behind-the-times characters watching in desperation as technology advances on their everyday lives. One can visualize the longtime reader of “Blondie,” as he cuts out the strip for his son and puts it at his son’s place at the table. The father sees in it an artistic expression of the technological frustration that he’s been dealing with increasingly for 20-plus years now and that his son seems to have somehow mastered.

The son comes down to breakfast, and he reads the comic. He gets it, more or less: Here’s this perplexed character who’s worried about the functionality of his microwave in the midst of a variety of newfangled gadgets that do lots of things that they weren’t really originally built to do. But instead of identifying with the perplexed protagonist, the son sees him as a caricature of his own father. His goofy, frantic response to technological change becomes a surprisingly apt characterization of the bizarre response of the older generation.

There is a fundamental gap here between the father and the son. It’s a gap that’s much talked about these days, especially in terms of the workplace, in books like “Bridging the Generation Gap” and “When Generations Collide.” We’re Generation Y, the Millenials, the Net Generation. They’re the Baby Boomers.

I think the most astute of us often consider these monikers irresponsible overgeneralizations, because for the most part they are. But it seems to me that, when you really look at it, there is a real, serious gap in communication, a place where language, or concepts, or views just don’t match up. It’s the place where older adults have other people “sign them up” for Facebook. It’s the place where they “boot up” their computers. No, we might respond. You just turn them on.

A similar thing happens in a recent article in The New York Times Book Review that describes the disparity in sex scenes between a raunchy earlier generation of authors represented by Philip Roth and John Updike and contemporary, much more sexually mild writers like David Foster Wallace and Dave Eggers. In it, Katie Roiphe describes a couple of characteristic scenes in “Infinite Jest” where males’ worried anticipation of the sexual act is more potent than the act itself. “Rather than an interest in conquest or consummation,” Roiphe concludes, “there is an obsessive fascination with trepidation, and with a convoluted, postfeminist second-guessing.”

Right. Except it is not a fascination with such attitudes that these books display, but a possession of them. Throughout the article, Roiphe speaks as if the new more self-conscious approach to sex in literature were some kind of hip fashion, a “cool” attitude toward sex. Her account is something like Borges explaining a planet where beings experience life in terms of temporal, rather than spatial, unity—the planet’s language has no nouns. Roiphe sees, intellectually, what is going on in contemporary novels’ sex scenes. But, like Borges, she doesn’t have the language or generational assumptions to really get inside it.

Wallace, on the other hand, says of Updike’s penis-with-a-thesaurus effect, “I’m not especially offended by this attitude; I mostly just don’t get it.” Forget that he was born six years before Roiphe. Instead, focus on the fundamental gap in communication: Roiphe and Wallace, our avatars for the Boomers and the Millenials, really fundamentally have no way to “get” one another.

Worst Boy Band Attempts

Although the greatest boy bands originated in the ’90s, they were still going strong in the early ’00s. BSB’s “Black and Blue” and 98 Degrees’ single “Give Me Just One Night” were released in 2000, and N*Sync’s “No Strings Attached” dropped in 2001. There were wars between BSB and N*Sync fans, and every girl friend group allocated the boy band members accordingly. This list has nothing to do with those bands. Instead, we are going to honor the failed attempts at trying to jump on a bandwagon that could only be filled by a select few.

5. Busted
Busted – Year 3000

The original Jonas Brothers. And by that, I mean Busted was huge in England (they were nominated for Record of the Year in 2003) but failed to find a place in the hearts of American 12 year-olds. Disney, then, took two of their songs (“Year 3000” and “What I Go To School For”), and told these three kids named Kevin, Nick and Joe to sing them. So, Busted, you are on this list for writing a mediocre tribute song to “Back to the Future” and spawning the Jonas Brothers.

4. B5

Wikipedia claims that B5 has been active 2002-present. But does playing at Six Flags theme parks really make you an active band? B5’s highlights include performing a version of  “Getc’ha Head In the Game” for the “High School Musical” soundtrack and being featured in Bow Wow’s song “Hydraulics.” But after peaking at Number 9 on the Radio Disney Charts with “U Got Me,” it all went down hill from there. Don’t worry, it was a very small hill.

3. Dream Street
Dream Street – It Happens Every Time

If you look at a picture of Dream Street now, you will be horrified at how young they were. And, if you listen to “It Happens Every Time,” only by looking at that picture will you be able to convince yourself that this was not sung by girls. The music video to this “hit” includes everything a boy band music video should: fireworks, requisite guy whose shirt is incapable of buttoning and a dance scene on a yacht. But without Dream Street, there would probably be no Jesse McCartney, and who wants to live in that world? (Aaron Carter. Aaron Carter probably wants to live in that world.)

2. O-Town
O-Town’s Liquid Dreams. Gross.

In 2000, O-Town became the product of the first ever “Making the Band.” It scared me that when I watched one of their videos last night, I was able to recall that one of them who was not Ashley Parker Angel was named Trevor. Managed by Lou Pearlman, pop-icon generator and creep extraordinaire, this band is probably the most recognizable on the list. But, seriously guys, “Liquid Dreams?” Let’s just name-drop every actress and singer who some people sort of consider pretty and then talk about how they give us wet dreams. Brilliant! Ashley Parker Angel deserves some credit, though, for his self-deprecating cameo on “Clone High.” That is the only reason they weren’t number one on this list.

1. LMNT
LMNT – Juliet

O-Town rejects: That is what LMNT was comprised of. This was the band that replaced Matthew Morrison (Mr. Schue of “Glee”) with someone named Jonas Perch. Well, Jonas Perch, looks like you won. LMNT picked their clever group name from entries to a Teen People Magazine contest. As it has nothing to do with their initials, I’m assuming it is a play on the world “element.” But I’m not sure they realize that. Their best-selling song, “It’s Just You,” can be found on the Kim Possible soundtrack. They also sang “Juliet,” and by sang, I mean spoke slowly with music playing the background. Their complex homage to Shakespeare includes lyrics like “I’ve tried to page you twice, but I see you roll your eyes.” I had forgotten about pagers. And LMNT. And I was okay with that.