It is so much easier being a student today. The internet is a fantastic source of knowledge. You are stuck with a math problem, google it and it is likely you find a solution somewhere. A generation ago, we did have access to all this. Hence it is significantly
easier to study and one would expect the current youth to be a higher level academically than ever before in history for this reason alone.
Runsmith wrote:
I have been following this thread for a while, and I have some thoughts to share.
1. You guys think it's mostly about social media. But that's not all of it. I'm a high school senior and I can tell you that people just want to impress their peers in general. Even if there was not social media, students still feel pressure to impress their friends. They want to be at the top of their class. They want to take the most AP classes. They want to be the most involved. They want to show everybody that they are better than everyone else. We are a generation of perfectionists.
2. Are you all not aware that most high school students have a job, many of them even during the school year? Yes, kids should learn to work hard, but there comes a points where there should at least be some time to exercise your own passions. Kids who are in sports might have school and practice during the week, plus homework. Then they often work on the weekends. No breaks. And then you add in the additional stress from college applications, scholarships, high tuition, ACT/SAT, GPA, AP classes, clubs, etc., and it just gets to be too much sometimes.
Absolutely nothing that you mention is different from the stresses we dealt with 40 years ago.
Please pleaseAre wrote:
I’m in my 50s and my teenage children tell me that generally teenagers of this generation face a much more stressful existence than of my generation. Apparently, due to the internet, academic expectations and having to excell in all areas, among others.
Anyone agree or have any thoughts on the subject?
2nd teenager in my small town just committed suicide
The way your post is written makes me suspect you're actually another overly self absorbed millennial looking to rationalize that self absorption. All teens face pressure, much of it exaggerated simply because they are teens with a limited view of the world around them.
The continued drops in test scores among those darn hated white kids (who spend more and more time on frivolous activities and falling over each other to blame their own people for all the world's ills) doesn't show that there's much pressure to excel, at least academically. And that's with scoring having been re-centered and re-weighted on so many tests / types of tests.
That said, there is a bit more heightened pressure among teens today to conform, to be PC, and higher tendencies to blindly repeat whatever is deemed correct to say or think by the folks who run the media and academia at the moment. There seems to be less ability among today's teens - and millennials in general - to engage in true introspection or to question what they're told by certain "outlets". The majority literally question nothing they're told by "PC" sources, spouting off the "correct views" and then basking in their own self-satisfaction, waiting for a pat on the head by their fellow sheep.
The rise in suicide coincides nicely with the rise in the use of certain drugs combined with many teens actually not understanding how final death is.
I admit I do get a kick out of teens / millennials now blaming the boomers - as they've been taught to do - for many of the tough situations that do exist for real, not realizing the folks who've been working hard to wreck the US (and the West) have been at it for quite some time, well before the parents of the boomers were born. Next it will be time to blame the X'ers.
Have Smartphones Destroyed A Generation:
"What’s the connection between smartphones and the apparent psychological distress this generation is experiencing? For all their power to link kids day and night, social media also exacerbate the age-old teen concern about being left out. Today’s teens may go to fewer parties and spend less time together in person, but when they do congregate, they document their hangouts relentlessly—on Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook. Those not invited to come along are keenly aware of it. Accordingly, the number of teens who feel left out has reached all-time highs across age groups. Like the increase in loneliness, the upswing in feeling left out has been swift and significant."
Most children (indeed most people probably) use social media extensively. It is possible to avoid using directly (as others have mentioned though, you may still have photos, audio or video posted on others' accounts and people may be laughing at you or starting rumours behind your back), but that is likely to be isolating.
Haven't read any of these posts from adults. Too long. My attention span has a 200 character max (w/spaces) n besides, gotta get back 2 my device lol. Girlfriend just asked "How RU? My hair pretty?" Must ans.
Yes only because it is self inflicted stress. Twitter,Facebook,Instagram,Youtube,Snapchat plus the old drugs and alcohol equal more stress. Also your average genetically modified food adds to more health problems. Yes todays generation has it rough in terms of having their attention being pulled in all directions because of social media, drugs&alcohol plus crappy food which ultimately is not good for the body. I mean look at the average American for gods sake!
Teens and young adults really are weaker and I think they know it. There are two causes for this: social media and sports (yes sports). Kids are playing year round sports, travel teams, winter indoor teams, its ridiculous and it keeps them dependent on adult organized activities. High school kids instead of focusing on becoming independent adults they are foolishly thinking about some traveling team. The worse offenders are the conservative/libertarian parents who think they are giving their kid an edge over others and are raising kids in the libertarian way of just thinking of themselves.
Willie Idol wrote:
Please pleaseAre wrote:
I’m in my 50s and my teenage children tell me that generally teenagers of this generation face a much more stressful existence than of my generation. Apparently, due to the internet, academic expectations and having to excell in all areas, among others.
Anyone agree or have any thoughts on the subject?
2nd teenager in my small town just committed suicide
The way your post is written makes me suspect you're actually another overly self absorbed millennial looking to rationalize that self absorption. All teens face pressure, much of it exaggerated simply because they are teens with a limited view of the world around them.
The continued drops in test scores among those darn hated white kids (who spend more and more time on frivolous activities and falling over each other to blame their own people for all the world's ills) doesn't show that there's much pressure to excel, at least academically. And that's with scoring having been re-centered and re-weighted on so many tests / types of tests.
That said, there is a bit more heightened pressure among teens today to conform, to be PC, and higher tendencies to blindly repeat whatever is deemed correct to say or think by the folks who run the media and academia at the moment. There seems to be less ability among today's teens - and millennials in general - to engage in true introspection or to question what they're told by certain "outlets". The majority literally question nothing they're told by "PC" sources, spouting off the "correct views" and then basking in their own self-satisfaction, waiting for a pat on the head by their fellow sheep.
The rise in suicide coincides nicely with the rise in the use of certain drugs combined with many teens actually not understanding how final death is.
I admit I do get a kick out of teens / millennials now blaming the boomers - as they've been taught to do - for many of the tough situations that do exist for real, not realizing the folks who've been working hard to wreck the US (and the West) have been at it for quite some time, well before the parents of the boomers were born. Next it will be time to blame the X'ers.
vivalarepublica wrote:
Hey guys, there are these things called understanding and empathy. You should try it some time! Yes, teenagers in different generations faced different stressors, and maybe some parents could do better or teens could structure their lives better, but that doesn’t mean their struggles and concerns aren’t valid. Just like your struggles and concerns! But I’m sure you’re a tough cookie in which you never complain and everything rolls off your back and everybody is just weak.
Constant connectivity and social media are having very real effects on the mental and emotional well being of teenagers. I don’t just say that from observation, it’s something I picked up from reading research summaries. In general, anti-social habits are up, in-person connectedness is down, and negative emotions are up. In a more casual observation, I can see how children can become so addicted to various touchscreen and display devices that offer little more than passive consumption.
While the teen years always have been a stressful period of life, the ever present connectivity and exposure may offer no breaks from the traditional stressors and amplify them. So in terms of always being connected, aware, and exposed, when previously a teen would spend these moments being present or alone time with minimal distractions, it definitely has effects that could increase some of the stress of teen years.
Here’s an idea... unplug your kids. I have a student in my class who is the child of a very high up google exec. He has a old flip phone. Doesn’t even take group chats. He is the most well rounded kid on campus.
I’m with you... while these are not true biological stressors it is huge mentally. Kids kill themselves because of social media. It’s very real to them.
Parents give their kid an iPad or phone and send the kid to their room. That is THE problem here. Lazy ass parents. Take their phone away. Cut the cord. Turn off the WiFi. You and your kids will be better for it.
When my oldest was 8 years old I noticed him showing addicted qualities to the kids games on the iPad. A few months later we were between switching internet providers for a few weeks and had no WiFi at home. The kids were more creative, using their imagination more and acting like “normal kids.” I called the Internet provider and canceled the installation. Been without WiFi since and I’m not going back.
It’s so awesome this thread is like still going. My parents always told me this world was about me. And, like, it’s totally true ???
Today's generation has it easy.
Your odds of dying or getting seriously injured in WW2 or even Vietnam (both of which had drafts) were much greater than your odds of dying in Iraq or Afghanistan (no draft) or in a terrorist attack.
Women, gays, and minorities had it far worse in the 1950s than today. As for white males, their life expectancy is over 5 years longer than the 1960s, and that's true even with the opioid crisis. People of all races, genders, and backgrounds don't have to worry about gas or food rationing now, but that wasn't true during WW2 and the 1970s oil embargo.
Median household incomes are slightly higher than the 50s, but the only reason everyone whines about income inequality so much is that the rich are now the mega-rich. The poor in the Great Depression had to worry about not getting enough food, the poor in the Great Recession worry about not being able to take vacations. Mining, construction, and many other dangerous jobs are much safer now than 50 years ago. Air and water quality is generally much better as well. Flint's water crisis is less severe than entire rivers regularly catching on fire, and LA's worst smog in 2017 would be considered an average day in 1967.
Standards are laughably low these days. You have pervasive grade inflation at the college (and sometimes even high school) level. People who are even a bit fidgety or odd get an ADHD or autism diagnosis and are given special accommodation for tests. Even for regular students, a high school education now is equivalent to an 8th grade education back then - just look at how many people struggle with basic Algebra and reading comprehension. As far as track goes, most track guys I know were running low 11s and 4:30s in the 100 and the mile. Today's median seems to be low 12s and 5:00, and even that's being generous. Ryun's 3:55 mile on a dirt track is leagues ahead of anyone else.
The only thing that sucks for today's generation is the lack of freedom. Kids are on a leash and always have to be accompanied. Back then, we biked half a mile to the local park, played baseball, climbed trees, and jumped in the lake. We came home muddy and dirty with an occasional scraped knee, and our parents didn't care as long as we were back by sunset and cleaned up afterwards. Today, someone would call child services within half an hour if you tried to let your kids do that.
ACL Thief wrote:
Yes, for the most part. I personally think most of it has to do with a lack of quality sleep. Many kids are living off 3-5 hours of sleep or less every night in high school. Add to this the overwhelming work in both academics and extracurriculars to aid in the increasingly competitive college application process, and you have a recipe for disaster.
Agree. I would like to add the pressures of social media, these kids seem to live for that.
Runsmith wrote:
I have been following this thread for a while, and I have some thoughts to share.
1. You guys think it's mostly about social media. But that's not all of it. I'm a high school senior and I can tell you that people just want to impress their peers in general. Even if there was not social media, students still feel pressure to impress their friends. They want to be at the top of their class. They want to take the most AP classes. They want to be the most involved. They want to show everybody that they are better than everyone else. We are a generation of perfectionists.
2. Are you all not aware that most high school students have a job, many of them even during the school year? Yes, kids should learn to work hard, but there comes a points where there should at least be some time to exercise your own passions. Kids who are in sports might have school and practice during the week, plus homework. Then they often work on the weekends. No breaks. And then you add in the additional stress from college applications, scholarships, high tuition, ACT/SAT, GPA, AP classes, clubs, etc., and it just gets to be too much sometimes.
I am not impressed a bit with what you said. Why? Simple: My generation and the generation before me managed to put men on the moon, invent satellites, etc. Guess what? We were normal kids living as such. Yes, we cared as much for scholarships and getting into the best colleges as much as the new generation, we were even hungrier.
Yes, it is mostly about social media, how do you think they want to Impress everybody and show they are better than everyone else? Social media. You don't see them running an ad at the local newspaper announcing their accomplishments, do you? Your generation of perfectionist has led itself into an unbalanced unhealthy lifestyle, and that is far from being perfect.
in my 30s wrote:
Today's generation has it easy.
Your odds of dying or getting seriously injured in WW2 or even Vietnam (both of which had drafts) were much greater than your odds of dying in Iraq or Afghanistan (no draft) or in a terrorist attack.
Women, gays, and minorities had it far worse in the 1950s than today. As for white males, their life expectancy is over 5 years longer than the 1960s, and that's true even with the opioid crisis. People of all races, genders, and backgrounds don't have to worry about gas or food rationing now, but that wasn't true during WW2 and the 1970s oil embargo.
Median household incomes are slightly higher than the 50s, but the only reason everyone whines about income inequality so much is that the rich are now the mega-rich. The poor in the Great Depression had to worry about not getting enough food, the poor in the Great Recession worry about not being able to take vacations. Mining, construction, and many other dangerous jobs are much safer now than 50 years ago. Air and water quality is generally much better as well. Flint's water crisis is less severe than entire rivers regularly catching on fire, and LA's worst smog in 2017 would be considered an average day in 1967.
Standards are laughably low these days. You have pervasive grade inflation at the college (and sometimes even high school) level. People who are even a bit fidgety or odd get an ADHD or autism diagnosis and are given special accommodation for tests. Even for regular students, a high school education now is equivalent to an 8th grade education back then - just look at how many people struggle with basic Algebra and reading comprehension. As far as track goes, most track guys I know were running low 11s and 4:30s in the 100 and the mile. Today's median seems to be low 12s and 5:00, and even that's being generous. Ryun's 3:55 mile on a dirt track is leagues ahead of anyone else.
The only thing that sucks for today's generation is the lack of freedom. Kids are on a leash and always have to be accompanied. Back then, we biked half a mile to the local park, played baseball, climbed trees, and jumped in the lake. We came home muddy and dirty with an occasional scraped knee, and our parents didn't care as long as we were back by sunset and cleaned up afterwards. Today, someone would call child services within half an hour if you tried to let your kids do that.
Blame the media for exaggerating everything. People freak out (not just in Hawaii) about North Korea's dozen or so nukes but forget about Russia's several thousand nukes and China's several hundred nukes that are pointing at us. People in the Cold War feared global nuclear annihilation, people now fear a crude terrorist's bomb.
Regarding more mundane stuff, we had to do our research by hauling our ass to the library, looking through card catalogs, and spending entire hours and days going through obscure encyclopedias and journals by hand. Today's kids Google or Wikipedia stuff, hit control-f, and copy and paste their stuff onto their citations and text. Wish we had it easy.
As with any individual in any generation, I think the way to less stress is focusing on helping and benefiting others. The current generation generally seems to trend towards self centerdness (as is natural when you aren't being drafted or going through such humbling experiences). Everyone is guilty of self centeredness at some point, but as I see it self centered people are condoned. People who are unsatisfied and ungrateful for their circumstances are praised for not accepting the status quo, or wanting change. While some people are victims and do have the right to demand better, people just seem to try too often to look victimized these days. Anyways, people just dont value gratitude and private service to others very much.
Today's kids are way too coddled, so every slight difficulty is taken as a major setback. One good example:
Many generations ago, kids quite literally had to walk to and back from school uphill both ways in the snow (obviously, one way would have more downhills than uphills). The lucky ones got a horse or a bike. Summer vacations were spent helping parents in the farm and laboring under the hot summer sun. Kids' agricultural labor was one reason why summer vacation was so long in the first place.
Teens in later generations drove to school. But both the cars and the schools often had no air-conditioning and required frequent maintenance. AC was a status symbol, so many teens preferred to swelter inside and drive with the windows up (which signaled that your car did have AC). Their summer vacations were spent fixing their car and working to pay for their car and gas.
Today's teens don't even need or bother to drive. Their parents drive them around in their minivans fully equipped with not just AC, but a wide variety of electronics that the kids can play games or watch movies on. Summer vacations are spent sitting in front of the XBOX, which is one reason why the obesity rate is so high these days.
But why complain? Ask any grumpy old guy, and they'll say "Today's kids are easier to beat up or shove off my lawn. That is, if they can even haul their fat asses up to my lawn in the first place."
Cheeto Benito wrote:
Have Smartphones Destroyed A Generation:
"What’s the connection between smartphones and the apparent psychological distress this generation is experiencing? For all their power to link kids day and night, social media also exacerbate the age-old teen concern about being left out. Today’s teens may go to fewer parties and spend less time together in person, but when they do congregate, they document their hangouts relentlessly—on Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook. Those not invited to come along are keenly aware of it. Accordingly, the number of teens who feel left out has reached all-time highs across age groups. Like the increase in loneliness, the upswing in feeling left out has been swift and significant."
Most children (indeed most people probably) use social media extensively. It is possible to avoid using directly (as others have mentioned though, you may still have photos, audio or video posted on others' accounts and people may be laughing at you or starting rumours behind your back), but that is likely to be isolating.
Who doesn't have it tougher these days that many years ago? Then again in some ways life is much easier.
Everything in life is a combination of good and bad. What feels bad today, maybe good tomorrow and vice versa.
See how the colors fit together.
Philosophizer wrote:
I believe social media has a lot to do with stress today. This feeds into a whole egocentrism of today's culture (mostly in developed countries). Social media has manifested into a whole "look at me, I'm successful because of X" or a whole "no look over here because I accomplished Y" today's generation is over exposed to so much "hey look at me" that they have a hard time at truly identifying themselves and how to express themselves due to so much pressure of being judged not by just their inner circle of peers but by everyone who is 'following' them from around the world. Teenagers already have an "imaginary audience" (that feeling as a child when it felt like everyone was looking or judging you based on your hair style that day or perhaps you have a minor blemish on your face and everyone is talking about or exclusively focusing on that hair style). This imaginary audience is amplified by engaging into social media. The stuff kids do to one up each other or create new inventive ways to get "likes" or "views" is far different now. I could on and on about it, but to people who think that social media has nothing to do with anything has to be kidding themselves.
No indentation for a paragraph - so you lose me .
I dont see why they are so stressed. My high school and college grades were the only thing keeping me from getting sent to Vietnam. How about that for pressure?
I can't believe that kids have the nerve to say that they had it harder than their parents.
Not too long ago, family sizes were much larger and homes were smaller. You had to share your room and toys with 6 other siblings and compete with them for your parents' attention. Now, each kid gets their own room and toys in the McMansion.
At school, you'd get beat up if you looked at the school bully the wrong way. Now, you cry to the principal that some chubby dude shoved your skinny ass against a locker. When you get home, you whine to your mom about that, who then tries to sue the chubby kid's parents for bodily injury. This type of behavior turns into "microaggression" and "triggering" complaints in college.
But fear not, snowflakes. The next generation will be wimpier than you, and you can whine on letsrun about them.
Please pleaseAre wrote:
I’m in my 50s and my teenage children tell me that generally teenagers of this generation face a much more stressful existence than of my generation. Apparently, due to the internet, academic expectations and having to excell in all areas, among others.
Anyone agree or have any thoughts on the subject?
2nd teenager in my small town just committed suicide
??? Stress being a teenager? Most don't have more stress than previous generations? Stress is being an adult with real world responsibilities. This generation and the previous one are generally weak and make excuses for lack of achievement. Quit being a weak loser, being afraid to fail and blaming it on stress. The overwhelming majority of American teens only responsibility is to go to high school, stay out of trouble and obey their parents. Who gives a damn about their silly friends trivial issues, when in 5 more years you will probably never see or speak to them again.
Stress?