Introduction & Table of Contents
Future generations are growing up in a world that’s becoming digital, whether people like it or not. We felt, as a group, that this is a very important topic for everyone to be aware of. As a group we came up with 5 questions or perceptions that arise with this subject. We took the pro and con approach to each preconceived notion so we could explore differing opinions. This blog is a collaboration of our own experiences and articles that we found interesting to share with others. We hope that you enjoy and learn something from this interesting and fun blog!
★ Pro: Accessibility of Information is Detrimental to Children and Adolescents by Michael Braillard
★ Con: Accessibility of Information is Detrimental to Children and Adolescents by Donovan Russell
★ Pro: Technology Creates a Shorter Attention Span by Mary McChesney-Young
★ Con: Technology Creates a Shorter Attention Span by Sade Mehdizadeh
★ Pro: Exposure to Sex and Violence Causes Children to Act in Sexual/Violent Ways by Donovan Russell
★ Con: Exposure to Sex and Violence Causes Children to Act in Sexual/Violent Ways by Seneca Reynolds
★ Pro: Technology Stunts Social Development by Sade Mehdizadeh
★ Con: Technology Stunts Social Development by Mary McChesney-Young
★ Pro: Today's Generation is More Apathetic Than Others by Seneca Reynolds
★ Con: Today's Generation is More Apathetic Than Others by Michael Braillard
★ Conclusion
Monday, November 24, 2008
Conclusion
Well we had a great time making this project and learning from each other about our perspectives of growing up in this digital generation. One of the most interesting things we came across upon working on this blog was the power of collaboration. Also, we found that although we are a relatively small group of people, there was a multitude of opinions and information among us to explore. So in conclusion, instead of writing a nice neat conclusive argument, we want to send out an open invitation to anyone from anywhere who has a comment, opinion, rant, YouTube video, sound clip, pic, or anything to contribute to this blog. Please come collaborate with us.
Thanks for checking us out & we look forward to hearing from you in the future.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Pro: Accessibility of Information is Detrimental to Children and Adolescents
All the Better to IM You My Dear
One lonely Sunday a boy of impressionable youth logged in to his MySpace chat room type booth. He typed and he typed to all his friends about this or that between LOL’s and emoticon sends. All while watching HULU.com he came across that adorable Michael C. Hall. The young boy knew that he favored the boys to the girls but kept it a secret that he crushed on the Earl’s and the Troy’s. His urge was a hunger night after night as puberty crept up to what seemed an indelible spike. All of his will power and all of his might couldn’t stop his mind wandering from the twink porn website. He found it one day all by his lonesome, now to come think of it, a day similar to the one now in question. His parents? Unknowing of his sexuality and internet access never stop to realize their parental inactiveness. The problem was not his gayness or his search for this knowledge but all will come clear much later we’ll acknowledge.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children funded a study by the Crimes Against Children Resource Center in 2006 of youth Internet users over a five year period. They found:
1) An increase in encountering unwanted exposures to sexual material (from 25% to 34%)
2) An increase in cases of online harassment (from 6% to 9%)
3) A decrease in those receiving unwanted sexual solicitations (from 19% to 13%)
4) 40% of all youth Internet users said online solicitors asked them for nude or sexually explicit photographs of themselves.
5) Only a minority of youth who had unwanted sexual solicitations, unwanted exposures to sexual material, or harassment said they were distressed by the incidents.
6) One-third of the solicitations (31%) were aggressive, meaning the solicitors made, or attempted, offline contact with youth.
On the opposite end of town on that same lonely Sunday was a middle aged man creepy in his ways living the life of your typical predator cliché. We’ll call him the wolf for his hunger for his prey. He spent his days looking for boys impressionable towards his sway. Now the boy in question he had seen around the MySpace and such thus pegged him for his next boy he would touch. He saw our boy currently logged in and sent him an IM. They chatted and became quite friendly but the boy didn’t know the inappropriate intentions. This went on and on weeks upon weeks. Until one day our wolf asked them to meet. The boy said ok but where shall we meet. Why my house of course we can play Nintendo and eat cake.
The boy felt comfortable due to the attention the wolf gave. He rode his 10 speed all the way across town wearing his favorite little red hoodie that was old and beat down. He pulled up to the wolf’s lair at his apartment complex and knocked on his door while wiping off his specs. The wolf opened up and said hey little red hoodie while won’t you come in for play time and cookies. The boy was surprised by the wolf’s size and age but went in despite his stomach’s uneasiness gauge. Things started out ok but quite soon they progressed in no time they were unclothed within the wolf’s purpose. We won’t go into details but the boy came out feeling used, unsure about what had just transpired, his soul was quite bruised. He never told anyone, not his parents nor his friends, he kept it inside scarred deep within. It took him years to recover and understand to be gay was OK. But that the wolf took advantage of his youth, his access online, and made him his prey.
This is a story that happens daily through the internet. Parents need to understand what their kids are doing , who they’re talking to, and where they’re going online as well in the real world. Perry Aftab, writer of A Parent’s Guide to the Internet, said in a recent msnbc interview, “Pictures don’t hurt kids. People hurt kids . . . As long as parents think the only real risk is that the kids will see adult sex content, they won’t do anything.” Parents need to have a real world conversation about who’s out there, who can, and most likely will, try to talk with them. Children and Adolescents access to information is detrimental in that they can easily be taken advantage of by predator’s ease of access to them.
Parents should teach their children to:
1. Think before they click: With whom are they chatting or e-mailing, what are they saying and how are they saying it? Will the person on the other end know they are joking?
2. Walk away from the computer and “Take 5” before responding to something that upsets them online
3. Avoid spreading rumors, assisting in cyber bullying or sharing private communications online.
4. Follow the golden rule of cyberspace: Don’t do anything online that you wouldn’t do in real life!
Follow responsible safety practices yourself:
1. Install spyware and adware blocking software on your computer
2. Make sure you have a working firewall
3. Install anti-virus software and update it regularly
4. Take advantage of spam-blocking tools offered by your Internet provider or e-mail software
(Read the opposing argument)
Pro: Technology Creates a Shorter Attention Span
TL;DR
By Mary McChesney-Young
Just as I started reading a piece of research to prepare for writing this entry, I had to move to a different location in order to find an outlet to charge my laptop's battery. I found an isolated hallway and sat on the floor, plugged in my computer... and quickly discovered that there was no wireless signal back here. YIKES. How will I check my e-mail and IM with my friends and go on YouTube and use Google and... Riiiight, I'm supposed to be reading, anyway.
(Too bad it's so hard to concentrate.)
...
Okay, it's the next day now. I wasn't able to actually sit down and focus long enough to add anything to this (I got too distracted by my other essay. And ONTD. And the TV.) Let's try this again.
In the past, when using traditional media like paper and pens, or even typewriters or computers before the dawn of the Internet, focusing on one subject or endeavor at a time was easier because there were fewer opportunities for distractions. Now, sitting down at the computer to work on a project means being able to access millions of websites, and browsers' tabbing capabilities mean that a person can have as many as twenty pages loaded in one window, easy to flip through so you never have to stay on one page for longer than a minute before moving on. IMing, text messaging, and Twittering all focus on getting short, often abbreviated messages out to others. Kids these days (*waves cane around*) are spoiled by our culture of instant gratification and perpetual entertainment. As soon as something takes longer than a minute to load or ceases to be entertaining, it loses value. Although not much research has been completed on this subject, it seems reasonable to worry that regular use of the Internet and other technologies might cause children (and adults) to develop an inability to concentrate on a given task for an extended period of time.
In the Atlantic article, Is Google Making Us Stupid?, Nicholas Carr postulates that changing technology, including the Internet, has changed the way we think, and particularly the way we read and absorb information. As an historical example of this happening, he points to the invention of the mechanical clock:
"The clock’s methodical ticking helped bring into being the scientific mind and the scientific man. ... In deciding when to eat, to work, to sleep, to rise, we stopped listening to our senses and started obeying the clock.
"The process of adapting to new intellectual technologies is reflected in the changing metaphors we use to explain ourselves to ourselves. When the mechanical clock arrived, people began thinking of their brains as operating 'like clockwork.' Today, in the age of software, we have come to think of them as operating 'like computers.' But the changes, neuroscience tells us, go much deeper than metaphor. Thanks to our brain’s plasticity, the adaptation occurs also at a biological level."
And in the book Everything Bad Is Good For You, Steven Johnson compares the number of plot lines in TV shows from before the 1980s to the number in more modern TV shows, claiming that the significantly higher number today shows a complexity which was previously missing (page 72). While in Johnson's opinion this shows that audiences today are being challenged to think in more complex ways (which is a good thing), I have to wonder if this doesn't also contribute to shortening attention spans, given that obviously the scenes devoted to individual plot lines must shorten in length to fill the same time slot.
(The title of this entry, TL;DR, is an acronym often used by people online who are too lazy to read a full blog entry, e-mail, article, etc. It stands for, "Too long; didn't read," and I think sums up nicely the attitude that Internet use can foster.)
Two examples of my favorite online distractions: I Can Has Cheezburger and Passive Aggressive Notes.com.
(Read the opposing argument)
By Mary McChesney-Young
Just as I started reading a piece of research to prepare for writing this entry, I had to move to a different location in order to find an outlet to charge my laptop's battery. I found an isolated hallway and sat on the floor, plugged in my computer... and quickly discovered that there was no wireless signal back here. YIKES. How will I check my e-mail and IM with my friends and go on YouTube and use Google and... Riiiight, I'm supposed to be reading, anyway.
(Too bad it's so hard to concentrate.)
...
Okay, it's the next day now. I wasn't able to actually sit down and focus long enough to add anything to this (I got too distracted by my other essay. And ONTD. And the TV.) Let's try this again.
In the past, when using traditional media like paper and pens, or even typewriters or computers before the dawn of the Internet, focusing on one subject or endeavor at a time was easier because there were fewer opportunities for distractions. Now, sitting down at the computer to work on a project means being able to access millions of websites, and browsers' tabbing capabilities mean that a person can have as many as twenty pages loaded in one window, easy to flip through so you never have to stay on one page for longer than a minute before moving on. IMing, text messaging, and Twittering all focus on getting short, often abbreviated messages out to others. Kids these days (*waves cane around*) are spoiled by our culture of instant gratification and perpetual entertainment. As soon as something takes longer than a minute to load or ceases to be entertaining, it loses value. Although not much research has been completed on this subject, it seems reasonable to worry that regular use of the Internet and other technologies might cause children (and adults) to develop an inability to concentrate on a given task for an extended period of time.
In the Atlantic article, Is Google Making Us Stupid?, Nicholas Carr postulates that changing technology, including the Internet, has changed the way we think, and particularly the way we read and absorb information. As an historical example of this happening, he points to the invention of the mechanical clock:
"The clock’s methodical ticking helped bring into being the scientific mind and the scientific man. ... In deciding when to eat, to work, to sleep, to rise, we stopped listening to our senses and started obeying the clock.
"The process of adapting to new intellectual technologies is reflected in the changing metaphors we use to explain ourselves to ourselves. When the mechanical clock arrived, people began thinking of their brains as operating 'like clockwork.' Today, in the age of software, we have come to think of them as operating 'like computers.' But the changes, neuroscience tells us, go much deeper than metaphor. Thanks to our brain’s plasticity, the adaptation occurs also at a biological level."
And in the book Everything Bad Is Good For You, Steven Johnson compares the number of plot lines in TV shows from before the 1980s to the number in more modern TV shows, claiming that the significantly higher number today shows a complexity which was previously missing (page 72). While in Johnson's opinion this shows that audiences today are being challenged to think in more complex ways (which is a good thing), I have to wonder if this doesn't also contribute to shortening attention spans, given that obviously the scenes devoted to individual plot lines must shorten in length to fill the same time slot.
(The title of this entry, TL;DR, is an acronym often used by people online who are too lazy to read a full blog entry, e-mail, article, etc. It stands for, "Too long; didn't read," and I think sums up nicely the attitude that Internet use can foster.)
Two examples of my favorite online distractions: I Can Has Cheezburger and Passive Aggressive Notes.com.
(Read the opposing argument)
Con: Technology Stunts Social Development
By Mary McChesney-Young
The Internet has created a new brand of globalization, which makes possible across continents communication, organization, and action which previously would have been hindered or limited to relatively small areas due to the boundaries of time and distance.
Social networking websites like MySpace and Facebook, both of which have well over 100,000,000 registered users, are incredibly popular among teenagers and young adults. According to a July 2007 article in the San Francisco Chronicle, "nearly 60 percent of those age 12 to 17 and 80 percent of 18- to 21-year-olds use social-networking sites." Through these sites, people can find each other based on location, school, or interest, and become friends. Often they serve as an extension of established friendships: instead of seeing a friend at school, going home separately, and waiting until the next day to interact again, people can now continue their social interactions as soon as they get home.
Many other sites with social networking aspects are more specialized, but all rely upon one thing: user-generated content. LiveJournal, BlogSpot, YouTube, and Flickr (and their ilk) play host to blog or journal entries, essays, fiction (sometimes novel-length), amateur music videos, professionally-made short films and documentaries, and an amazing array of photographs and art. They foster users' creativity for the sake of creativity--and of comments, which is where the networking aspect comes in. People who otherwise would never share their creations, or perhaps never even create them because they felt they had no audience, can now oftentimes receive instant feedback on the content they post. They can collaborate or debate with people halfway across the world and join communities of people who share their interests.
According to a summary of findings from the Digital Youth Project, "Youth engage in peer-based, self-directed learning online. In both friendship-driven and interest-driven online activity, youth create and navigate new forms of expression and rules for social behavior. By exploring new interests, tinkering, and 'messing around' with new forms of media, they acquire various forms of technical and media literacy. ... By its immediacy and breadth of information, the digital world lowers barriers to self-directed learning." As an unschooler, the concept of self-directed learning resonates deeply with me. I think that the digital world is an incredibly rich source of learning opportunities for young people who explore it. The Wikipedia effect--looking something up, clicking on a related article, then another, then another, until you find yourself reading about Mihály Csíkszentmihályi or something similarly unrelated to your original search--can also be played out with other websites and blogs, because of the ease of linking. This seems to me to parallel the kind of complex, connected thinking that children learn to do as they grow older.
Technology doesn't just help people to make friends; it can also help to lessen the pain or difficulty of separation when friends and family members live far away. My sister moved to Texas a couple of months ago and I certainly miss her, but I also can keep up with her by reading her blog, checking out her Flickr, interacting with her on Facebook, and calling or texting her on her cell phone every day or two. And my mom always excitedly calls me over to the computer to come see whenever my cousins e-mail pictures of their kids. Technologies like Skype (online phone calls) and video chatting allow people to connect with each other no matter where they are.
Growing up in this environment--a global, connected, creative digital world--fosters a new attitude towards others, encouraging kids to be fully aware of the world around them rather than to be constricted to their hometown or state or country or even continent. Communicating with somebody in another country automatically makes you conscious of that country's existence and place in the world, and creates a recognition of that country's citizens as real people, with many similarities (and fascinating differences) to those of your own country. In addition, the digital world helps connect people close to home, helping to develop deep and highly social relationships between peers.
Two of my favorite examples of social connection online are: From 52 To 48 With Love and PostSecret. ♥
(Read the opposing argument)
The Internet has created a new brand of globalization, which makes possible across continents communication, organization, and action which previously would have been hindered or limited to relatively small areas due to the boundaries of time and distance.
Social networking websites like MySpace and Facebook, both of which have well over 100,000,000 registered users, are incredibly popular among teenagers and young adults. According to a July 2007 article in the San Francisco Chronicle, "nearly 60 percent of those age 12 to 17 and 80 percent of 18- to 21-year-olds use social-networking sites." Through these sites, people can find each other based on location, school, or interest, and become friends. Often they serve as an extension of established friendships: instead of seeing a friend at school, going home separately, and waiting until the next day to interact again, people can now continue their social interactions as soon as they get home.
Many other sites with social networking aspects are more specialized, but all rely upon one thing: user-generated content. LiveJournal, BlogSpot, YouTube, and Flickr (and their ilk) play host to blog or journal entries, essays, fiction (sometimes novel-length), amateur music videos, professionally-made short films and documentaries, and an amazing array of photographs and art. They foster users' creativity for the sake of creativity--and of comments, which is where the networking aspect comes in. People who otherwise would never share their creations, or perhaps never even create them because they felt they had no audience, can now oftentimes receive instant feedback on the content they post. They can collaborate or debate with people halfway across the world and join communities of people who share their interests.
According to a summary of findings from the Digital Youth Project, "Youth engage in peer-based, self-directed learning online. In both friendship-driven and interest-driven online activity, youth create and navigate new forms of expression and rules for social behavior. By exploring new interests, tinkering, and 'messing around' with new forms of media, they acquire various forms of technical and media literacy. ... By its immediacy and breadth of information, the digital world lowers barriers to self-directed learning." As an unschooler, the concept of self-directed learning resonates deeply with me. I think that the digital world is an incredibly rich source of learning opportunities for young people who explore it. The Wikipedia effect--looking something up, clicking on a related article, then another, then another, until you find yourself reading about Mihály Csíkszentmihályi or something similarly unrelated to your original search--can also be played out with other websites and blogs, because of the ease of linking. This seems to me to parallel the kind of complex, connected thinking that children learn to do as they grow older.
Technology doesn't just help people to make friends; it can also help to lessen the pain or difficulty of separation when friends and family members live far away. My sister moved to Texas a couple of months ago and I certainly miss her, but I also can keep up with her by reading her blog, checking out her Flickr, interacting with her on Facebook, and calling or texting her on her cell phone every day or two. And my mom always excitedly calls me over to the computer to come see whenever my cousins e-mail pictures of their kids. Technologies like Skype (online phone calls) and video chatting allow people to connect with each other no matter where they are.
Growing up in this environment--a global, connected, creative digital world--fosters a new attitude towards others, encouraging kids to be fully aware of the world around them rather than to be constricted to their hometown or state or country or even continent. Communicating with somebody in another country automatically makes you conscious of that country's existence and place in the world, and creates a recognition of that country's citizens as real people, with many similarities (and fascinating differences) to those of your own country. In addition, the digital world helps connect people close to home, helping to develop deep and highly social relationships between peers.
Two of my favorite examples of social connection online are: From 52 To 48 With Love and PostSecret. ♥
(Read the opposing argument)
Con: Exposure to Sex and Violence Causes Children to Act in Sexual/Violent Ways
By Seneca Reynolds
Kids growing up today are not prone to violence and sexuality. We are too quick to blame violence on the exposure to Internet and video games. And many who point their fingers towards easy Internet access when looking for a reason for the promiscuous behavior of our youth. Instead, we should point our blame at the adults who seem to be lax on monitoring the exposure. And who is to say that exposure is everything? There are nations with little or no Internet access who seem to have cultures full of more violence and corruption than ours. Therefore, it seems to be that exposure is not to blame.
When it comes to the exposure to violence, we seem to be in a world of misplaced blame. It is absurd to blame school shootings on video games, and it is ridiculous to point fingers at the gaming industry when wondering why some children seem to be confused about how to behave. Not all video games are violent and not all violent video gamers are full of outrage and misguided anger. It is up to the parent or guardian to not buy those violent video games for their child. It is up to the parent or guardian to teach their child about violence. It is not the responsibility of the gaming industry to teach children what is right or wrong.
Historically speaking, the society that we live in today has not been exposed to even close to the same amounts of violence as that of societies before us. If you look at civilizations dating back before the 1900s, you will be surprised by the violence that was so present in everyday life. There were days of unimaginable everyday exposure to violence. And let me tell you, there were no violent video games to blame for the gruesome days when Vikings ruled. We live in a world today that in comparison contains far less violence than you will find in the history books. Long gone are the days when the whole town would come to watch the beheading of a local outlaw.
In an article in Science Daily, “... Kierkegaard explains, there is no obvious link between real-world violence statistics and the advent of video games. If anything, the effect seems to be the exact opposite and one might argue that video game usage has reduced real violence. Despite several high profile incidents in US academic institutions, 'Violent crime, particularly among the young, has decreased dramatically since the early 1990s,' says Kierkegaard, 'while video games have steadily increased in popularity and use. For example, in 2005, there were 1,360,088 violent crimes reported in the USA compared with 1,423,677 the year before. 'With millions of sales of violent games, the world should be seeing an epidemic of violence,' he says, 'Instead, violence has declined.'”
If anything, media sensitizes us to the issues surrounding violence. Death is brought into the home on the television and the soldier killed overseas is given a name and face. Tales of war are not left to imagination and wonderment. The people are being told and reality is hitting close to home. Awareness and exposure go hand in hand and they do not desensitize the situation; if anything, they do the opposite. The media and exposure that goes along with it seems to have actually pushed the notion of universal human rights. You can now go on the internet and see what is going on in the world and how people are being treated. We are bringing up a generation that is more educated and informed than any this world has seen before.
In terms of sexuality, we seem to be a nation that chooses to look the other way at inappropriate or disapproving behavior yet come down strong when the consequences are not what we might call acceptable. There is no system of intervention set up for the youth of today, only a system to deal with the consequences of their actions. What if we lived in a world where those undesired consequences did not exist because we, the grown-ups, talked to the youth about what “could” happen? The school systems today seem to be surrounded by an abstinence only campaign. Youth are told simply to not act on their urges until they're married and to ignore their desires. And the result is a historical rise in the teen pregnancy rate and an increase in sexually transmitted diseases among preteens! Twelve year olds are not getting herpes because it is too easy to access whatever they want on the internet. If anything, this high-tech generation is misinformed on the consequences of their behavior, or not even informed at all in the first place. We can not blame media and exposure for the mishaps of our youth. The adults in this world need to stand up and take responsibility for not being involved enough in the lives of our children.
(Read the opposing argument)
Kids growing up today are not prone to violence and sexuality. We are too quick to blame violence on the exposure to Internet and video games. And many who point their fingers towards easy Internet access when looking for a reason for the promiscuous behavior of our youth. Instead, we should point our blame at the adults who seem to be lax on monitoring the exposure. And who is to say that exposure is everything? There are nations with little or no Internet access who seem to have cultures full of more violence and corruption than ours. Therefore, it seems to be that exposure is not to blame.
When it comes to the exposure to violence, we seem to be in a world of misplaced blame. It is absurd to blame school shootings on video games, and it is ridiculous to point fingers at the gaming industry when wondering why some children seem to be confused about how to behave. Not all video games are violent and not all violent video gamers are full of outrage and misguided anger. It is up to the parent or guardian to not buy those violent video games for their child. It is up to the parent or guardian to teach their child about violence. It is not the responsibility of the gaming industry to teach children what is right or wrong.
Historically speaking, the society that we live in today has not been exposed to even close to the same amounts of violence as that of societies before us. If you look at civilizations dating back before the 1900s, you will be surprised by the violence that was so present in everyday life. There were days of unimaginable everyday exposure to violence. And let me tell you, there were no violent video games to blame for the gruesome days when Vikings ruled. We live in a world today that in comparison contains far less violence than you will find in the history books. Long gone are the days when the whole town would come to watch the beheading of a local outlaw.
In an article in Science Daily, “... Kierkegaard explains, there is no obvious link between real-world violence statistics and the advent of video games. If anything, the effect seems to be the exact opposite and one might argue that video game usage has reduced real violence. Despite several high profile incidents in US academic institutions, 'Violent crime, particularly among the young, has decreased dramatically since the early 1990s,' says Kierkegaard, 'while video games have steadily increased in popularity and use. For example, in 2005, there were 1,360,088 violent crimes reported in the USA compared with 1,423,677 the year before. 'With millions of sales of violent games, the world should be seeing an epidemic of violence,' he says, 'Instead, violence has declined.'”
If anything, media sensitizes us to the issues surrounding violence. Death is brought into the home on the television and the soldier killed overseas is given a name and face. Tales of war are not left to imagination and wonderment. The people are being told and reality is hitting close to home. Awareness and exposure go hand in hand and they do not desensitize the situation; if anything, they do the opposite. The media and exposure that goes along with it seems to have actually pushed the notion of universal human rights. You can now go on the internet and see what is going on in the world and how people are being treated. We are bringing up a generation that is more educated and informed than any this world has seen before.
In terms of sexuality, we seem to be a nation that chooses to look the other way at inappropriate or disapproving behavior yet come down strong when the consequences are not what we might call acceptable. There is no system of intervention set up for the youth of today, only a system to deal with the consequences of their actions. What if we lived in a world where those undesired consequences did not exist because we, the grown-ups, talked to the youth about what “could” happen? The school systems today seem to be surrounded by an abstinence only campaign. Youth are told simply to not act on their urges until they're married and to ignore their desires. And the result is a historical rise in the teen pregnancy rate and an increase in sexually transmitted diseases among preteens! Twelve year olds are not getting herpes because it is too easy to access whatever they want on the internet. If anything, this high-tech generation is misinformed on the consequences of their behavior, or not even informed at all in the first place. We can not blame media and exposure for the mishaps of our youth. The adults in this world need to stand up and take responsibility for not being involved enough in the lives of our children.
(Read the opposing argument)
Pro: Today's Generation is More Apathetic Than Others
By Seneca Reynolds
So, is today’s generation more apathetic then their predecessors? Heck yeah they are! Everywhere I look, I see teenagers more worried about the latest fashions than they are at the state of our planet. It's not that the youth of today have no passion, it’s just that their passion seems to have a whole lot to do with self. Jean Twenge, author of the book Generation Me, helped lead a study that found the rate of narcissism in youth today has almost doubled since the study began some twenty years ago. Everybody needs a cause to fight for. Whether it be for the better of the planet or for your own personal triumph. And the youth of today seem to be choosing the latter. So, in the eyes of the world they are labeled as apathetic: Apathetic to political issues, apathetic to worldly concerns and apathetic when it comes to their future. They are being labeled as the “Entitlement Generation.”
The youth of today have been given many nicknames that seem to hint at their apathetic ways and “Entitlement Generation” is the one that seems to have stuck. The world seems to be full of youth who feel entitled to fortune and fame yet don’t want to put in the work to get there. Too many children are growing up being given far more than they need to get through life. The generations of struggling youth are no longer here and the stories of overcoming obstacles have been buried and forgotten. Children are growing up in what can be argued to be a more turbulent and historic time than ever, yet they choose to simply sit back and watch it all happen. Has the over exposure to the issues made them desensitized? The stories of getting stuff done and rising up are now the tales of grandparents and the words seem to have been getting lost. There are no stories of uprisings or falling in love with your future husband in jail after being arrested for trespassing during a protest to end nuclear energy. That sense of voice and empowerment seem to have been lost.
I remember growing up listening to my mom tell me stories of protests she participated in during her teens and can recall the day she took me to a street corner in town and we held up signs demanding an end to the Gulf War. Those days seem to be over for the moment and that saddens me. I live in a house with four teenagers and spend my summers working at a children’s camp. And let me tell you, there is no sense of fighting the struggle in the youth I know. There is no sense of wonderment in what they can do to make a change.
(Read the opposing argument)
So, is today’s generation more apathetic then their predecessors? Heck yeah they are! Everywhere I look, I see teenagers more worried about the latest fashions than they are at the state of our planet. It's not that the youth of today have no passion, it’s just that their passion seems to have a whole lot to do with self. Jean Twenge, author of the book Generation Me, helped lead a study that found the rate of narcissism in youth today has almost doubled since the study began some twenty years ago. Everybody needs a cause to fight for. Whether it be for the better of the planet or for your own personal triumph. And the youth of today seem to be choosing the latter. So, in the eyes of the world they are labeled as apathetic: Apathetic to political issues, apathetic to worldly concerns and apathetic when it comes to their future. They are being labeled as the “Entitlement Generation.”
The youth of today have been given many nicknames that seem to hint at their apathetic ways and “Entitlement Generation” is the one that seems to have stuck. The world seems to be full of youth who feel entitled to fortune and fame yet don’t want to put in the work to get there. Too many children are growing up being given far more than they need to get through life. The generations of struggling youth are no longer here and the stories of overcoming obstacles have been buried and forgotten. Children are growing up in what can be argued to be a more turbulent and historic time than ever, yet they choose to simply sit back and watch it all happen. Has the over exposure to the issues made them desensitized? The stories of getting stuff done and rising up are now the tales of grandparents and the words seem to have been getting lost. There are no stories of uprisings or falling in love with your future husband in jail after being arrested for trespassing during a protest to end nuclear energy. That sense of voice and empowerment seem to have been lost.
I remember growing up listening to my mom tell me stories of protests she participated in during her teens and can recall the day she took me to a street corner in town and we held up signs demanding an end to the Gulf War. Those days seem to be over for the moment and that saddens me. I live in a house with four teenagers and spend my summers working at a children’s camp. And let me tell you, there is no sense of fighting the struggle in the youth I know. There is no sense of wonderment in what they can do to make a change.
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