When we acknowledge and help them capitalize on their abilities we can better support this determined generation to succeed!
Let’s meet them where they are! #getskratch
2
Thank you for this article! I am a parent to one of these kids and I have to say, they are awesome. I grew up in the 70s and was jaded by the time I was 12 with Watergate hearings on the TV and all the crazy stuff that went on in that decade. Remember the bumper sticker "Question Authority?" I have to say that these kids being parents of Gen X may have something to do with how they're turning out. They aren't the product of the selfish "me me me" boomers like the Millenials are. And they DEPISE Trump because they grew up with Obama and felt safe with him in office then along comes the "crazy drunk uncle." They don't like him and they don't trust him. Also, they are the most diverse generation so racism doesn't work for them. I applaud the Parkland students, they're media savvy and they are unshakeable and poised in the eye of attacks from jerks like Laura Ingraham because they have nothing to lose and are not in the pocket up some corporation or Koch Brother or Mercer or lobbyist. So happy how these kids are turning out and pushing back against the adults who have let them down. Can't wait until they can vote!
3
The basic tenet of this article is that we havent the foggiest idea about our teenagers. Treat them as individuals, love them as family, and who's got the clicker.
5
I don’t think so. The author is very Pollyanish ( a word that spell check doesn’t even recognize ).
Unfortunately, for better or worse, they will take over. By that time maybe they will have learned something. We will see.
I'm going to throw this out there - when this research was being done, did it include minority children? Urban children? Poor children of all races?
The generalization in this article give the impression that this is done inclusively but I'm skeptical.
Reading this, I'm assuming (perhaps incorrectly) that these are mostly White, middle class kids.
6
They are certainly better as kinesthetic learners and using their thumbs! But, with all the gadgets, I wonder if self analytical and critical thinking are being jeopardized! Additionally, it’s a slippery slope when one tries to come to an absolute conclusion on such a subject with so many variables!
2
This is a group of educated students - prepared from an AP United States Government and Politics program course that taught them critical inquiry. The day they were attacked by a shooter they were learning about the political tactics of special interests groups like the NRA. This is evidence of teaching students to think as much as it is evidence of brave young people willing to speak up.
13
Dear Baby Boomers, If you’re so smart, why have only 50% of you been saving for retirement? While you mock our social media habits and general connectedness to the world, there will come a time when my generation owns businesses that need to hire. Don’t bother dropping off a resume; find us on LinkedIn or shoot us a quick message on Instagram. While you’re at it, definitely don’t show up to an interview in pleated khakis or a bloused-out shirt; let’s just hop on FaceTime and discuss your ability to execute a geo-targeted multi-channel digital and social media campaign aimed at a racially-mixed, gender-fluid, environmentally-conscious audience. And what’s your experience generating content? We’re going to need something in the next 30 minutes. Can you pull that off? It’s 5:30 PM?No, sorry, we work on a 24 hour cycle now. Do some coke like you did in the 80’s and let’s get moving! / Love, Gen Z
11
LOVE THIS!!!!!!
2
Yet, you're not smart enough or mature enough to not use a standardized label for a group of people that exhibited a wide range of behaviors, preferences, lives & careers.
In fact, your mocking diatribe sounds similar to the sayings of the 1960's, "don't trust anyone over 30" and the like.
All working on a "24 hour cycle" (as hospitals, the police and other sectors have done for many years . . . ) means is none of your employees are smart & tough enough to start or join unions that would provide them with more reasonable working hours. So they could raise families if they choose, or travel for pleasure, or meditate or garden . . . Guess that's too passe for you. You like the 1920's version of life for many (except the rich), work until you drop & die, or until you become disabled and end up in gutter.
3
All I see is people staring at tiny screens, with no real social skills of any note. Interaction with others is very limited and critical thinking skills are non-existent so what can we expect from them..... Nothing and surely less when any type of electrical failure hits, which is bound to happen in a large way soon, they are doomed. Couldn't calculate, find their way around or any other normal 20th Century normalcy.
We grew up hopping on bikes off into the world without any fear of being kidnapped, molested or any of the other plights that these youth will probably encounter in one fashion or another..... Good Luck boys and girls....
It doesn't matter how affluent a person is when the bullets are flying, so this is not meant to demean the students at Parkland. However, they are in an affluent area and a high achieving school. They do have the advantage, tools and education that kids from a poor neighborhood may not have. They also know how to effectively reach the media. They have the means to mobilize and lobby that perhaps poorer students would not have.
2
The way it is---my other comment was not meant for you, but it ended up as a reply to your response. Apologies.
After teaching 12-year olds for the last 20 years in church (a church that encourages critical thinking and evolution of thought), I have observed that technology has drastically improved their maturity, knowledge, ability to socially interact, and self-confidence. Kids today are phenomenal, and by comparison, adults act like dinosaurs.
10
So, all those binge drinkers, the kids committing suicide, cutting themselves, etc. don't exist? No homeless kids not getting a good education, let alone having a safe, secure & stable home where you live? No kids who are living with their grandparents because their parents are addicted to meth?
In Oregon, a program was started in Beaverton, by the Ecumenical organizations, to work to connect highschools students who are doing pretty well in school with a "second home." Because so many students are homeless through no fault of their own (and sometimes, no fault of their parent, since they may just have one who's around). The organization seeks to match them with a family who they can live with. Lincoln county, Oregon, has started a similar program, it's matched maybe a few students with families so far. For one student, they're working on a finding a second family, because the first got evicted from their home, and, because it's a large family, hasn't been able to find a home they can afford rent on yet.
In many cities and towns in Oregon, the price of housing, the rents have increased at a rate higher then wages or salaries have. Very little affordable housing being built in western OR, just as is true of the rest of the US (federal funding decreased as of GOP Congress during the 2nd Clinton admin, and little has changed since).
Some of the kids I've met seem pretty smart, some don't. Just like when I was young.
Every generation seems to believe the next generation is lazy, ill prepared, etc. I’m a Gen X’er, but I can tell you from a lot of first-hand observation – the upcoming cohort of 18-year-olds is going to eat your lunch. They care about the environment; they are passionate about equality; they are connected; they are vocal; they are motivated; and they are driven to succeed. While Oklahoma and other red states continue to underpay teachers and short-circuit their school systems, certain areas of the country are about to release a spectacular crop of future leaders into the adult population. Trump and Republicans are worried about immigrants, but they’re looking the wrong direction.... they should be terrified of the next generation of soon-to-be voters.
25
"They care about the environment;" Guess that must be why so many of those I see are sitting in motor vehicles w/the engines running for up to 10 minutes while they check their phones. Or some just don't bother to pull over, they're so smart they can text & drive safely.
I'm really impressed by the intelligence of the young males driving jacked up pickups, w/loud pipe exhaust systems and boom boom sound systems. For sure, it's really intelligent to invest your money that way, to work hard at losing your hearing at an early age.
And last time I checked, it's still young males in the US who are still committing suicide (often using a gun)--although the rate for women between the ages of 15-24 has increased-- and dying/being injured in motor vehicle accidents, (i.e, reckless driving). https://www.cdc.gov/injury/images/lc-charts/leading_causes_of_death_age_...
Your generalization is unsupported by existing data.
More arbitrary "generation x,y,z" analysis. There is so little in all of these studies that substantiates claims like "today’s teenagers are better communicators than any previous generation." The only thing we know for sure is that they are more depressed and having less fun with their peers than their parents did. Now I can already hear all the parents saying "It's good they don't drink or have sex or don't go to parties." No it isn't. These kids are not as happy is the only thing among all the claims made in this article that is actually backed up by any data. The rest is a bunch of wishful thinking by child psychologists. I don't blame them for wishful thinking, it's easier than telling parents they are raising unhappy kids.
If you replaced "teenagers" in this headline to any other group of people -- Hispanics, the elderly, gay people, the disabled, immigrants, white children, black children -- people would be outraged. Teenagers are truly the last segment of our population that can be slandered with impunity. Why so retrograde, NYT?
3
Clearly, "teens" have a range of presentations.
The Parkland teens are incredibly impressive. Also today, over 20% of teens struggle w a serious mental illness. There are two diametrically-opposed tracks being a teen can take.
Social media is not the key factor here, but rather a preference for social media over in-real-life interactions... which is generated by difficulties with intimacy/ attachment, not by the existence of media (however addicting).
The Parkland teens seem like a very bonded, socially-skilled, warmly connected group of friends. Thus social media can be used in the most beneficial ways.
Depressed teens, alone in their rooms on Reddit, are there because they have trouble connecting with people -- social media merely fills the void.
Mental health issues among teens are due to lack of emotional self regulation born of lack of secure attachment, which sources to early childhood. Overuse of social median and bullying through media have co-arisen with a less securely attached cohort of kids.
We have to parent small children with secure attachment foremost in our minds. Being securely attached is more important than sleep training, flash cards, "social skills" or "cognitive skills." It's an OS, that helps you interact intimately with humans and be connected to them.
Professor Twenge asserts that there is a causal relationship between increasing social media usage and increasing suicide rates for youth. Correlation is a hint that there may be a relationship, but identifying the exact nature of that relationship requires more. One needs to examine all of the variables that may influence the relationship and look for evidence supporting or rejecting the influence of each.
Professor Twenge's study (Increases in Depressive Symptoms, Suicide-Related Outcomes, and Suicide Rates Among U.S. Adolescents After 2010 and Links to Increased New Media Screen Time) found that the Northeast region did not see an increase in adolescent suicide rates during the 2010-2015 study period (the study shows a 0.22% decline) and there is no data showing that adolescents in the Northeast had less new media screen time than the other three regions (Midwest, South, and West).
If there is a causal link between the increase in new media screen time and suicidality, how does one account for the lack of any increase in the suicide rates in the Northeast region? By potentially confusing associations with substantiation of causation, there is a risk of creating "Just-So Stories" -- internally consistent explanations that may not have a comfortable basis in fact.
Our children are not alright and they are deserving of more than a facile response that suggests the solution is a simple matter of limiting or eliminating time on social media.
1
As a psychologist who studies this (with a book coming out on the topic), my view is that teens are not falling off of a cliff into depression, anxiety, and despair. Every generation goes into some form of "moral panic" about the younger generation. Still, when you look at the aggregate data, there are some legitimate reasons to be concerned (but not in a panic). Depression, anxiety, and suicide rates are on the rise among young people. How much do smartphones & social media use play into this? It's difficult to tell because we can't conduct randomized, longitudinal studies comparing teens who use screens a lot to those who don't. But we all know that for every teen using social media to create a better world, there is another teen playing Fortnite for 25 hours/week or posting dozens of selfies to Instagram every day. The data suggest that overuse might have a negative impact on well-being. But moderate, mindful use of these technologies can indeed be beneficial. Like a lot of things in life, too much of a good thing isn't good.
2
My favorite part of this article was the reference to Mr. Hogg as acting with "disciplined calm", a young man who has to be bleeped repeatedly when speaking in interviews, who promotes as a quality his lack of patience with his parents' struggle to adapt to new technology and applies it to his political philosophy, and who calls people who disagree with him "child murderers" or supporters thereof, and then as soon as someone is critical of him in any way, falls back on the "I'm just a kid, why are you so mean to me" defense and a bunch of white knights come riding in to the rescue.
2
Not without the DNC Politburo, the Maoist public education system, and New York City's media Neo-Marxists who are supporting them. If only pro-lifers had such support.
1
As in every generation, some kids are gifted, some are losers, and most fall in the middle.
5
I have a kind, talented 17 year old. She invited me to attend a rally for public education. She is totally committed to helping create a better society and has zero tolerance for any sort of bigotry. She feels solidarity with the Parkland students. I am so impressed with this generation. They are creating real change, and I believe they may save America from the current nonsense.
9
Teenagers are always smarter and better than we think.
10
I do them to be a much more cynical, in-ward looking group than previous generations. Simply getting mad and stomping around doesn't create a movement or show the world something it hasn't seen before. What they're doing is simply not enough to affect any long term change.
You may be giving them a bit more credit than they're due..
I resist what some "experts" assert...that today's teens have a lower level of maturity. There is too much of our social scientists over-analyzing and getting lost in their own heads. The fact is right there: They are teenagers, no different from those of previous generations. Social media, cell phones, and the digital age have not made them more isolated, more introverted. On the contrary, even among the teens in my city's high schools, I am observing savvy and adult-like interactions. They put my Leave-It-To-Beaver generation to shame! We didn't know what to do with ourselves when we left mommy and daddy and went off to college...in the '60s. These kids today have a sophisticated and reality-based perception of life. I have more faith in their leadership than what we are enduring now under Trumpism.
3
They have social media and tons of $. Their rates of anxiety, suicide and social malformation are through the roof. A few are thriving in this weird atmosphere (mostly wealthy female) while most are suffering terribly (mostly young males).
Adulthood is all about compromise, not getting what you want or putting on a protest. We'll see in a few years how they do.
They know we are in deep trouble. It’s scary they’re aware. They know guns are bad, environments bad, Trump is bad so they’re smart about that.
6
"Trump is bad so they’re smart about that"
You are aware, I hope, that Terrump was elected by a minority of registered voters who voted in the 2016 election. Yes? He won the election because of gerrymandered voting districts and how the electoral college works.
You're also aware, I hope, that if Congress were not GOP & wimpy Dem dominated, Congress could stop Terrump in his tracks, passing good legislation, overriding vetoes, refusing to fund Terrump proposals, and redefining the powers of the Chief Executive, or, as some on the S.Ct are so fond of mention, returning to the Framers' intention, a reasonable interpretation thereof was a far weaker Chief Executive. Historically, it wasn't until post WWII, that the Chief Exec acquired or stole (depending on your point of view) some of the powers of today. Just to start, Congress could immediately stop approving any more military "actions", i.e, war that isn't called war, since war can only be declared by Congress.
So if these people really want to change the way things are going, they should be helping to choose Congressional candidates (if they're not old enough yet to run themselves) helping with fundraising, maybe working on starting a 3rd party (which the GOP started out as), etc.
1
The amount of information that the new generation has at their finger tip, will allow them to make better decisions. I have confidence on them.
4
They are just because they have a plethora of knowledge at their fingertips ie, Smart phones,iPads, tablets etc.
Our teens are pretty amazing. They are on 24/7, organize themselves, shoulder unbelievable pressure. Unfortunately they suffer from high levels of depression and anxiety because of the endless stress.
3
Teenagers have always been better and smarter than adults give them credit for. Just because adults are older doesn't necessarily make them smarter or wiser. I thought this when I was a teenager and think it now even though I am an old lady. The young have the chutzpah to feel invincible and are therefore more open to new ways, new concepts; more willing to take risks.
8
How much of that information is accurate? I see a substantial amount of inaccurate information online.
I have been working in K12 for 20 years and the main difference I have seen is that a student's ability to learn and their pathway is no longer limited by their local zip code or school.
Students today have to be "omni-didacts" (learning from everywhere) and the aamazing results are starting to show!
6
No difference then previous generations. It's all about life's walls of mature reality that tends to divert us from fighting just causes as easily as these wonderful young people can.
I'm proud of our American youth and wish them the best but they are no different then past youths in a just cause.
3
Well they are up against a lot so it’s hard to tell. Stephen Hawking said that the planet has maybe 90 years until it’s totally uninhabitable. They know that generally. The global warming inertia will not stop. It’s accelerating. Trump is devastating hope and moral d the US is not being the leader in environmental matters and in fact is deregulating every safeguard. EPA has Pruitt and our consumer affairs, banking and safeguards to protect us are evaporating with Mulvaney. Smarter?
No? Blocking it out yes. Hurricanes and natural disasters will hit the same places trying to rebuild. They have an idea.
4
Yes, the teens of today are much more talented than the news media portrays them to be. I only need to look at the academic accomplishments of my 19 year old daughter and her classmates to realize how well educated they are. Note to DeVos, all have gone to public school for their entire education.
8
I have two teenaged sons who are really smart, talented and hard-working. We expected that they'd go on to good colleges and they will, but it has been difficult. It's been a real challenge for the whole family to keep them from falling off the cliff of electronic entertainment. They grew up with Nintendo, Wii, Playstation and tv before the phones. We had to make a real effort to get them on hikes, to museum's, libraries and the beach. A lot of families don't bother and I worry that those kids will have trouble appreciating the world beyond their screens.
6
I am very impressed by these young people and believe they have great potential. I have no doubt they are capable and intelligent. Unfortunately, when David Hogg, a 4.1 grade point student, uses “I” when the correct usage would be “me”, it’s like fingernails on a chalkboard. Maybe it’s just me and language, itself, is changing. After all, they can’t write cursive either and that’s generally regarded as a natural consequence of technology (although I wonder how they write a “thank you” note.) Only time will tell what this generation is made of. I, for one, am pulling for them. Whatever the answer, I am pretty sure Mike Flynn Jr’s recent tweet that they haven’t been “slapped around enough” doesn’t contribute to the conversation.
6
They probably write a thank you note in print, like most folks have for decades.
David Hogg would probably google the problem and then calmly instruct you that “hypercorretion of I” is widespread and merely a surface form you need to get over. In other words, your comment sort of just makes the article’s point: the older generations might indeed be less critical and reflexive.
1
“Most” folks have not been printing thank you notes for “decades.”
It makes sense that this 9/11 gen will grow up fast in many ways in order to ensure their own survival. While they do not generally have to work on the farm, they do need to work the geographic and life landscape in ways that previous generations have not had to do. They need all the support we can give them so that they can face what challenges lie in front of them with courage, resilience compassion. Mean tweets are the very least of what they and their children will be up against.
5
Kids know everything because they can find it instantaneously. Kids also see almost everything online if they hunt. So when you know everything and see everything what’s left? The issue is that they substitute knowledge for experience. Why do things to learn when you can look it up? Why bother experiencing anything when you can see it, visualize it, and hear about it? What’s left?
Kids who are faced with fear or opposition and are willing to take all their knowledge and cockiness into action and experience give one room for hope. But many kids are still in their late 20’s bemoaning that the world is asking them to try things, do things, meet new people, and have skills rather than just give them a trophy for their amazing Google skills. 30 is the new 20 and the sooner they get a Light Phone 2 the better. For them. And us.
That being said, I am listening and will follow their lead if they do more than text with their heads down. There is lots of hope in their activism on guns. Let’s see their voter turnout in 2018. Breaking 50% would be a good start to showing you care about changing reality not just watching and reporting it on Twitter/Facebook/Instagram.
6
Imagine for the fun of it that you are addressing a class of teens today, knowing you would last five minutes. They're quiet, staring at you. You begin with:
'There is a Chinese saying that we are living exciting times. Two hundred years ago, it is possible that a teacher might also have told students that times were exciting because of The Industrial Revolution. One hundred years ago, students in class would have known that America was at war. Times have not changed but people change times, and the World is changing much faster. Let me know if I am going too fast for you'.
'Violence in America is escalating, and far more of our Young are taking drugs and using guns. Far more of our Young have the means to communicate without going to a payphone. Those of you, fortunate enough to have a smartphone or a tablet, are in possession of tools. Tools that can make you into drones if you do not not know how to use these. It is for this reason that a solid foundation and knowledge of history, geography and language are essential. A knowledge of a second language can also be a life-saver.
'The first project that you are being assigned is to find out whether you can achieve a week, one week only of good manners, where you show respect to your family, friends, peers and anyone you happen to meet. It may be difficult, it may be impossible, but it is a challenge, and you can still watch TV'.
'Learn what to bin or to keep; the difference between a brain and a mind'.
2
Starts out well enough, but then descends into stereotypical condescension with the fourth paragraph. "Can you show respect for a week?" insultingly presumes one doesn't already. Be worthy of respect, before demanding it.
6
"Be worthy of respect, before demanding it."
That goes both ways.
Smarter? No. Just not blind.
They see a nasty man, a name calling president who is out to destroy them before they have even started their working lives.
They see racism and tiki torch dis-enlightenment.
The see the NRA and supporters like Nugent reduced to nasty man name calling.
They see that the GOP is destroying their future....and ridiculing them and belittling them for speaking up and acting in their own best interests.
They need to keep speaking up or else they will work for slave wages for Trump and the Koch brothers.
17
These kids have revived hope.
12
The important thing is not that they're communicating, but what they're communicating.
3
I think the kids coming of age now are world-beaters. They're smart, they're well spoken, they are flying aces at social media, and they're not afraid. I for one welcome them to society with open arms. It'll be their world soon, and the kids are all right.
12
Kids growing up while Barak and Michelle Obama and their girls served as the First Family is all the context I need to explain the clear confident voices I am hearing challenge us.
22
I'm sure some are smarter and better than we think, but I work at a large community college, and I hate to say it, but overall they are very poorly educated, very unmotivated, and shockingly entitled. And they've gotten worse over the years.
10
"And it's getting worse over the years"
"The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise"
- Socrates (or certain Roman philosopers, depending on preferred attribution)
O mirror, mirror... your use of caricature is seemingly timeless!
4
Spot on ... they are doomed....
Gen Z looks at the mess the past generations have made of the world and America (we voted in a sexist narcissist who communicates via twitter) and are smart enough to realize they need to start taking matters into,their own hands.
13
Today's kids grow up communicating with people all over the world. And they often get to know a person's thoughts before they know anything about their identity, which may mean that are less likely to believe stereotypes.
They have grown up in hard economics times, under the worst economic recession in 60 years, two fifteen year wars, and a reduced likelihood they will be better off economically than their parents. But many of them truly want to make things better.
Instead of whining about their voting habits, Democrats would be wise to give them reasons to want to vote.
14
"which may mean that are less likely to believe stereotypes."
Even though they've grown up watching TV? Being marketed to & propagandized via TV & advertising almost since birth? I don't think so. Just different ones.
They are clearly more idealistic and less materialistic. I think they have come along just in time for about everything. I wish them the best of luck.
12
Less materialistic? Really?
7
I love today's crop of young people. But as we compare different age groups, let's avoid stereotyping and name calling. We are, all of us, products of the environment in which we grew up. If any of today's youth had been born in 1955 instead, they would have acted just like Boomers, for better and for worse. No one should have to apologize for their age.
23
It makes sense this generation is a good one. We as a society are getting better. We are becoming kinder, more egalitarian, better adapted to stress and conflict. Outright male aggression is on the way out. Bullying is no longer tolerated. Grown men no longer wear suits and display no feelings. No, they bathe their children and sing lullabies.
Sure there are plenty of downsides to technology. But also consider that these kids now have near immediate access to the world’s entire store of information the minute they learn to read. They grow up awash in knowledge and opinions, and learn to make verbal arguments as a matter of virtual survival. They work with machines that enhance their natural abilities.
Even more, parenting has gotten better. We don’t hit kids any more. Timeouts are given carefully. We educate our kids about media manipulation and advertising. We go to great lengths to provide them organic produce, and limit their processed food. We read more to them, get them in preschool, and apply the latest scientific data to their room layouts.
The kids are going to be great. The bad generations are the ones who put the current political system in place, the ones who sucked the planet entire wealth for themselves.
11
It's thinking like this that insures that the Chinese will be Eating your lunches for millennium to come.
"We don’t hit kids any more."
You're joking, right? No one in the US hits their kids anymore?
"In 2016, an estimated 1,750 children died from abuse and neglect in the United States.1 In 2016, Children’s Advocacy Centers around the country served more than 324,0002 child victims of abuse, providing victim advocacy and support to these children and their families.
Nearly 700,000 children are abused in the U.S annually. An estimated 676,000 children (unique incidents) were victims of abuse and neglect in 2015, the most recent year for which there is national data.
CPS protects more than 3 million children. Approximately 3.4 million children received an investigation or alternative response from child protective services agencies.
The youngest children were most vulnerable to maltreatment. Children in the first year of their life had the highest rate of victimization of 24.8 per 1,000 children in the national population of the same age." But it's true more children are being abuse by neglect then being bashed. Such progress. And looks who's doing most of it: "About four out of five abusers are the victims’ parents. A parent of the child victim was the perpetrator in 77.5% of substantiated cases of child maltreatment. "
You really need to talk to some of the DAs who prosecute child abuse cases. And then some of the kids who are walking the streets, who ran away because of abuse. Child abuse happens at all levels of US society.
Quite frankly I'm unimpressed. Just because you are known on social media, or may be media savvy, or have well funded enablers does not a notable intellect make. It seems some of the greatest minds in history came from a one room school house. This generation seems to be all sizzle and no steak. When challenged they resort to insults and name calling. Completely devoid of critical thinking I fail to see that they will be remembered past the next news cycle.
8
Yes, teens are smarter than we think as had been the case for every next generation since the dawn of time. That includes the generation of Boomers that I belong to. Yes, we elected Trump, screwed up the environment, allowed a proliferation of guns, etc., but we also ushered in the greatest era of social, economic, technological change the world has ever seen. The real question is can today's teens keep a firm grasp on their idealism, or like my generation, allow cynicism overtake their potential as it did ours.
7
Take away their electronic pacifiers and see how well they fare in the REAL world..........
8
Because I’m sure you would do so much better than them without your smartphone (you know, the very device you read this article on, are communicating with, likely do much of your email and work on).
Reliance on technology is not a mark of my generation, but rather the mark of today’s social and professional environment and expectations.
1
Did we collectively think they were terrible? That's what this headline somewhat absurdly suggests. I for one find teenagers refreshingly honest and very nearly incorruptible. Especially in contrast to our criminal president and his crony henchmen.
13
Based on my son who is a high school senior - I say a resounding YES. These kids are intelligent, capable of sophisticated analysis of the media and very knowledgeable of the world, especially those who've taken AP courses.
12
Please don’t bring AP courses into it. Has nothing to do with anything.
2
These kids are the future. I pray they will use the power of the voting booth. The last mass shooting woke them up and I hope they will not go back to sleeping. We have got to give them a chance. The last two generations have not voted it is time for an awakening
14
They are probably smart enough not to listen TED Nugent.
13
We've hired some kids this age to watch our small farm whenever we are away. They tend to be responsible, willing to do things your way, and excellent communicators. They don't seem to me to be as spaced out as we were at that age. We recently attended a small MFYL rally near us and one of the high schoolers hosting the event confronted a heckling troll with such courtesy and skill that they guy just left. I was really impressed. I see these elements, and it makes me think they are a great generation coming up. They seem to handling things quite well.
23
Oh for heaven's sake! They are children, adolescents and often not socially articulate! Doesn't make them a lost generation. Some are great, some are losers, just like every generation before them. I get so tired of the constant diss on these great, young humans. If they are the most anxious generation in memory, look at the curriculum in the schools and compare it to what you had (if you are over 40). Does social media affect this too? Dah! Look to yourself to answer YES! It's driving us all crazy. I have complete faith that these kids will play the hand they're dealt effectively.
12
Seventeen year-olds are not children. They may not have as much experience as people in their 30s, 40s, etc., but they know who they are, what they think and how they feel.
And really ... don’t all of us really just feel like old seventeen year-olds?
9
our young people may be great and maybe smart, but the problem is that most of them are ignorant be on belief because they are going through a public education system that is nothing short of a national disgrace. And ignorance is the greatest danger to the survival of a democratic society. Don’t we know it !
5
Was "be on" an autocorrect error for "beyond?" Or did you just learn something?
Point two is that exclamation marks do not compensate for weak arguments.
In reference to the use of the word ignorance, see above points and Google "glass houses."
Regards.
2
Most assuredly today’s kid are smarter, especially since the Republican’s stupid unhealthy vengeful anti-immigrant anti-gay policy. The president is a maniac and kids DO know that he doesn’t care about killing them off with guns. Mine know this. If yours don’t, speak to them for all our sakes. We have to get rid of this Nazi-style President before he blows up our country and maybe the world. We must march and we must get this insane unrealistic government out of office. Their 19th century world is Obsolete forever. And yes, even evolution is a fact! And kids know that too!
7
50 years ago I was the only person I knew of in a 2000 student HS to cut class and attend the Chicago Democratic Convention events. I didn't have a clue why I just had to be there. Once, I sat down with a circle of older people and when I knew their plan I walked away. They were going to be arrested. I saw plenty. I and others were photographed by the FBI. Chicago Police stormed in and hit heads. I was fast and ran. I went back for day 2. It was nastier. I learned a lot. I went back to school, nobody missed me! My parents never knew. 2 years later Kent State occurred. The next weekend my college was under Martial Law enforced by National Guard in barb wire covered Jeeps. The college shut down. Then as now I was certain it was the end of Democracy. I am very sad now. I never went back to College until I was 46. Good luck to all...
5
Products of the American education system: not informed about American history, how the country came to be, and why the constitution says what it does.
4
Nice try at deflection. Be proud.
The constitution doesn't say you can have AR 15s with bump stocks, quite the opposite. The SCOTUS did that, in a twisted interpretation of the constitution. It's not perfect, but it is what it is. And that kind of twisted logic costing 30,000 Americans their lives every year, not to mention countless wounded. America is producing a civil war's worth of victims EVERY generation.
But just maybe THIS generation will be the one to stop the perpetual Amercan civil war. My money's on them. Your time has passed.
1
Smarter? Not if we're talking about David Hogg and Emily Gonzalez.
3
I’m a 70 year old retired teacher who has the privilege, through continuous involvement in community theatre over the last 40 years, to have a range of friends from teenagers to octogenarians, spanning all the decades in between.
My observation is this; though culture, technology, and interests change, people don’t change much at all. The young today are just as bright, hard-working, and committed as any of their elders. They are also as shallow, self-absorbed, and unthinking.
Every generation has its leaders and followers, geniuses and idiots, saints and sinners.
We were all young once; we all become old; a disproportionate number of us become grumbling curmudgeons. Such is life.
29
Ask iGen a straightforward, simple question: “Have you read any good books lately?” You're not going to get an answer. Sorry, you can't be smart if you don't read. It's very much a lost generation.
10
My iGen and her circle of friends read good books all of the time. You're assumption is wrong.
1
I'd say "I don't read books" is a problem across the generations.
3
Interesting generalization, given the constant bashing on millennials, who are often the older siblings and friends/family of Gen Z, for getting liberal arts degrees and “wasting money” on philosophy degrees. Coming of age in that environment, and repeated social, financial, and political collapses, are you surprised that Gen Z is more focused on practicalities like immediately marketable degrees, especially in STEM and business fields, and ignoring soft studies?
That said, Gen Z does, in fact, read books. I know I do, as do a large portion of my cohort (those same STEM focused early college and high school kids I was talking about above)
- A (admittedly borderline) Gen Z member
1
2018 election will answer that question. The young people have a chance to change the political landscape in ways we never thought possible. Voting in the gerrymandered districts and swinging the election in favor of the Democrats will empower their generation. The democrats will have to deliver or face the consequences. Sensible gun control, national debt, student loan debt and healthcare are the some of the areas that should matter to this demographic and the republicans have shown they could careless about the future of this country or our young people.
7
Yesterday, a young man entered a shop in my Paris street, asking all present whether n°152 was up the street or down the street. As he finished uttering the question, he brandished his smartphone and said "look, it's really where I've got to go". I (and the other mature people in the store) were shocked by both his question and his waving of his smartphone as the depository of all truth. As far as the question is concerned, street numbers are well displayed in Paris streets in general and in mine in particular, and it would have taken him less tim to raise his eyes and look than to check his phone, enter the store and ask.
But addiction to smartphones on one hand and youth on the other are two different things. By which I mean that The Old shall ever complain about The Young, and be convinced the world is going to the dogs whereas of course it is merely that The Old have a foot in the grave, whereas The Young's foot is on the pedal.
Smartphone addiction seems to be a serious problem, but it lies not in some kink of The Young. It lies in the technology, and in the society which made this technology central and seductive.
9
I had the interesting experience a few summers ago, of having a highschool/college age woman, staring at a phone and then asking me which way to the beach (ocean). She did this while stopping & standing in the middle of a cross walk (I was walking away from her, down a sidewalk) with vehicles waiting for her to get out of the crosswalk.
Both of us were standing close enough to the top of the hill to be able to see the ocean. Had she been looked around & happened to look west. I pointed a finger that way. She & her friends were 4 pretty short (not even close to Manhattan city blocks) blocks from a small park with beach access.
That was just one person. I'm sure many others her age could easily find the Oregon coast and the nearest beach access.
I've worked as a substitute teacher for over 10 years in all grades from 1st to 12th and taught college classes as an adjunct professor. Most teenagers get separation anxiety if they can't have their cell phones in their hands every minute of the day. Getting them to do reading assignments is almost impossible. I and my colleagues are sick and tired of having to compete with cell phones for the student's attention during class time. Working in the elementary grades, where cell phones are still banned, is so much more satisfying than watching students texting when they should be learning more important things like math, science, reading, English, and Social Studies.
9
I participated in a large March For Our Lives event and, as a veteran of many marches and rallies for social causes dating back to the 1970's, I was struck by how difficult it was to make eye contact with the younger people. They simply would not match my gaze, smile, or say hello when I invited such an interpersonal exchange, whereas the older people did so reflexively. Such "mirroring" behavior is important to human beings as a fundamental step in developing empathy. Not coincidentally, empathy, along with several behaviors mentioned in the article, peaked in the 1990's, right about the time email became widespread and verbal and face to face conversations began to fall out of fashion. One study of this phenomenon estimates that modern college students display about 40% less empathy than cohorts from the pre-Y2K era (see http://ns.umich.edu/new/releases/7724-empathy-college-students-don-t-hav... ).
Today's students may be more adept at mass communication and media campaigns than their predecessors, but they are measurably less willing and capable to engage in face to face communications that primates, including humans, use to establish social consensus and widespread emotional connection to others of their species beyond their immediate families or social groups. It is that lack of empathy that has bubbled upon into the divisive, sniping politics mediated through screens, big and small, that today's high school students are confronting.
14
The other American generations alive were raised on burgers and fries and the cultural like: a highly processed, refined and heavily sweetened collective gut leading their instincts around. If teenagers consume any better in the whole foods, plant-based and fibrous categories, and they think twice before turning so quickly to Big Ad pharma meds, then as the Foo Fighters album goes: There Is Nothing Left To Lose.
All we can do is get out of the way and hope for the best.
4
So we are once again projecting our hopes and fears on the next generation to approach adulthood. The baby boomers were selfish and self centered but they stopped a war. No other generation ever did that. Later they ushered in an epoch of Wall street greed that has repeatedly devastated our economy. Perhaps each generation has its own views on the world and fights for their interests. The baby boomers saw the Vietnam War as a pointless slaughter of young men in their generation. Generation Z sees the mindless violence due to an insane lack of gun control as an existential threat. They also see the racist and homophobic policies of the current administration as an attack on a sizable group within their generation. Perhaps there are more similarities between generations than we think. Advances in technology have always brought changes in societal norms but they nave not fundamentally changed peoples' reactions to existential threats.
12
Some members of a population that's been artificially categorized as boomers demonstrated against the Vietnam War & sought to end it. It was members of Congress & a Chief Exec who finally did so. There were others of that SAME age category who were drafted or volunteered to fight in the Vietnam War. Some of them became protestors when they returned to the US, some did not.
SOME members of that artificial category worked on Wall St. Just as did people who were far older then them. Plenty of people did not. Perhaps you don't remember when the term "Rust Belt" started being used in the US? Or do you think that no members of the "Boomers" lived in the midwest? And then there was the 1987 stock market crash . . . . It sure hit some parts of NYC & the metro area hard.
To generalize about such a large group is not supported by the data.
Not difficult to be smarter than parents and grandparents that elected Trump.
41
I don't think they are smarter. They are better at pressing pretty pictures on a phone. Thats about it. Try holding a intellectual conversation with them. It's like speaking to a brick wall.
8
I feel the same way about my baby boomer colleagues.
9
Why do we need to generalize an entire generation? Can’t we just applaud these few highly intelligent, sensitive and brave individuals for what they are contributing to an important national discussion?
And Melania, can you step up your efforts to prevent cyber-bullying? These young people could really use your help.
13
Declining math and science scores? Declining Bar scores among law school grads, declining scores on graduate exams?. Having taught for 30 years, I’d beg to differ (but the point of view certainly serve’s the left’s narrative on guns). We admired “The Greatest Generation”; now we have the “I’m the Greatest Generation.” Baby boomers protested on campuses for the full menu of civil rights, the argument being that “if we are responsible enough to carry an assault rifle (in Vietnam), then we are responsible enough to have the right to vote at age 18”. These kids are that “because some of us aren’t responsible enough to possess firearms, you should pass laws that prevent us, or anybody else, from having them”. That’s an abdication of responsibility (something characteristic of their generation generally).
They are, however, expert consumers. They can bless out a waiter (or waitress), raise heck about their latte at starbucks, flame someone on the internet or social media that they don’t like, but they have difficultly doing anything productive, that requires sustained attention to details, or that might subject them to criticism. I was always amused by the end of course questionnaire at my school. “Was the teacher respectful? Was the teacher entertaining and engaging? Did the teacher understand your learning style?” Never did I see “Did you prepare for class” or “did you put forth the requisite effort for the class”. This is the generation of narcissim.
13
Please don't tell me how "we" think about "them." Hopefully, we think on our own and individually and they are evaluated individually on their own merits. Why is the NYT stereotyping readers and this teenage generation?
5
I have been thinking something that is rarely mentioned when we talk about this generation. They are the second generation to be born since the pill. For many their parents were born when abortion was legal and when opportunities for women improved. Not only was this generation wanted and saw mothers able to have meaningful lives but their parents were also wanted and raised by mothers who were less likely to be forced by society into roles they did not want.
15
Teens are as they’ve always been: Interesting, dynamic, honest, kind, stubborn, anxious, and loving. Technology has made them more isolated, and many are lost. But teens have always have had a certain lost-ness. Our future is in their busy, productive, and thoughtful hands. The world depends on them. We must encourage and empower them. Discounting them would be a disastrous maneuver.
19
The www encourages people to read & write.
I'm a genx cusper, & never learned to type until email & still find books tedious.
But forcing everyone to learn to type for the reward of instant email, & then with the advent of Wikipedia & gloriously hyperlinked in-depth info about everything anyone ever wanted to know, it's profoundly enlightening.
Leaving aside the whole immense genius of these machines & networks, this is finally the revenge of the nerds, permanently. Unlike my era, it's been cool to be smart for gen-z's entire lives. That's extremely cool.
What we're presented with every time we look at a screen, is the manifestation of unparalleled genius. We don't really think about how flash drives or touchscreens work or are manufactured, but look it up, it's as sci-fi as it seems.
Surrounded by that level of technical genius, even just the coding that goes on to run this stuff, there are people, a lot of people who are generally brilliant.
When the standard of daily activity continually relies on the work of technical genius unmatched at any time in history, figuring out that driving drunk or getting pregnant at 16 might not be the smartest choice seems a bit of a given.
7
All good points. Which you would make less of, if you read books, and if you knew what "genius" really means.
Coding does require much ingenuity.
But Dickens, Shakespeare, Proust, Flaubert, Tolstoï soar far, far above ingenuity.
I hope you do realize how much your post unwittingly plays into the hands of those who would belittle the illiterate young...
2
Nestor,
Indeed pithiness was not a requirement of we in the old email generation.
The texting generation is all pith, communicating in brief burps of texts, verbosity & writing seems totally obsolete for these kids.
The Romantic literary greats take a lot of work & commitment to get through for we in the TV generation, & the lifestyles that their stories are set so stifling pre 20th.
But the advent of uploadable video, where we can finally & easily see & hear performances of the old masters Bach, Mozart, Beethoven & Liszt, it's a whole other world from being fed pop.
It's the Millennial performers who are bringing this amazing music to this era via mostly self-produced youtube videos. The Baroque, Classical & Romantic are no longer old-people music.
This generation is very fortunate & enlightened to not only have brilliant millennials like Daniil Trifonov & Yuja Wang, but to be able to play them on any device for a well-deserved break from Beyonce & Bieber.
This to me seems like a New Enlightenment, if not genuinely genius.
3
In the 1920's, my grandfather, a physical chemist (who couldn't find work in his native country because of a poor economy & anti-Semitism) wrote an editorial regarding the risks of learning how to accomplish nuclear fission. He said that was likely to happen soon--but that humans continued to demonstrate a lack of ability to deal with moral and ethical implications of that power.
He was right.
What's changed? Humans haven't.
There are still girls getting pregnant at 16, sometimes because they were raped. Sometimes not. There are still plenty of younger people getting DUIIs, and many of them who do the equivalent--they drive distracted because they're texting, etc. How smart is that?
If that generation is so far ahead, then why is it they're so attached to equipment, phones, Ipads, et al, that are made of plastics (just about always petroleum based) and rare metals, which are generally mined under very poor conditions (which I don't notice anyone, of any age doing much to change), which they frequently replace, and while allegedly they're "recycled" has anyone of that generation made sure that's really true? See also ebook readers. Others claim this as well, all who do don't seem to be aware of what goes into manufacturing those phones, ebook readers, et al. No doubt some do.
Even if we succeed, the best we can hope for is a Democratic president and congress, which, as we've seen before, will not propose effective solutions to the nations problems. For example, Obamacare is certainly an improvement over what we had before, but falls far short of solving the medical crisis in America. The only and obvious solution wasn't even being discussed. And when the country realizes the Democrats offer no real solutions to our problems, they'll turn right back to the Republicans, who at least pretend they have solutions. We've seen it all before.
1
No of course they are not. And judging millions by the actions of a few is going to be wrong in any case.
6
People younger than 40 or so benefited from a sharp reduction in environmental lead because it was banned from use in paint and gasoline in the US in 1975. Exposure to lead causes particular kinds of damage in developing brains, including reduced intelligence and heightened aggression and fearfulness later in life. (Which political party does that remind us of?) There is reason to hope.
10
Many small fixed wing aircraft use avgas, which is leaded fuel. Even the FAA admits that that's the largest source of airborne lead now in the US. And the US and some individuals states (like Oregon) subsidize private aviation big time. Oregon, a so-called "green" state has a very large number of general aviation airports, many of them subsidized by taxpayer dollars, and further subsidized by federal grants to upgrade runways, navigation systems, etc. 50% of them probably would not exist if they weren't subsidized.
Which means continued exposure to lead via their exhaust systems is subsidized by taxpayers.
Watch these kids. I so want them to be strong and fulfilled. Yes, they are smart, good negotiators and in many cases outspoken. But they are still young, in development and in need of ever more education.
Love these kids and listen to them. Also, care for them and guide them with everything you know. I am optimistic but also know, too well, that without friends, family and community, they can be weak. Give them all you can.
15
Now just who is this ubiquitous "We" that keeps appearing headlines? The plural personal pronoun has no place in headlines.
American society has seen such phenomena before many times, a seasoned cadre of aged adults stereotyped into 'wasps', their ideas and modes of operation swept aside by younger coming of age folks. That happened in the 1960s and it happened in the 1940s by a nation whose ideas were formed during WWII.
"What we might have here is a generation that really defines itself by the markers of their childhoods” not a research revelation, it is generic statement of what happens to every generation.
What this article leaves out is the role of parents. Children are formed not just by experience and the role of communication-pedagogical technology and direct experience with the issues of the day. They are also formed into independent beings by what their parents taught them morally and socially and by their reactions to those teachings. It is multi-factorial and in someway unpredictable.
It was obvious in photos from the recent anti-gun violence demonstrations that child and teenagers were accompanied by massive numbers of adults. It's a movement based on ideas, outrage, to a certain degree by fear, but mainly by hope.
2
Has it occurred to you that for many children the Social media gateway is a path to learning.
That it becomes a way to perhaps water down some of the worst prejudice of the parent, most kids learn all the useless stuff before they are five.
3
I think the young today are different in part because parenting has changed. It’s not social media that’s made them different; it’s enlightened parenting. We have resources and research available to us that our parents did not. These young adults have been brought up believing in their worth. From that greatness comes.
9
Sure tell that to the many youth that can't even pass high school today!!!
8
"Are Today's Teenagers Smarter and Better than We Think?"
Based on working with several generations of teenagers, I would say no.
19
Oy, the word "entitled" bugs me. I am one of those people that families bring into their midst when they are in crisis. No, I am not a therapist. Therapy is, well, not healthy as far as the research shows. I am a specialist in healthy human development.
I focus on developing the skills of the troubled family. Oh, I am talking about you double income homeowner types with your Cadillac SUV's and oodles and boodles of stuff.
And here is the thing. The parents have entitlement issues. Entitlement, by definition means "the fact of having a right to something". Sure, maybe the child develops the attitude too. It absorbs the behavior by observing their child.
The number one reason these children are failing in our culture is a sense of entitlement by their parents.
What this entitlement looks like is pride, the false kind, the attitude that I resistant and shuts down in the face of an unmet need and a behavior that I driven by emotion instead of reason. An attitude that says "my child is to blame for going off the rails and I don't have to do learn or adapt my approach to how I create a family, even though evidence shows that I am failing at raising a successful child". Sloth is a big part of the problem too.
Yet, I keep doing the work. And I am not one to stick around where I am ineffective. Here is what keeps me going. The children. They are thirsty for knowledge. They calm down in the face of recognition and understanding. They jump at absorbing the communication skills.
6
Too broad a brush being used here about this generation. Seems that you forgot these school shooters sprung from this generation.
All this emotionalism, and no deep thinking — exactly what you expect from young people. No surprises here.
Smarter generation? I’m chuckling. You must not be doing any hiring. If you were, you’d realize how hard it is to find someone who can write a complete sentence.
17
Or use their brain for anything other than keeping a hat on. Sure there are some that are intelligent and can do many things, most can't.
5
Can we please stop trying to find a prescription for the psychology of entire generations. It is a completely fruitless enterprise and makes fools of those white the arrogance to try. Jean Twenge as quoted in the article is a perfect example of the problem. There is no universal affect of “social media”. What can we say about the psychology of the generation who grew up listening to radio? Nothing... what a ridiculous notion.
10
Please.
You like what they're saying, you impute wisdom to them; you don't, they're foolish. You're turning them into sock puppets for your pet causes, because - you know - they're kids, and anyone who criticizes them is "mean."
Well, guess what ... they ARE kids, and by & large, kids lack the wisdom which comes with experience.
The Parkland kids you're so busy lionizing? They're the same kids who bullied the shooter for YEARS before he shot up their school. Did they "make him do it"? Of course not . . . but given the obvious cruelty inherent in the latter, what makes them oracles on matters of "public policy"?
They are human beings - like the rest of us - and human nature has not changed. We are what we are, not better or worse than the generations before us.
15
"The Parkland kids you're so busy lionizing? They're the same kids who bullied the shooter for YEARS before he shot up their school."
Read up. "I Tried to Befriend Nikolas Cruz. He Still Killed My Friends." was an Op-Ed in the NY Times on the 27th. It directly contradicts your conclusions.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/27/opinion/nikolas-cruz-shooting-florida...
6
Actually, it was Nicolas Cruz who bullied the other kids for years. Learn the facts before you repeat the gun lobby talking points.
10
Look at that picture. Everyone is there. The picture says it all. They have surpassed our fences. They are everyone.
4
Or they are savvy kids and made sure that the people on that stage were hyper diverse. I suggest that you actually research the demographics of Parkland High School. They just made sure to not let too many white kids gets on that stage.
4
Yeah the photo in the article overrepresents the minorities at Parkland. According to US News, minorities are only 27% of the student body at the school, but the photo has them front and center. This is the kind of equality that deserves some criticism.
1
Great changes in the destiny of mankind can be effected only in the minds of little children.” — Sir Herbert Read
3
In Generation X the Moral Majority blamed the decline of youth on satanic hard rock music! Half the country was playing their vinyl records backwards! Today parents blame cell phones and video games. Whatever freaks out their parents is what gets blamed for the entitlement of teenagers. News flash- teenagers have always been "entitled"! Relax- It always goes away when they start earning a paycheck and they realize their money doesn't last till the next payday!
9
I have always been grateful that preisdent obama was president during my children's formative years.
27
They usually are.
1
Every new generation is feared and despised to some degree by the proceeding one. Baby boomers need to remember what their parents said about them and what they thought of the older generation. I hear people tagging kids as "Tide pod eaters". Amusing coming from the cocaine snorters, the Esctasy droppers, meth heads, LSD, valium, PCP, hash, rot-gut, moonshine, crack, uppers, downers, and on and on....generations. Elvis didn't ruin the world and neither will social media.
9
I would hope the Tide Pod eaters are too young to know what they're putting into their systems.
Most recreational drug users know exactly what they're doing, but often foolishly.
P.S. If you don't Social Media is having a huge negative impact on our youth, you don't work or deal with many of them.
Teenagers have already shown their meddle; not yet shackled to the constraints of defending the status quo needed to raise a family and have a stable job, they see no end to their hopes for a better society, more just and equitable, and certainly more peaceful... than the violence we adults have been dumping on them. Gun violence is one of them, responsible for mowing down innocent victims at an intolerable rate, converting freedom into license, to indiscriminate buy and use weapons of mass destruction. And further, our electing political prostitutes that only represent the N.R.A., instead of our interests, has been a disservice to our youth. Since we are unwilling, or unable, to lead, let students take the helm, ans show us their will, and courage, to do what's right (however difficult).
7
Because I am surrounded by young people - 3 children and 30 nieces and nephews - I have known all along that they are fantastic. Compare these kids to old, angry, complaining Fox News watchers The kids are all right!
19
Why are newspapers still running leads on generational clichés? I recall growing up under the labal of Generation X and being told all manner of nasty things, though I had straight A's, played sports, served in student government, and held full-time jobs over the summers. Now I live abroad where newspapers report news instead of pop sociology, and I can tell you their societies are the better for it.
8
When I was a teenager, it was 'young people with their video games and satanic heavy metal music are going to drive the country to the dogs.'
Not so much.
March for Our Lives was organized not by high school students but largely by Everytown for Gun Safety, an anti-gun lobbying organization funded by folks like Mike Bloomberg and other lefties. EGS has an annual budget of about $40 million, rather more than the combined allowances and after-school earnings of the Florida high school students. EGS has a lobbying (501(c)(4) division plus a non-profit 501(c)(3) division that receives low ratings for transparency and disclosure.
EGS prepared a very detailed "toolkit" to guide those participating in the DC and "sibling" marches; it is impossible that high school students could have developed these materials (see
https://everytown.org/documents/2018/03/march-for-our-lives-toolkit.pdf ).
The adult liaison to the Douglas high school students is Debbie Wasserman Shultz, current Democratic Representative (FL) and past head of the Democratic National Committee.
The students who appear on TV have been carefully selected and prepared; they are not chosen at random and they do not simply walk into a TV studio and start talking ad lib. Their appearances and presentations are part of a well-funded and extensive anti-gun effort.
I am not an NRA member and I believe in regulating the possession of guns. I also believe that those who oppose guns have the right to march in protest. But please don't believe that a nation-wide protest movement is being organized by a handful of high school students, however bright and inspiring they may be.
6
Did you really just call Bloomberg a "lefty"? Wow, I can't believe how far the Overton Window got shoved to the right, and how fast. Is Mitt Romney a "lefty" now, too?
7
Don't forget, over 40,000 of us everyday "Lefties" also made small contributions to the March for Our Live GoFundMe campaign.
3
@Mon Ray (clever alias!)
The fact that they could coordinate with an effective advocacy organization, recognize the need for articulate spokespersons and produce them, and use the curmudgeon-despised social media to coordinate their movement suggests to me that they are bright, focused, and pragmatic. They are much wiser than many lefties who neglect to make the sale of their ideas outside the bubble. They also look a lot smarter than the legion of rubes caught up in the NRA sucker net or the inept meat puppets like Ingraham at Fox.
1
What you’re seeing is the product of parenting that has finally grown beyond “because I said so.” Many of today’s teens and young adults have been encouraged to think about moral questions and the consequences of their actions since early childhood rather than just being told to obey. Guess what? All that thinking has produced some very bright results!
11
No empirical evidence that these kids are smart and informed. They simply scream and scream and demand changes, but they demonstrated no discernible ability to discover the policies which are effective and prove it with evidence.
These are ignorant, emotional, entitled children, who were persuaded by the puppet masters that it’s sufficient to repeat the slogans they learned at school.
This is cultural revolution, these are the mobs holding the “little red book” in their hands and shouting the party slogans without a minimum understanding of what they are doing.
3
These kids have a minimum understanding of what they are doing: they are shouting at adults who can vote and/or make policy to do something to stop gun violence. You can call them quixotic if you like, but to dismiss them as "ignorant, emotional, entitled children" betrays a lack of compassion at the least.
You fault them for being unable to formulate policy solutions. That's not their responsibility! It's yours and mine, as the putative adults in this society.
5
You might get a little emotional too, if you had to watch your friends bleeding out next to you.
3
Yep, all those Vietnam, invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq veterans, they feel the same way.
And yet, I notice that Terrump seems bent on using the military to invade at least one nation, without removing US troops from Afghanistan & Iraq. Whether it'll be Iran or North Korea, who knows? Sure can't count on Congress to stop him, by refusing to fund yet another disastrous military "action." He's so very willing, as was Bush II, Cheney, inc. before him, to make more people see their friends bleed to death or be blown apart in front of them.
It’s so refreshing to know
Especially when we have left them a mess, a messed up planet, dysfunctional politics, bulging deficit and a broken pension system they have to shoulder and pay for decades to come
4
In my experience the answers to both questions in the headline are resoundingly “Yes.”
I am a grandfather, who graduated high school in the 60s in the middle of our country’s Vietnam disaster and civil rights struggles then.
Now I am also an university student once again. As such I get to interact with undergraduate students who mostly, like some of my teachers, are far less than a third my age.
My grandchildren and my now fellow students, compared with those of my generation and my children’s, are for the most part far more savvy about the ways of the world, acutely aware of its glaring injustices, unwilling to accept the injustices, actively devising strategies to rid the world of them, and determined to pursue, if not already pursuing, those strategies. It is a joy to observe all this, and it gives me great hope for the future of our country and world.
Of course, and they are wise enough to know this too, there will be bumps in the road along the way.
But they are mostly confident, as am I, that in the near term our current disgusting, lying, racist, misogynist, corrupt president (and his cronies and family members) will be out by 2021 if not before and almost all gutless GOP officeholders who fail to repudiate him in word and deed will be out by 2021 or 2019.
8
Not the space suits that played trampoline on the moon but those costly safety suits and fine net covered bridges and buildings like mass produced Christo pieces slowly removing asbestos and lead. The lawyers extracting money from corporations making blissfully negligent stock holders account through currency units rather than penance beads or counting their hail hypocrisy. Cigarettes passed from idyllic billboards to symbols of evil stupidity and self abuse. The 'greatest' generation created vast wastelands of selfish segregated suburbs and fearfully sent their children to die in unjust wars while laughing at inane TV sitcoms and cheering sports as inebriated enablers of mind numbing violence.
Yes we have proven that mass media is far inferior to the soon to public streaming spotify digitalised communication of music and massive texting of ideas and humor while the need for violence based entertainment has become a world of wonderful fantasy. WOW. The upside of this most recent generation of Americans will move democracy forward here and everywhere making Eleanor Roosevelt and Jimmy Carter proud. This article's concept of adulthood will fall into the dustbin of history as those who rant about snowflakes removing their guns like removing natives from the land will either learn or leave. Have to love these students as they redefine the adulthood they gracefully and articulately become.
1
One current generational trend not mentioned in this article is the incidence of school shootings and massacres committed by members of “iGen” vs those of prior generations.
I find it a rather interesting omission, since it brought up several other issues like traffic fatalities, suicide rates, alcohol use, etc., in relation to internet and smartphone use.
Almost like the “elephant in the room”...
1
There’s a reason why “Dear Evan Hansen” scoops out your heart and asks you to balance the spoon while watching it.
Youth have the new social norm, bedrooms and privacy, and solitude with their electronics. But along with that, isn’t there loneliness? Isolation? Lack of real life adult and peer face to face intervention and engagement?
I don’t know about any other grandparents, but I fear what’s going on with our youth. I marched in DC alongside them and with them, supporting them, because I love them, but fear for them in a number of ways. Who would think it would be fear of them getting murdered by guns for just getting up and going to school in the morning?
But I also fear they will have a very hard time in relationships, because actual talking instead of electronic manipulation may be required. I fear for them having babies and children of their own because infants and toddlers need real touch and real nurturing, not electronics. I fear for them in future workplaces because they might miss out on fun getting to actually know and like coworkers because it takes back and forth real energy and initiative to be outwardly kind and personally engaging to accomplish things together.
Call me a fuddy-duddy grandma, a silly old MIMA. I’m worried. I feel like we’re losing the smart, moving, potentially energetic generation before our very eyes because society has given in to gadgets instead of humanness. (is that a word? a gadget would know)
20
I believe your fears are misplaced. I have worked with high school and middle school students for many years. It is hard to keep them from being social at school. They also are engaged in group work in class, are involved in clubs and other extra-curricular activities, and involved in church or community activities. Believe me, they chatter away just like children before them. I see far more aduits with their faces in their phones than young people.
3
Look at the picture. I'm with you, but it seems to me this bunch are walking, talking, doing stuff, supporting each other ...
Tapscott believes this generation has produced better communicators? My experience in the past 5 or 6 years in particular with numerous college interns and hires is a gross over-reliance on email, text, et al to communicate. 20-somethings regularly do not share w co-workers where they are on a project or assignment, avoid direct communication with clients, vendors and the public and have little understanding or intuitiveness on processes (how things get done, their role in getting things done).
They are by no means unintelligent - very bright, in fact. They are unprepared. The best college interns/hires we have had either worked thru high school or college (so understand the workplace) and/or have parents who are either self-employed or own a business.
The current young spokespeople the author employs as examples of young communicators are not actually effective. They communicate ideals and vague concepts with no suggested plan or concrete solutions nor demands. They exhibit a self-righteousness and condescension, shut down opposing or unlike ideas. They think and communicate in terms of how things should be because they're young and immature - inexperienced minds do that. The longevity of their message is not promising - step 2 is always how do we get there.
6
I’m a baby boomer and have told my adult kids that I grew up in simpler times, not better just simpler. It wasn’t that horrible things weren’t happening but many of it just wasn’t reported. The story I like to tell them is being in hs not knowing about what a gay person was since it was never discussed. I knew boys that we would say we “light in their loafers” but I had no idea what that meant. In my generation gay men got married because they were expected to. I know my kids generation, they are in their 30s, are more accepting of different races, nationalities, religions and sexual orientation because growing up that was all around them and not a big deal. The Parkland hs generation don’t need to watch tv or read the newspapers to get their news it’s on their phones. I think they’re more tapped into what’s going on around them and the gun violence phenomena is something they want to fix especially when they are usually the targets. I say good on them and I hope they can persevere and be successful.
8
This generation of kids may be better because they are wanted and have been heavily invested in- not just financially but also in time. The hours spent in driving to activities, coaching their sports, tutoring and getting them professional tutors, school volunteering by their parents have produced a well-educated, polished populace, at least in middle to upper class communities. Most families have between 1 to 3 kids and the resources lavished upon these kids are unprecedented. Also, we parents now actually listen to and respect our kids unlike the generation we grew up in.
As Maya Angelou stated, there is nothing more enriching to a child than "to walk into a room and see an adults eyes light up"
6
I am a parent of three young children (under 5) . I have had this debate in my head since my kids began to play with my smart phone. is it good ? is it bad ? I don't want them to be socially awkward staring at a screen but I also don't want them to be behind on tech so I go with moderation. As far as teens today, I taught HS for three years and I have several cousins in HS right now . I've agreed with many of the positive comments but I do want to add a "but" lol. Young people today are masters of image. They spend considerable energy on their social media imagery , whether it be YouTube, Instagram etc. They are an entire generation "made for TV". They are excellent speakers and extremely comfortable in front of a camera. I have serious reservations about their face to face authentic social interactions. Watch the black mirror episode "the nosedive". a dystopian glimpse at a society obsessed with imagery and social media. Again, I only presented this argument because I read about 20 positive comments in a row and I feel like there's two sides to the story.
5
Adeptness at interpersonal interaction, that is face-to-face interaction, will make your kids rock stars in the workplace when they get older. Push them to do it now. Push them to attempt direct face-to-face resolution of differences with teachers, coaches, friends. Do not do it for them. So few have the skill and confidence to work with people in this way, your kids will be stand outs in school, work and life.
4
It's a recent thing that Americans attache labels to generations. I'm not sure it's a good thing.
No generation is better or smarter than another. They just live in a different times.
I too have been energized and inspired by the Parkland kids. I do worry for them about the effects of instant fame - both national and international. Especially for the leaders, David Hogg and Emma Gonzalez.
Fame, as many celebrity's know, is a two edged sword. It can lead to loss of perspective on one's importance.
It's odd to hear people say education is so much better in a time when there is a teacher shortage and severe financial cut backs on education. Also the lack of emphasis on the humanities and the ascendant importance of utilitarian subjects is disturbing.
Not everybody is getting a great education , especially in poorer communities.
Anyway I love these kids - and the effects they have had on other kids. I wish them well and may their cause be continued.
9
If these young adults are the future, where do I sign up? i've not been more impressed by a generation, including my own.
14
Whether smarter or better, these kids are strikingly savvy, comfortable and articulate. Genuinely engaged, strong sense of right and wrong.
Not the age-old self-conscious/aloof teenage stereotype.
Access to so much information at their fingertips. Supportive parenting? Talented teachers? And it has to be something about overall curriculum at top level. Such strong public speaking abilities beyond what I've ever encountered or recall.
16
Are Today’s Teenagers Smarter and Better Than We Think?
No. Why do I say No? Because I’ve taught teenagers for the last 29 years and they are smarter now than anytime in my past teaching. I know how smart they are from firsthand experience. My classes got harder and more demanding over the years and my students grades kept getting better - especially over the last 3-4 years. I left teaching knowing or country is going to be left in good hands. What a pleasure it was to teach these last few years with kids who not only ‘got it’ but also showed honest appreciation for the work I did for them. Thank you younger generation! You made extra proud to have taught in public education. Cheers!
19
Re: Dr. Mogel spoke with diverse kids from various regions and walks of life, but found herself consistently impressed by their thoughtfulness, how much they liked their parents, and how much they cared about the world around them.
As the 61-year old parent of an only child who is 19 years old, I think I might have a smidgen of insight about these teens who are about to become adults.
As the parent of an only child, I have relished my time getting to know her friends. In my experience (only my experience), this describes them spot-on, They are kind, compassionate, considerate, and careful. For example, would they drive drunk? No, I don't think so. Would they have unprotected sex? Again, no. But there is more. I am taking liberties, but here goes. Understandably, they are incredibly concerned about the future. I would say their greatest concern (among issues like school shootings. which understandably takes them over the edge) is whether they will ever be able to make enough money to live independently. So that informs their approach to their parents and support system. They are grateful to have it and want to contribute. They are pragmatists. They don't take sides. So please believe people like David Hogg who say they are not parison. Not democrat or republican. They have watched us and they are not eager to join an us or them debate. They want solutions.
19
There are 2 alarming aspects to Hogg and cohorts. One is their disparagement and dismissiveness to any - any - opposing view. It has unquestionably generated thuggery within their ranks and creates sanctimony and unsupported self-righteousness. Second is their collective ignorance of the Constitution, the functions of police and government - the things that in fact provide a platform for their ideas that they are willing to deny others.
2
My kids are in this generation, and I've met some pretty impressive kids in their cohort. I have a lot of faith in them!
12
Whatever they are doing in the Parkland school system let's study it. These young adults are awe inspiring. They are sharp as razors, articulate, brave, moral and have perseverance. Finally I feel hopeful for our furure.
37
My kids have grown up with smart phones (now aged 20, 18, 15) and I may grumble a lot about their smart phone use, but the comment in the article “They are so direct in their messaging. They are so clear. They seem unflappable“ is so true for my kids, and their friends. They are more socially adept and more mature than I was at their age.
15
To the naysayers who proclaim today's young protesters can't possibly be that poised and articulate, that they are "puppets", that they have no understanding of the constitution ... I invite you to spend just a day judging the average high school forensics tournament. There you will find dozens of poised, articulate and well informed teenagers. You will find teens who excel in extemp speaking, who write and perform amazing original orations, who interpret literature and have fun doing it.
Are they perfect, no. Neither was any generation that went before them.
Do they do stupid stuff, yes. So did every generation that went before them.
But I look around, and as I judge those tournaments, I see the same spark that changed the world a half century ago ... and I have hope for the future.
19
I don’t know about teenagers as a whole, but the Parkland kids are setting the world on fire.
39
They certainly are. They are barbarians burning it down.
Hyphen....I would say the barbarians are those who commit mass shootings.
4
The world? You mean the entire population of the African continent has not only heard of, is familiar with but is "on fire" (whatever that means) about them? Because there's no one in Africa who's doing anything just as wonderful or interesting?
Really?
Two months ago teenagers were being mocked for eating tide pods.
6
A handful of kids on the internet does not tell us anything about an entire generation.
6
I believe that our children are our most valuable natural resource. Like a garden, if you care for it, it will bring forth wonderful fruit.
In these depressing times, our young people have risen to the top like cream, to sweetened our lives. Let us give credit where credit is due: Well done Parkland students and their support groups across the country. You gave us something to hope for, something to be proud of, and showed us that something good can be transformed from something bad. How adult of you.
When children are nurtured, well taught, and loved, see what can happen.
32
I’m impressed by the younger generations. But also by the Civil Rights kids and the Vietnam protestors of the 60s. They were fighting for their lives, too, and not getting a lot of support for it. They were also fighting a cultural revolution at the same time. Once the 80s came along, it was Ronald Reagan and no amount of protesting was going to stop the greed machine. That was my time, and the day Reagan got elected was a very sad one indeed. Let’s recognize everyone and keep open minds.
38
You were a very astute young person to be aware. I know that I was not. I was a teen in the 60's just struggling to make it through each day. There is no way I would ever want to return to my teen years.
And yes, I hope we can keep an open mind, and agree to disagree respectfully. Maybe then we could actually make improvements.
I hope our politicians are paying attention.
Thanks for your perspective on other generations accomplishments.
8
I love these kids, their intelligence, poise, passion and integrity. It gives me hope for the future.
51
Yes.
1
Message to boomers including the author: yes, like the rest of us younger folks have been saying since the new century, please get out of the way. Please retire from your jobs so we have opportunities. Please step down from government so we can fill the positions at long last and undo the mess you’ve made for all of us and our children’s children. We have work to do and you are obstructing progress.
21
Please quite blaming boomers. These children are the children of late bloomers. Please do not malign all boomers with the same brush. Many of have raised thought provoking and change minded children who like clean air and water. Believe in Climate Change who are not bigoted and socially mindful. My children may be Millennials but I stood shoulder to shoulder with these young adults last week as we walked down Southern Blvd carrying signs in support of their “Never Again Movement”!
7
We can't afford to retire. We came of age in the Reagan recession, struggled to get decent jobs, and began facing age discrimination at work in our late forties.
Your intolerance is showing. Put it away.
12
Our country is being run by old men with old, dysfunctional ideas. I agree with you one hundred percent. Run for office. Change the world. We old people need to be taught a thing or two. I'm ready for new blood.
13
They are great users and abusers of " devices ". Very well programmed little capitalists, as long as the Parents (or Grandparents! ) are Paying. But compared to some, " The Kids Are Alright ". Seriously.
5
I look at these images and words and I see the most pathetic generation and potential "leaders" in the history of America.
4
How sad for you. I see the opposite. I see hope.
55
Every generation is smarter than the next. If that were not true, I’d be typing this on my old Underwood typewriter and mailing it to the editor.
18
I'm involved with a local organization that which hosts a very large annual fundraising event. It requires the time and energy of a number of high school students.
Each year I am truly impressed with these students, most of whom are young women. They are smart, organized, polite, hard working, and willing to take the initiative. I feel sure that they will shape a bright future.
(I would add that they are mostly conservative, based on my discussions with a couple, some of the families that I know, and the general conservative leaning of the area. Please don't imagine that the only great teenagers are the ones who support liberal causes.)
5
As the mother of two teens, I am consistently impressed by the members of Generation Z that I have had the privilege to interact with - not just my own two girls, but their friends and acquaintances also. Compared to the teens in my own generation, they are, without a doubt, more thoughtful, confident, well-informed, kind, inclusive, sane and all-around responsible citizens than we ever were. This is the one thing that gives me great hope in these dark times. Might as well hand over the reins right now, as far as I am concerned.
56
Don’t try to lionize us, don’t try to vilify us. We are just people. Still people, despite our youth. I use the term youth loosely, as many of us, like myself, are in college. We have individual opinions and levels of engagement and education, like any other group or generation.
I will say we have been pushed much further towards practicality and planning. In the repeated social, financial, and foreign policy issues we came of age handling, we have no choice. So, there is now a massive increase in STEM college applicants, as we generally view STEM degrees and some business degrees as the fastest path towards financial security. We also generally are able to be more vocal and communicative about what we care about. Instead of discussions in dorm rooms, we can share our thought-out opinions on social media, reaching people outside our immediate friends.
Finally, we are better educated. Public school issues are finally gaining traction. I saw it even in the freshman-senior gap of my high school. The incoming best of the freshman were far more impressive than the best of us. Similarly, in college, the best of the freshmen are coming in with more credit and experience then our older classmates. We are forced to to remain competitive. That being said, the public education system still has far to go to provide a comprehensive education. Overall, I can’t say the young are smarter, but I will certainly agree that the best of each year is better than their older counterparts.
20
“The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no respect for their parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint. They talk as if they alone know everything and what passes for wisdom in us foolishness in them. As for the girls, they are foolish and immodest and unwomanly in speech, behavior, and dress.” ~Peter the Hermit, 11th Century
46
Well done. You gotta love it!
Well Peter the Hermit, Oh, baby, look at us now.
I worked with high schoolers for almost 13 years in Cobb County, Georgia. I adored them all. It gave me hope for our future. I can say that I loved them and they loved me, and I enjoyed going to work everyday. I did not care what they wore or what they looked like, I only cared about their demeanor. I treated them with respect and they returned it. I saw kind, compassionate, caring young people.
I think sometimes people see what they want to see. I am so impressed with the March for our Lives students. They blew me away. They are a natural resource that we should be proud of and enjoy.
Thank you for putting a perspective on youth.
14
Ah, youth.
4
Isn’t it time we stopped generalizing about the generations?
64
If they are smarter it's because they grew up with air that is cleaner and water that is less polluted than previous generations experienced. You can thank the old EPA for that.
77
Better? That's a loaded word.
Smarter? maybe. exposed to a larger universe of information.
Savvier, with more knowledge of worldly stuff than older generations, adept in utilizing tech as easily as boomers were in learning to drive, yes, definitely. And they have come to their late teens through times when a lot of old - even ancient -cultural norms have beeb upended - to them, this is just life as usual.
The students who have been standing up have ben impressive-- but I know that they have a lot going on emotionally which isn't on display as well.
We know, too that there are too many kids who succumb to bullying, and too many who bully. Too many who drop out; too many who use or OD on drugs. That dean at Stanford - she sees the ones who have already succeeded (Stanford admissions rate 4.8%), and who mostly come from economically secure backgrounds, not ones who have been left behind.
It's fun to come up with group characteristics, but more important to remember that being "savvy" doesn't protect them from the struggles of becoming adults.
12
The kids are smarter in most every way with a few exceptions.
Do not ask them about civics or geography, clueless.
And if the power goes out, god help 'em!
5
Are you kidding? ALL the x-y-z young people are amazing; much more adept and cool than my generation. I see confident, smart, accomplished young people, enormously kinder and more accepting. They are sophisticated, fast thinkers, hard workers. You say they are waiting longer to engage in "adult" behaviors? Good for them! They make me smile and have great hope for the future.
130
I'm 70. Many of my generation were articulate, smart. During the 60's and 70's my generation took the opposition to the Vietnam War to the streets. We brought an attention to how misguided that war was. We hoped to get that notion to the majority of our country, ultimately to the world. By attrition, that conflict ground to a halt. It was inevitable.The forces around us, the checks and balances, kicked in and common sense prevailed. But it was not an end to all senseless wars.
Looking back I daily realize we had an impact. But I also realize the processes in place, the checks and balances, the resistance to what we were all about reduced much of what we intended to footnotes in history.
Today's youth will affect change in their own way. It won't be overnight, it just doesn't work that way. The world around them doesn't respond with 'going viral' like a 'twitter feed'. The immediacy cell phones and other communication devices has shown them influenced what they hope to expect. But that's what happens amongst themselves and it stops there.
So, by attrition they'll eventually realize they are not the center of the universe. Right now they are standing on the edge of a diving board and about to jump into a world that will devour them, affect their ways of thinking and acting. They'll change. Life does that.
Some days I look back and realize Earth Day may have been our most crowning achievement. Maybe gun control will define this current generation. We'll see.
33
as both a parent and a person that worsks with kids. I will be the first to say that although today’s kids may not know how to use a lawn mower r change a flat tire. based on what I have witnessed teens today r way smarter than we can ever image. I know that to be true for my son is way smarter at his age of 18 than I was, at the same age. although at his age I did know how to do the above mentioned skills. I am sure that my kid along with other teens if they were taught to do more trade oriented tasks they would have no problem handling and doing said task well. so although it may feel that today’s teens r lazy I feel they r right where they should be relevant to were society is as a whole.
9
These are the children of Gen-Xers -- about whom there was much hand-wringing in the early 1990s, but who have gone on to make significant contributions to culture, technology and society -- even though we continue to wait for our fair shot at government and business, since the Boomers refuse to get out of the way, and the Millennial children of Boomers eagerly push us out of the way. But unlike the special snowflake and generally entitled Millennials who preceded them, Gen-Z came of age in a world of uncertainty - economic and political -- raised by parents who generally did NOT give a trophy for showing up, and who instilled in them their own sense of pragmatism and self-sufficiency. I am immensely proud of this cohort, which includes my own 17 year old daughter, for their passionate mobilization, their plain-spoken open-mindedness, and their solidarity with one another. I am fully confident they will change the world.
65
We pushed you out of the way because you weren't do anything except stifling the job market with mediocrity and ennui.
And iGen was born into a world of uncertainty? Did your one year old daughter take 9/11 bad? Was the Recession pretty on her? The landscape in America has been relatively calm for younger people until Trump showed up, throwing normalcy off its axis. There's been roughly ~2 years of "uncertainty" –– a recent development we're all coping with. Millennials were thrusted into a world of financial ruin and an unstable job market at the peak of our formative years. That's real uncertainty.
The only thing Gen-Xers do is complain about Millenials and, now all-of-a-sudden, pride themselves in rearing a generation that was in actuality raised by the Internet. If we're going to start having discussions about this generation's intelligence, I think taking a good look at the hardware in their hands would be a much more fruitful study than observing any new trends in parental guidance.
6
"...since the boomers refuse to get out of the way."
That attitude is exactly why you'll never go anywhere.
I'm a boomer. We made changes. It was up to those who came after to keep the changes and make changes of their own. If you decided to sit back and blame us, that's your failing, not ours.
8
It is hard to maintain or continue changes when squeezed between two significantly larger cohorts who are quite enamored with themselves and therefore look down upon the “slackers” who are in fact anything but.
4
Their energy is impressive, granted.
However, if the young adults were REALLY smart instead of protesting against guns they would be protesting about the crushing burden of taxes they will have to bear to pay for the welfare state that WE older folks have set up for ourselves.
1
Today's teens are more promiscuous. They strive to get what adults have, be it
sex, general behavior and fashion.
1
"They seem unflappable.” Is that really new or just the age old arrogance of youth, certain that it has all the answers?
3
Isn't this the same generation this very paper deemed the most anxious in a recent article?
3
Let's remember the student activists who spoke out against the the Viet Nam War. They were told to, "Shut up and study." They were threatened, bullied, accused of being used by subversive outsiders -- even by the President of the United States at the time. They paid dearly in some cases (remember Kent State). But they didn't shut up. Social activists have routinely been told to, "Shut up, go to your room, stay in the kitchen, stay in the closet, bow your head and say 'youza boss man', crawl on your belly and be grateful you have a job, etc". Thankfully, those social activists throughout our history have ignored those dismissive words. I SUPPORT THE STUDENTS!
86
And the Vietnam war was lost, the communists turned south Vietnam into a large concentration camp, millions were slaughtered, millions became refugees.
Vietnam was lost before it started, because it was a morally bankrupt attack against a people living in their homeland.
And it was the soldiers that ended it, because they were in open revolt by the end of the war.
The constitution says that we are suppressed to have well regulated militias for national DEFENSE. We are not supposed to have an aggressive and huge standing army attacking other counties regularly.
Democrats need to push for following the constitution, instead of following Republicans.
Will these young women/men that are 18 years + register to vote this November?
The 18-35 year voters are needed to clear the swamp of older "dead heads".
7
If what I'm witnessing in my community is any indication, these 18 yo's will be voting in force in November.
9
As a Gen-Xer, the answer is clear: Yes.
5
The notion that kids today are suddenly "smarter" is rather silly. Sure, they're great at manipulating certain types of technology like phones. But as a teacher of many years, spanning elementary school through college, I don't think you can say kids are smarter or less smart.
General "smartness" implies competency, and that includes memory, impulse control, ability to plan ahead, etc. Simply being able to write code or learn an app doesn't mean "smart." The Times has picked kids from the top, and there have always been smarter ones at the top. Other teachers I've talked to, in discussing the changes in students over the years, have pointed out the rise of emotional issues.
6
Well, being able to set beaver traps is pretty smart if their is a market for beaver pelts like, say, in the late 17th century. Today’s market is looking for coders. Now, if kids today were beaver-trapping it wouldn’t reflect so well on their intelligence. Or keeping “pet rocks,” for chrissakes.
4
I think there is something to this. I'm a grandmother of a child who was born 7 months before 9/11..This generation of teens, and younger, has always had access to electronic technology. These kids can answer questions before you can get the question out of your mouth. They know how to look up anything and how to verify their sources. They can find out who sponsors what TV shows! They can find out the NRA approval score of a politician with a thumb flick and they care about the well being of all people. They are powerful and they give me hope. You go kids!
93
Yes that's the difference between us and them. With the access of information right at your fingertips you can change the world. They will vote out all supported by the NRA and outlaw assault rifles. This should have happened with Columbine. This is our spring revolution .
3
This Gen-Z gives me hope for our civilization. Let's not straddle them with college loan debts and assist them to move forward. Let's keep them safe from guns and the NRA until they can vote for assault rifle bans. Let's keep them healthy. I am looking forward to their adulthoods and contributions to this society. They are our hope for the future and answer to our thoughts and prayers.
18
I find it embarrassing when older people have expectations — good or bad — from a younger generation. A generation is defined by how it responds to the events of its time, and what it makes of them — both are impossible to predict. All this talk about “the greatest generation” or “the lost generation” is either a product of stupid nostalgia or sentimental hope. Summarily: moonshine.
5
I'm sure of one thing: Social media has forced them to read and write more than my generation. Practice expressing oneself in words with all the critiques that follow can only be good thing. Debating skills, clear reasoning rewarded, dumb thoughts down voted --all contributes to good development.
9
Dr. Twenge is arrogant and condescending. Her research is social pseudo- science. She's done well professionally because she's good at marketing her books to older generations who have always disliked the younger generations, but her research is sensationalistic, stereotypical, and banal.
11
Yes, I read her Atlantic article and thought the same thing. Too many leaps from little available evidence to her preferred finding and not enough discernment of commonality vs causality. I particularly cracked up at her study measuring loneliness with students who agreed to be texted 4 times a day asking if they were lonely. That self selects for the rarer teen who wants adults intruding (and having two boys I'm guessing more girls?) and she seemed to assume terrible things if they said they were lonely which can be a transitory state and every teen cycles through. But my 16 yr old got a kick out of how she seemed to think it was better of previous generations to drive to the roller rink with a 5th of johnnie walker!
4
This article hits straight at the heart of my two children (ages 20 and 12). Both are smarter than I ever was. They know what's going on in the world and can carry on an intelligent conversation with adults much older than themselves on a number of subjects. They are both critical thinkers and don't just passively agree with what the teachers tell them. On the other hand, they are observant to the rules and cautious when it comes to taking risks. They both have always worked in some capacity and are responsible. It all is very good BUT they also have much more anxiety than I ever did. My daughter said-- quite matter of fact-- to me last year that when she and her friends go see a movie, they will avoid the lone person with a backpack because "You know, he could have a bomb or a gun in there." Exposure to so much corruption and violence can make these young people passionate and turn them into advocates, but... they are still only children. It's sad that we can't look at childhood as an "innocent" time of life anymore.
9
Every generation is dismayed by the choices the succeeding generation makes. Every generation perceives in those choices the erosion of values, the decline of education, the decay of society itself.
Growing up in the '60s, I heard all of this about my generation. In particular, educational reforms like "new math" were going to deprive us of intellectual rigor and discipline and lead to dissolute lives. My mother, an educator, pointed out that I took classes in eighth grade that she took in high school, and studied subjects in high school that she never studied, even through her PhD courses.
With that perspective, I have always been skeptical of claims that American education is failing, and claims that the next generation will do worse than the last one. I think the Parkland students validate my skepticism. They are doing something literally unprecedented: high school students have organized and are leading a national political movement.
Not 48 hours after Nikolas Cruz fired his first shot, Parkland students had impressed the world with their eloquence and poise. At a time when extremes dominate our politics, the students have been doggedly moderate. At a time when ideology drives discussion, the students have been determinedly pragmatic. At a time when invective and personal attacks are the currency, the students have insisted on talking about issues.
The kids, I am quite sure, are alright.
politicsbyeccehomo.wordpress.com
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The teachers who I meet are caring and committed people, smart and funny, tolerant, patient; generally exhibiting the qualities we say we want most in our society. My suspicion is that the stories denigrating our youth are an attempt to suppress the ability of teachers to receive higher pay and benefits.
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It is important to consider that this generation was conceived and has grown up in the least polluted environmental conditions in many, many generations. Thus their brains are less polluted. Biologically they are starting at a different point than their parents and particularly grandparents, whom minimally daily breathed lead infused air before 1978.
They are (on average) smarter and have had greater access to knowledge (when young) than any previous generation.
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A week or two ago NYT ran an article about the apathetic college students, moping around Yale that the world was doomed and there was nothing they could do. Well Yale and others a smart move for you would be scoop up as many of these students as possible because they will be our next leaders. Perhaps choosing resilience and motivation over SAT scores will remove the burn outs and bring in a new wave of energy.
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Older generations wail over the lack of civility, concern, and lost potential of their young. What is new in these complaints? They precede the printing press.
I am not a fan of labeling "greatest generations." This involves the acceptance of all sorts of mythos that can come back to haunt. But there is little chance that these sorts of proclamations will disappear.
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The parents of these kids were raised by Vietnam wartime generation that believed in Democracy and protesting. The parents of z's are less religious, better educated, and are more articulate than previous generations. The parents of z's have made the pendulum swing back with full force with education and believe it or not, common sense.
Their shear numbers can control corporations through their demographics and buying power. And that is power that we just witnessed with the Fox episode.
When Bernie arrived at the 'March' they cheered with great enthusiasm for a man that stood for the middle class.
Generation Z is genuine, and they will vote.
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Exactly! As a Vietnam protester myself, I am sooooo heartened by them. They're brilliant! And their teachers ... as noted above, too bad all our schools are not as well cared for, across the nation.
In recent decades, hasn't it usually been youth that had both the moral sense and the freedom to protest, from Vietnam, protests against the wars, through Occupy Wall Street - the Wall Street protests included a large number of graduate students - and now gun violence. Yes, when I marched against the Iraq War it was along with again Unitarians, but youth has two elements going for it, the luxury of time and a great moral certainty. Looking back at my teen years, I consider my developing intellect, internal dialogue, and a moral sense as when I grew up. Along with social development, or lack of in my case, ethics and values became clear to me then, and inform my sense of what is right and good.
Teens likely see the flaws of gun culture, both moral and effective, more clearly than adults and are willing to take a stand.
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Responding to my own post, two items:
1 - I remember marching with aging Unitarians, not again Unitarians.
2 - On second thought, another large contingent of teens are gun supporters, likely those indoctrinated into gun culture in non-exurban America.
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An announcement via Eurekalert described the teen mind as the most emotionally creative, children being the most generally creative, for both, meaning novel perceptions and ideas. I found the ideas behind it irritating since my sense is that teens are the most emotionally flawed, but in fact, this could be an indication of that creativity. Teens are likely the most unmoored from the need to conform in ways that adults do, for fear of their jobs and livelihood, and willing to take risks with less concern for future consequences. They might have other concerns, like being popular and dealing with their own uncertainty, but then again, it could be the selfie generation, always ready to shine for the camera.
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Underestimating teens by adults is an eternal mistake... nothing new.
When I was a teen we said 'don't trust anyone over 30' and for good reason. Adults voted for Nixon in a landslide, and his policies led to the deaths of thousands of American teens in Vietnam.
Teens see more clearly how unfair the world is because they have fewer biases that lead them to deny obvious facts.
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It was LBJ who escalated the war in Viet Nam. It would not have ended had Nixon's opponent been elected instead.
We got into the mess in Viet Nam long before Nixon. Our involvement started with Eisenhower.
Believe me, the generation who died in the trenches in WWI felt exactly the same about their elders, and then ended up directing a younger generation to fight WWII.
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Did you read last week’s reconsideration of Humphrey? There’s no doubt that he was against the war and urged Johnson not to escalate.
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The Flynn effect means each generation is indeed a bit more intelligent than the last. I hope someday we have a world where all kids are well fed and well treated so that we will maximize our human potential.
It's really nice to see people being optimistic about the kids.
As a trailing edge boomer, I used books to be socially isolated and unskilled, I am sure that kids today with my personality will be using today's tools for the same purpose, but I doubt that the kids who want to be social aren't.
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Offer guidance if they ask for it, otherwise, get out of the way! These Parkland High School kids are the first ray of hope I have seen in two years.
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Let's all remember, there is a distinct difference between Knowledge and Wisdom. It's complex. But aging has something to do with it.
Most youth movements come to a rapid boil but simmer with time. Like I said, it's complex, and it's not easy. There are so many forces, checks and balances along the way and things just take time. Getting rules and regulations enacted just won't happen overnight. It just can't.
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From what we have seen and heard since the Parkland massacre, then I would say "YES!", this may very well be the next generation of very impressive leaders! They are an excellent representation of what the majority of Americans want and need for this country! Articulate, passionate, determined, smart and hopeful that we can and must do better for ALL Americans.
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The answer can only be "it depends". Some are amazingly bright and capable and confident; others may never leave their parent's basements and are glued to their electronics and have zero social skills.
In the end, it depends on the parents, their rules, their expectations. It also depends on their schools, and again their rules and their expectations. Children need involvement with both, and they need high expectations. Without such, there is nothing but mediocrity, and while that may be PC in some circles, civilization and our country won't be well served by such.
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And then life gets in the way while making other plans. For LBJ the Viet Nam war got in the way of making a fairer America and his War on Poverty. For Obama, an obstructionist Congress blocked much of what he wanted to accomplish for America, but people like me were also disillusioned after being so impressed with him in 2008. People are worn down by the everyday realities of making a living, raising children, illness, caring for elders, and much more.
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Worn down? Is this something new? I think back to my own childhood (born in 1943), and remember my mother carrying heavy baskets of wet sheets/towels/clothes up the basement steps and out the back door to hang up to dry. I remember her having iron EVERYTHING - soak my father's shirt collars and cuffs, cook starch on the stove. And then the cooking - everything from scratch, no eating out. And the cleaning and the garden.
My mother worked her fingers to the bone and this was not unusual. We had one car - when my father took it one day a week to drive his carpool, my mother walked to the grocery and took the bus elsewhere.
My parents were born in 1901 and 1908. They were young adults during the depression. They lived through WWII and all the rationing and scarcities. Yet I don't remember anyone doing much complaining or using any of this as an excuse to be "disillusioned". It was simply life - grown-up, real life!
I'm not sure what younger people today were expecting, but Nirvana is not going to appear, regardless of who is president. Read yesterday's article about how "resilient parents make resilient children". We have lost our resilience and that will be our downfall, not who is in Congress or is president.
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Let's consider the possibility that our schools and the educators who are teaching there are also smarter and better than we think.
When I look at the quality of student work in schools I visit, it reflects both higher quality assignments and higher standards for evidence-based thinking, problem-solving, and problem-posing than I've seen in earlier decades.
Think of what our kids could do if resources in all schools matched those provided to the most advantaged.
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"When I look at the quality of student work in schools I visit, it reflects both higher quality assignments and higher standards for evidence-based thinking, problem-solving, and problem-posing than I've seen in earlier decades."
I that's a rash generalization.
I grew up in a rural Deep South school in the 1960s and we didn't have many frills, but we had dedicated teachers who demanded evidence-based thinking, problem-solving, and problem-posing.
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I see a synergy between the current generation and that of their grandparents. The lessons I have learned as the product of the generation of "Love" and that of being a parent and grandparent have left me sharing many of the same values as today's adrolescents. Bless their wisdom and energy. I am thrilled when I see them standing for what is right. You go kids!
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Define "smarter" and "better" and just who is "we"? And why the continual need to assign common characteristics to an artificially defined "generation"? Hasn't that method of categorization definitively demonstrated its lack of validity yet?
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I'm 20 and I think that while millions of people defy easy characterization, most people in my age bracket from my experience are NOT optimistic people but deeply apathetic and cynical.
And on the gun control young people are not actually far more supportive of gun control. They're definitely not as 'liberal' on that as gay marriage for instance. For instance one 2015 study found millennials LESS likely than any other age demographic to support an assault weapons ban.
And at the march for our lives rally only 10% were teenagers, with the average age for adults being 48.
Many young people are extremely liberal and actively are 'resisting' trump. There's also a substantial amount of extreme reactionaries and alt-righters among young people.
The youngest generation is actually more conservative in some ways.
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This 40-year-old agrees!
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I suspect this generation is neither smarter or less smart than previous generation. It is different, as was every previous generation. And the technology they have grown up with has made them different, just as past changes in the world have made each generation different. You can be fawning about how wonderful they are or crazed about how deficient they are. It doesn't matter, they will still inherit the earth and try to change it to suit them. And, like every previous generation, they will still be frustrated at how slow and difficult that process is. Even if as a lot of the rest of us are amazed at how quickly it is happening.
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Yes, today's teenagers are smarter than most of us think and just as importantly, their feelings and characters are honest, deep and moral. The differences between these teenagers and our elected officials is stark.
If our democracy can survive the current corruption and incompetence loss in our government, we can see the potential for positive change.
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I am a photographer and two weeks ago had the opportunity to photograph our state's FBLA conference. What I found greatly pleased my Baby Boomer sensibilities; a campus full of engaging, curious and dedicated youth. Curious about why I was there; curious about my background and skills, willing to engage - and willing to be a part of something. When I got home, I told my wife that I believe our future is in the right hands.
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