Blame the youth: That’s the mantra of today. But should older generations really attack an era who just wants to have fun? Digital Journal looks at why the kids are alright, after all.
By Sarah Grynpas, Special to Digital Journal
A Nation of Wimps. Psychologist Hara Estroff Marano coined that phrase in 2004 and took the forefront of a movement claiming anyone under 30 isn’t up to par. We’re not creative like our parents were. We don’t read, we surf. Sounds like old people hate us as if we’ve offended them.
Sure, as a wimponian (I’m 23) I sometimes wonder if we’re truly unprepared for adulthood. But nostalgia should not be an adequate basis for slagging an entire generation. Surveys report young people are more likely than ever to found multi-million dollar Web startups, IQ scores are increasing across the developed world and cigarette-smoking is at an all-time low. Guess we’re not that dumb after all.
Theorists tend to rely on extreme examples instead of scientific studies. In 2002, an elementary school in California banned the game of tag because it gave students low self-esteem. But does stripping fun away from kids truly make them overachieving as adults?
Times Are A-Changin’
There’s no denying the world is different than it was for the baby boomers. In the 1940s, acceptance to Montreal’s McGill University required a 75 per cent grade point average. Now it’s 88.9 per cent. Consider that fact, Gramps, next time you complain that we young’uns don’t have a quarter of the brains of your golfing buddies.
Meanwhile, modern technology is often painted as today’s cultural boogeyman. But innovation has always been met with suspicion. Look at the hysteria surrounding MySpace’s possible pedophile predators, or the supposed danger of radio-frequency identification tags. As more youth turn to the Net for news and entertainment, older generations wonder if glowing screens will fry brain cells instead of stimulate them.
Don’t get all doomsday on today’s kids, Steven Johnson says to nostalgic parents. In his book Everything Bad is Good for You, he argues that modern pop culture is beneficial. “Consumers are drawn specifically to those products that require the most mental engagement,” he writes. Compare Pac-Man and Leave It to Beaver to World of Warcraft and Lost. Today’s video games and TV shows involve detailed imagined worlds, complete with multiple narrative threads and levels of complexity. No one is suggesting 24 should substitute for books or exercise, but just because our leisure activities are different doesn’t mean we’re losing out.
The ancient Greek poet Hesiod once said, “I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today.” Socrates and Plato didn’t think much of the whippersnappers of their day, either. More recently, it’s well-known that the baby boomers don’t trust anyone under 30, and many have trouble working with an iPod-tethered coworker with an attitude influenced by hours in front of MTV.
What good does mistrust do? Older generations are basically saying to youth, “Pack your bags, you’re going on a guilt trip,” and since we’re taught to respect our elders, we can’t stand up and tell them to quit spewing nonsense. But we could and we should, if only to prove to them we party hard and work harder, even if the former attracts more attention than the latter.
Overreaction has always fractured healthy debate and new ideas. Today’s young people shouldn’t have to face the hand-wringing anxiety of a generation that endured the same criticism when they were growing up.
