What do people think of the youth aged 15-25?

www.phillymag.com/articles/feature-is-it-just-us-or-are-kids-getting-really-stupid/

I'm currently 22. I feel like I am not in touch with my generation. I don't fundamentally understand them.

I was having a conversation with a friend in Engineering today about people our age. We ended up depressing ourselves when thinking about our peers. Here are some points that were raised:

What does my generation value today? People in the 1950s and 1960s used to anticipate rocket and space shuttle launches. They used to WAIT - yearning for the time to come - for when they would see a space shuttle exit the atmosphere. Today, my peers only seem to WAIT for the next Justin Bieber, Jay-Z, Beyonce albums or the new episode of Game of Thrones, Spartacus etc. Few even know of the proposals to colonise the moon (www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01/23/russia_nasa_moon_station/) nor would they even view it as important. In their vernacular "Lolz, space people. thats gay"

You can see the effort people put in is minimal. I wanted to teach high-school mathematics recently but couldn't bring myself to it. South Africa has a very low standard of education for high school. Final year is called Matric. The hardest thing the learners have to do is differentiate a polynomial. A group of students approached me and asked if it was possible to learn maths but not read the textbook (300 A5 pages) or work out the solutions to the given exercises. They asked this because they feel that reading is a waste of time. I even made ActEd style solutions to the exercises of a few chapters in their textbook which explained each step of the problems and gave formal proofs but they were too lazy to attempt learning by themselves. I told them that only they can teach themselves concepts.

Even in Universities, people will do the bare minimum to pass because apparently learning is a waste of time - time that could be spent on Facebook engaging in meaningless chatter about the goings-on of their daily lives, drinking or looking for hook-ups. That is all talk seems to be centred on also.

Facebook, to me, is a blight. I do not have one and will never use the programme. It's not bad for older people but my peers lose so much time to this concept. Why does everyone need to keep up with 400 friends? I count that I have around 20 close friends whose lives I actually take interest in, the rest of the people are acquantences. I also don't feel the need to read up about the minute details of other people's lives. I like privacy and the mystery of people I meet not knowing what I am doing (studying for exams). When I do socialise, it is face to face in the form of conversation and discussion or varied topics. Night clubs are pointless for socialising - it's not really a good place for the exchange of ideas.

I challenge the older generation who read this post to watch some of what their kids are (hopefully not) watching. Look for shows such as "Jersey Shore" or "Keeping up with the Kardashians". Watch it carefully, internalise the information and try to write a 500 word essay on what important topics were presented on this show. After all, my generation places great importance on these series and attempts to emulate these behaviours, so there must be some overarching, deep and meaningful point to them? These shows are what is "cool". If your intelligence feels insulted afterwards, I apologise in advance.

I feel my generation is lucky to have our parents. The previous generation are possibly the last moral generation. Think of what new parents will be like?

What message is being sent to my generation by its leaders? By leaders, I mean the people who this generation respond to. These are rappers, pop-stars, reality TV stars and for the children, Disney.

The message that Rihanna and Beyonce put out? Teenage girls should be comfortable being scantily clad and should wear as little as possible because this gives them power over men. Aim to have as much sex with as many people as possible.

Jay-Z, Lil' Wayne? You don't have to work hard to become wealthy. You can talk to people any way you want. You should prioritise drinking, smoking, pursuit of materialistic goals and partying over increasing your human capital - life is just for fun after all, who needs to make a meaningful contribution to society? Again, aim to have sex with as many people as possible.

Teenagers and twentysomethings are way too controlled by their sex drive these days. It's all that is on their minds and quite frankly, it gets old.

Disney is possibly the worst of them all. Shows consistently portray back-chatting to parents, engaging in fruitless lazing around and that education is not that important. Mathematics especially takes a beating from these shows. I find that my niece and nephew aged x and x-2 (can't remember the value for x right now) completely shut off when I try to do some basic stuff with them. They say that maths is only for "nerds" and it's not cool. They hear this on Disney. They aren't even ten yet.

So, what will future parents be like? With both males and females having had sex internalised into their mindsets, what will be taught to the children? I mean, if a child asks the average person from my generation what was the point of their late teens and young twenties, what will be the answer? "Well son, I aimed to get wasted every day and to have as much sex as possible. I never took school seriously". Is that what we want to be acceptable in society?

A lot of it has to do with music these days. There is too much music being produced that is not conscious. 2 chainz gets paid 100000 dollars per verse. Google the lyrics of his songs, count the number of versus and tell me if what he said is really worth the money? But, this is supply and demand at its prime. It shows what my generation values the most. Why is what he says valuable? I give kudos to Nas, Mos Def, Common etc. Conscious rap is there, but it is ailing and probably in its death throes.

They are saying that Justin Bieber may even rival Michael Jackson in popularity. He is already bigger than Justin Timberlake. A whole generation of teenage girls are going to idolise him. In their minds, he is the only one for them. This will severely mess up how they form relationships. Ask yourselves: Does his music inspire thought? What is his message? Is this a good message?

In general, people are being trained to think less and follow more. I understand teenagers under 18 following fads but there are people who are 28 years old who dress and talk "gangster". That is to say, they wear saggy pants and their English is incomprehendable. This is frightening as these people should have matured by now.

All in all, my generation are the future leaders of the world and will be raising the next batch of world leaders. Maybe the children will have more sense and rebel against the stupidity of their parents? I hope so.

We should aim to stimulate critical thinking in todays youth and (for us as the youth) in our peers. We need to start challenging the concept of life. Ask people consistently "What are you doing with your life? What do you hope to achieve? What motivates you?". We need to make this generation feel uncomfortable - signal that there is a problem with the way society is today and that they should try to solve it. In essence, we are completely defined by our minds. Our "thought" is who we are. The quality of "thought" proposed to my generation needs to be reevaluated lest we aim for creating a world of people who live for decadence - an ancient Rome.

 

"Our young men have grown slothful. There is not a single honourable occupation for which they will toil night and day. They sing and dance and grow effeminate and curl their hair and learn womanish tricks of speech; They are as languid as women and deck themselves out with unbecoming ornaments. With out strength, without energy, they add nothing during life to the gifts with which they were born - then they complain of their lot."
~Seneca

"Times are bad: children no longer obey their parents, and
everyone is writing a book..."
~Cicero

 

Was that Seneca quote not kind of rampantly sexist? I'm assuming you more meant it in the spirit of young people are worse, not that men are as bad as women!!

G.A.L. I'd agree with a lot of what you said, but you can't go talking about how awful the popular music world is and not mention Nicki Minaj ("you a stupid hoe" etc..), unforgivable omission!!

I'd agree the standard of young people seems to be falling rapidly - I'm 23 so probably seeing a lot of the same stuff you are. I genuinely fear for the employers of some of the people I went to secondary school with..

Each generation is a product of their environment though, you can't exclusively blame the people themselves (if anything a lot of the blame lies with parents, spare the rod spoil the child - though I'm not necessarily saying a good beating is what people need, most just lack discipline). You are the average of the 5 people you're around most after all. The world we live in is a very different one to that of our parents. Instant gratification, value placed on who you know, not what you know, a lot of the time at least.

That said I have watched Jersey Shore, though I see it as a comedy featuring several really pathetic (yet somehow successful) people.

I also have facebook.. it has its uses. It's also an incredible distraction. Though I can live with that.. cost benefit and all that jazz.

As far as the sex obsession goes, that's pretty normal - humans are animals after all, procreation is the name of the game we're playing (at least until we get that indefinite life extension). Modern communication just opens up a whole lot more ways of getting some action. There's less stigma attached to casual hook-ups, whether or not that's a bad thing is not for me to say. It's just the sexual mores of this generation.

 

Life is becoming increasingly fast and exciting for the young who are frivolous. Fun it is, I always felt boring when my friends thot I wasn't interesting enough cause some of the things they value ddn't make sense to me. I knew nothing about the best movies (I dn't watch movies and other moving images) I ddn't worry much about night life and was generally more concerned about making something worthwhile out of my life and living an honorable life. I was more curious about the books I read at school and was fascinated about conversations relating to more important things than js beer and dance. Girls liked me but left me for the cooler guys who would throw them parties and drink and have sex with. Then I finished studying I'm wworking and the girls want me back. So to answer your question, people want fun at that age and then they want a little stability as they age. But the sad thing is they don't wanna work for either. There is no sense of pride in society among the young. They just want fun! So it's sad 2 be in the same boat as you, but js ignore them!

 

Just want to play devil's advocate on a few points, maybe spark some more debate:

"People in the 1950s and 1960s used to anticipate rocket and space shuttle launches. They used to WAIT - yearning for the time to come - for when they would see a space shuttle exit the atmosphere."

I'm pretty sure this isn't true. People didn't spend 20 years doing nothing but waiting for someone to fly into space. And, arguably, the 60s was the decade in which carefree casual sex was at its peak (do you think their parents thought they were stupid too?)

"Aim to have as much sex with as many people as possible"

Sure, why not? What's wrong with that? The whole basis of a human, really, is a bag of chemicals which is supposed to pass on the best of those chemicals to an offspring. It's natural to want sex, and lots of it. We weren't put on this planet to debate Plato and learn math, that just happens to be an interesting development.

I don't even totally agree that people are getting more stupid. High school and university exam results keep on improving over time, IQ scores are getting better and technology is improving. I just think that young people have a different way of expressing themselves today. Why do you even need to know who won X war in 1824, or what the capital of Namibia is, when the answers are all in the palm of your hand? May as well spend more time making social networks and having fun. Just because someone doesn't want to learn how to solve a polynomial doesn't mean they're stupid. I've never had to solve a polynomial in real life ever.

What you need to ask yourself is, why do you care so much? So people are getting more stupid, so what? If you want to dictate to people what they should learn and how they should live their lives, you are talking about the worst kind of society, one with no freedom. People should be free to choose their own paths and express themselves how they see fit, that's how society evolves over time. You may not agree with their paths, but as long as they act within the law, then it's not really up to you to say they're wrong.

 

There are a lot of factors that have come to play.

Firstly the industrial revolution which took fathers (and often mothers too) away from their children. Thus children no longer were apprenticed to their fathers and didn't develop a deep bond with them.

The introduction of more schooling post WWII that meant children no longer went out to work but spent years in education and so no longer made a valuable contribution to society.

Then the feminist revolution that devalued the mother staying at home so that they too went to work and so children no longer had the same meaningful contact with their children.

Coupled with this was the rise in television and advertising so the parents are no longer the principle ones passing on values - to quote the advertising guy from Nike (I think it was) when asked about how they influenced the next generation: "we don't influence them, we own them" - so they passed on their values which were buy more stuff if you want to be cool/grown-up.

Given the lack of being able to do anything with purpose, the guilt of parents who didn't see their children and wanted to do something and the incessant barrage of messaging the generation grew up with values that were no longer family/serving society but serving yourself.

I as a parent recognise this and so work actively against it (as it is a fight). Our children are all given meaningful jobs around the house and are taught you want to eat then you have to contribute (daddy earns the money to pay for the food and buys it in the shops, mummy cooks it, the youngest lays the table, next one up clears the table, the eldest washes up and the second eldest dries up). Pocket money increases in line with their responsibilities - the more you do the more you earn (and they see that mummy and daddy have their pocket money too). It is also set at a level which requires them to save for things and if they see something they like then we can set up a saving chart. Also we get the children involved in social work (our eldest, age 12, has been out to India with me to work in orphanages our 2nd eldest, age 8, helps with food/furniture distribution to those in need). This way they see that actually they are in a privileged position (rather than believing the advertising that focuses on those above them). Finally, we limit screen time and watch BBC which has no adverts or watch DVDs which have no adverts and then choose programs that support great family values eg Peppa pig, The Brady Bunch (or for the boys in particular - inspire being a hero helping others rather than self-worship - eg Thunderbirds, A-team, knight rider). Oh and finally, as parents we need to set the example - so they need to see us doing the things we require of them - otherwise why would they do it?

 

All right, good thoughts.

I'm not saying sex is a bad thing. I'm sure I have read a study which showed that there is a positive correlation between sex and longevity.

Of course, in South Africa, it does present a problem because of HIV prevalence. Many people have died from this and the impact it has on the workforce is significant. You could practice safe-sex but this is not risk-free sex as there is a non-zero probability of future loss. Lineages have already been wiped out - genetic code that is forever lost.

We are animals, this is correct. We have our urges that signal how to sustain ourselves individually and as a species e.g. Hunger and attraction.

However, we differ from animals in that we are sentient beings. We think through situations at a higher level than all of our other animal counterparts. So yes, we do need to have sexual relations but it shouldn't be our driving force. The fact that we can control our base urges is what makes our mindset different from an animal's mindset which only reacts to stimuli.

I exaggerated with the waiting part, yeah, I was just trying to make the point that the youth of previous decades highlighted points which were of more consequence than what the youths of today highlight as major events. This is probably because of the amount of information out there and what the media really focusses the youth towards in terms of interests.

The danger with having information at the palm of your hand is that you don't build up a knowledge base that helps to solve future problems. People tend to skim through masses of information today but don't read deeply into the information. They pick up disjoint facts on a variety of topics. To remember facts and procedures means that you have written it to your long-term memory. The brain physically changes and this is known to be healthy for it. Those new connections will thus be available to aid you in problem-solving. When you skim, only shallow pathways are formed and thus without reinforcement, memory recollection will be harder for these facts/procedures.

Equivalently, it is like getting a formula and values and substituting them in without knowing the proof for the fomula. Without doing the proof, you don't really understand the formula, you just accept that it works and apply it shallowly.

The main problem I have is with the quality of ideas that float around in conversations. Amongst my peers, you'll have conversations that will blow your mind a small proportion of the time and I'd say its not faculty/degree/education dependent. But the vast majority of times conversations are just fluff - saying things just to be heard. There's very little cohesion in the structure of conversations also. Too many ideas floating around at one time and people not really thinking about the concept presented before responding to it. Conversation just isn't stimulating enough for my generation to pick up on real problems, explore abstract ideas or make them truly believe in a cause.

Like Lo Fidelity All-Stars once said "I've got a revolution behind my eyes, we've got to get up and organise". In the words of the great Rage Against The Machine "It has to start somewhere! It has to start somehow! What better place than here? What better time time than now?".

Right now the world is looking pretty grim physically. With the upcoming food crisis (m.guardiannews.com/global-development/2012/oct/14/un-global-food-crisis-warning) and global warming and a whole lot of resource problems that will keep getting worse in future decades, we need my generation and future generations to really be on their toes. We don't really have the luxury of using resources as freely as the previous generations were able to. We need to find solutions but this will be nigh impossible if we don't make this generation feel motivated to do something about it. There are too many distractions already that occupy our time. This time could be used to say, try to ensure the continuing survival of our species. The youth just aren't willing to sacrifice their pleasure time for a cause anymore and will put in minimal work to achieve a mediocre life.

To Bobbathejobba
I keep laughing when I try to imagine an actuary teaching a child how to save. "Son, go and arrange a call option with one of your friends. You need exposure to the upside movements of the share price for your portfolio. And never forget that the efficient frontier is a straight line in the presence of a risk free asset in Expected Return-Standard Deviation space!"

The A-Team and Knight-Rider were awesome. But you should also expose them to MacGuyver and Star Trek: The Next Generation. I think morally, Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewert) is hard to beat.

 

Calum's response is excellent and tells you everything you need to know. I shouldn't need to expand on it, but I will. The situation you describe has probably always been prevalent. I'm one generation up from you, and my generation were and (probably still) are roughly 90% idiots, 10% with something meaningful to say. At ages 18 - 25 or so this can feel quite depressing, the 90% absolutely dominate and appear to represent the generation. The 10% don't feel like they are part of a 10%, more like a 0.1%, as they become disenfranchised from their peers, and so become less likely to encounter kindred spirits. As time passes though things change, rest assured that the future leaders, actuaries, scientists, etc will come from the quiet minority - the rest of the cohort just seem to fade into the background. I assume my generation's idiots are still out there, but it's years since I've had much exposure to them, and their footprint on popular culture is greatly diminished. Stay positive.

 

Honestly, those first century philosophers eh! I bet he thought women were only fit to be air stewardesses!