My Generation

[KotOD]

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Here's one thing that I've noticed in myself: I did most of my growing up in the 90's, which was basically a golden age technologically, economically, etc. It's very hard now for me to recognize that anything is wrong - and even harder to recognize that somebody should do something about it - with regards to the big picture, politics or whatever. I loved Bill Clinton back then (though now I've been infected with 2p2's ACism), and that affects me today, when I know I should hate a lot of the things the government does, but it's hard to muster up the energy to care, because it's not natural to me.

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I think this is in line with my "entitlement" answer. You want it fixed, but don't want to do it and you expect someone else to do it for you.

Most likely, you'll tell your mom and she'll become apoplectic that her unique and special child isn't getting his way.

[Kimbell175113]

KotOD,

Yup, and the funny thing is that this attitude has worked for me so far.

On the other hand, I have developed a weird sense of responsibility from it. Since I 'know' that the universe is always trying to work out in my favor, I feel like every failure is my fault. It couldn't have been an outside source, because those are benevolent and exist to serve. (Yeah, I know that doesn't make sense, but it's what pops up in my brain sometimes.)

[Blarg]

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It has become easier to get by reasonably happily without being a social person at all.

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Do you see this as a strictly bad thing, or are there some positives?

(I'm sorry for the short un-Lounge-like responses, but I'm trying to extract untainted information. I am one of these lazy anti-social kids, you see, and am trying to get across some discussion without injecting my own biases.)

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Seems like it could be both good and bad, but that in most situations it would be hard to tell if you were missing out on much until it was too late. At which point, you would have missed out on so many important aspects of growing up and gaining social skills, not to mention maybe having a lot of fun and becoming so much broader of a person. For me, in some places where I was growing up, there was so much racial tension that going outdoors and meeting people was pointless, as none of them wanted to talk to you anyway. Though they might want to kick your ass on sight. But that was a very odd situation that most people don't face. For the average person, I think getting out and meeting people makes much more sense and is a lot healthier.

That's another thing too -- there's physical as well as mental health. Being indoors all the time is the easiest road to being unhealthy. And without people around to be judgmental, or to want to get interested in you sexually, there's less drive to make yourself worthy of being judged positively.

If we were still a book culture, a kid growing up in the perfect coccoon would be far healthier. But since you can spend your whole day watching cable t.v. and playing video games now, and there's little social disapproval for doing so, I still think it's on the whole pretty bad for a kid and redounds to the discredit of the parents.

[Blarg]

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I'm 27, so I guess I'm part of your generation.

What really irks me about young people today is their total lack of any sort of attention span and their obsessions with electronic socializing. They'd rather text with their friends than simply pick up the phone and give em a call.

Our generation also seems to be hopeless followers, blindly influenced by "hip" media like MTV, which sells itself as some sort of counter-culture when in reality it's a corporate machine that influences kids to listen to bad music. And let's not even talk about Emo.

Also, I hate, hate, hate Internet shorthand and humor: Pwned, Rick-rolling, QFT, stupid YouTube virals, like that idiot college comic team Smosh, etc... But kids today love that crap. But get 'em to try to sit down and watch a WC Fields movie and they'd probably think it's stupid and old. It's bothersome they have no interest in anything beyond their self-contained world, which usually revolves around the Internet and terrible music.

For me, the discussions about various crap in NVG highlight the current twenty-something mindset, which craves something quick, digestable, and easily forgotten.

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This is a very good point. The attention span of this generation, and its easy cop-out of calling it ADD with anyone who could possibly be diagnosed with it, or would just like to claim it, is a real loss. When I went to college, a sort of meta-goal was expanding one's attention span in order to cope with the increased intellectual demands. Now it seems Americans are getting fairly good at multi-tasking, but often terrible at working in depth. And a narrow attention span is actually quite limiting when it comes to multi-tasking, too, because multi-tasking is about successful coordination of tasks and ideas, too, not just riffing through them real fast. Many young people I've worked with who pride themselves on their ability to multi-task actually do it quite poorly, because it's not enough to be able to do a whole lot of things poorly.

[Blarg]

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For me, the discussions about various crap in NVG highlight the current twenty-something mindset, which craves something quick, digestable, and easily forgotten.

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i feel like the point of this comment is one that older generations always have an always will make about younger ones.

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I don't think that's true. Back when people were facing youth that was different in some ways before the internet became huge and t.v. took over what passed for an intellectual life, people were still reading books and there were still things like clubs and bowling leagues and sports lots of adults played, like tennis and golf. Being different didn't so much used to mean being disconnected. It just meant you were connected to something else. People who liked swing and jazz and the Hippies and the me generation and the Reaganites still read books, often a lot of the same ones. And they got out of the house, and exposed to other people, in droves. Many of them very much wanted to learn about the world -- it seemed compelling, even vital, and extremely human.

There is a sense of self-containment, self-satisfaction, and lack of curiosity even in the very young with where they are at and where they are going that seems different this time out.

[Blarg]

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Also, I'm amused by how this generation loves their cell phone. As soon as they leave work to go to lunch they are on that cell phone. As soon as they leave work at exactly 5:00 (because they aren't staying late let me assure you) they are on their cell phone. Well who are you guys calling every day? I'm just really curious to know. It would drive my guy crazy if I called him every day like that. "Hi. Just calling to tell you that I'm leaving now." "Hi. Just calling to say that I'm turning onto Walnut St. now." [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

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LOL, yeah.

I think the rise of reality t.v., blogging, and the flood of entertainment programming, with its constant emphasis on celebrity culture, has given people a sort of weird way of looking at their lives as if they were stories, and interesting in and of themselves automatically. It's a strange combination of a meta-angle overlooking one's life with what should properly stand out in stark contrast to that kind of distance, an unapologetic utter triviality and a kind of spooky egocentrism.

[KotOD]

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Now it seems Americans are getting fairly good at multi-tasking, but often terrible at working in depth. And a narrow attention span is actually quite limiting when it comes to multi-tasking, too, because multi-tasking is about successful coordination of tasks and ideas, too, not just riffing through them real fast. Many young people I've worked with who pride themselves on their ability to multi-task actually do it quite poorly, because it's not enough to be able to do a whole lot of things poorly.

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This is a top-notch good observation. It's been extremely difficult to find early-20's employees that can effectively multi-task, OR employees that can work an idea or job from concept to completion. Combine this with the entitlement thing and I'd be happy to find an employee that could finish anything effectively and conclusively.

[Blarg]

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Okay, fashion is always stupid, new communication technologies are always the end of civility, new music is always artless trash. We all agree on that. What about the stuff that's specific to this particular (my) generation?

Here's one thing that I've noticed in myself: I did most of my growing up in the 90's, which was basically a golden age technologically, economically, etc. It's very hard now for me to recognize that anything is wrong - and even harder to recognize that somebody should do something about it - with regards to the big picture, politics or whatever. I loved Bill Clinton back then (though now I've been infected with 2p2's ACism), and that affects me today, when I know I should hate a lot of the things the government does, but it's hard to muster up the energy to care, because it's not natural to me.

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Letting yourself be swayed by particular clever or charismatic characters is a classic youth vulnerability. It can be hard to realize and thoroughly integrate that many charming people who seem in a number of ways worthy of admiration can in fact be a-holes and blockheads on any number of levels. We want our heroes and we want them whole! And we'd like to be similarly uniformly good or smart or accomplished ourselves. Unfortunately, the less scrutiny given most of the people we admire, the better, and you have to learn to pick and choose what is really admirable from the smelly gunk that even the most persuasive wallow in just like the more recognizably ordinary do. Just as we ourselves often benefit from being seen with rose-colored glasses, and certainly will as we age and accumulate mistakes and things that can't be taken back.

I hope something like 2+2 isn't sufficient to substantially reform one's politics. Because for all it's other virtues, it's still kind of a go-to place for douchebags and snarky over-privileged guys with little life experience.

[KilgoreTrout]

Instant gratification syndrome. I'm not much older (34) but man you guys want what you want right now. This impacts things like how you write, your understanding of politics, finance, etc. A 23 year old subordinate of mine just bought a $50K car. She makes just about that much in a year. At her review I asked her where she expects to be in five years. She said, "I think I'll be a Vice President by then." Possible, but highly unlikely. I've been in this field for 12 years and I'm still stuck in middle management (maybe less 2p2 time would help the ole performance).

I agree that your age group is highly susceptible to marketing. You don't "need" cell phones that take pictures or play music or games or have a PDA built in, yet you seem to think you do. Your peers jump on trendy bandwagons (not that my age group didn't, but we were more sceptical about being manipulated by corporations).

As far as positives, I think you guys are able to balance job/life far better than my peers do. You take a healthy perspective that your job is to pay the bills so you can do what you want.

You are very adapable to change. Technological savvy helps, but perhaps being among the first generations to grow up with both parents working and little supervision, you've had to figure more stuff out on your own.

You are also much more specialized. My parents had little say in what path I took in college. I started out pre med and switched majors twice after that. My nephew, a junior at Providence College, had parental supervision and input for everything from whether to take more math or humanities and even whether to play soccer or football. Even his extracurricular activities were geared to building an academic resume. I don't know if it's good or bad, but from an early age you are forced to realize that the choices you make have impact down the road.

[Kimbell175113]

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I hope something like 2+2 isn't sufficient to substantially reform one's politics. Because for all it's other virtues, it's still kind of a go-to place for douchebags and snarky over-privileged guys with little life experience.

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Oh, I'm young enough that whatever I believe now will probably bear little resemblance to the way I end up in adulthood. And since I'm too lazy and self-centered to vote, you don't have to worry about my views affecting you. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

I've got to say, parts of this thread have been somewhat painful to read, because there are a lot of negative aspects to my generation, and I know it. For one of you older folks: what did the previous generation say about you, and were they right?