Are "teens" born or made? An interesting twist. • Hacker News Board

Re: Are "teens" born or made? An interesting twist.

#71

Post by simonsquiff » Tue, Mar 08, 2011, 1:01 PM UTC

I submitted an article yesterday about how it's peers that influence children not parents, and there was a very relevant quote:

"Developed societies have a special age group for people who are no longer children but are not yet adults, and this group becomes a source of social change. In societies that have only two age groups, children and adults, a culture can go along virtually unchanged for generation after generation, but as soon as there's a special age group for teenagers, things start to happen. The teenagers look for ways of demonstrating their fealty to their own age group ways of showing that they're different from adults. They use weird forms of adornment that adults find unacceptable, and they invent new words or use old words in new ways. If people didn't keep graduating out of the teenage group and taking their vocabulary with them, eventually they would create a whole new language and the adults wouldn't be able to understand them. Which, of course, is just what they're after!"

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2298961

Re: Are "teens" born or made? An interesting twist.

#72

Post by hasenj » Tue, Mar 08, 2011, 1:04 PM UTC

yters wrote: post #65

hasenj wrote: post #13

It's my opinion that "adolescence" is a new social construct that is not universal and not innate. It's more likely to be a self-fulfilling prophecy more than anything else. In older times, teenagers (above say, 14) were considered men, or young adults. They would fight in armies, or even lead them. They were likely to be married and maybe even have children. For all intents and purposes, people of age 16 are not muc…

I'd get rid of school. Teach kids writing, arithmetic and show them the internet. What do they need from teachers? I'd be hard pressed to name ONE class that was worth my time to attend.

OK, some people say they didn't learn much from college classes, and therefore university was worthless (or wasn't worth the money). I disagree. University puts you in an environment that encourages learning and inquisition. You could argue that you learned alot more from wikipedia than classes, but if it weren't for university, would you even bother reading wikipedia?

Re: Are "teens" born or made? An interesting twist.

#73

Post by ajju » Tue, Mar 08, 2011, 1:13 PM UTC

wtn wrote: post #44

patio11 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seem to be causing a lot of parsing errors this week: despite being extremely satisfied with my upbringing, I think the fact that I talked to only 3 adults in 8 years is a symptom of a problematic mindset which has negative effects in our society. Hermetically sealing off teenagers in a child's world, where they perpetually lack responsibility for anything or authority to do anything, is borked.

Oh, the problem wasn't with your text--it was with the parser.

I can confirm this finding. Assuming he hasn't edited his comment since my reply (a very fair assumption), I entirely missed his point.

Re: Are "teens" born or made? An interesting twist.

#74

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Mar 08, 2011, 1:18 PM UTC

mhb wrote: post #6

A PhD who doesn't know that "data" is plural?

[deleted]

Re: Are "teens" born or made? An interesting twist.

#75

Post by ajju » Tue, Mar 08, 2011, 1:18 PM UTC

patio11 wrote: post #50

wtn wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, the problem wasn't with your text--it was with the parser.

I deny the possibility of such a thing: I'm the professional communicator. If I get misunderstood then there was an opportunity for me to have phrased it better. (Ditto for when Mrs. Smith thinks she was triple charged by The Googles for her software because she thinks one mail from me, one mail from Google, and one confirmation page counts as three charges. Not her fault -- my fault. I live and breathe e-commerce --…

It is hard not to respect someone who treats their customers right AND treats fellow HN readers like customers, even when they are clearly in the wrong as I was.

I went to your profile and to bingocardcreator.com and appointmentreminder.org just to see how I may avail myself of such excellent service :) While I find myself not currently in the need for either product, I will be on the lookout for potential users for both.

Rock on.

Re: Are "teens" born or made? An interesting twist.

#76

Post by hasenj » Tue, Mar 08, 2011, 1:25 PM UTC

scott_s wrote: post #28

hasenj wrote: post #13

It's my opinion that "adolescence" is a new social construct that is not universal and not innate. It's more likely to be a self-fulfilling prophecy more than anything else. In older times, teenagers (above say, 14) were considered men, or young adults. They would fight in armies, or even lead them. They were likely to be married and maybe even have children. For all intents and purposes, people of age 16 are not muc…

For all intents and purposes, people of age 16 are not much different from other adults except in that they don't have much experience in life. This is demonstrably not true, and even says so in the article. The brains of a teenager are different than that of an adult. The question the article is asking is not "Are they differen?" because we know they are. The question the article is asking is "Is this difference cau…

> This is demonstrably not true, and even says so in the article. The brains of a teenager are different than that of an adult.

This is bad logic. It's not much different from saying "men and women are demonstrably different, therefore women should not have equal rights".

Of course they are different. 16 year olds are not the same as 40 year olds. It doesn't follow that 16 year olds are children who are just being rebellious and should be shunned down.

Re: Are "teens" born or made? An interesting twist.

#77

Post by hasenj » Tue, Mar 08, 2011, 1:27 PM UTC

notahacker wrote: post #57

giardini wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I must agree about adolescence. Consider the story of Romeo and Juliet. At an age where he has not yet grown a beard, Romeo has killed (at least) two men. He secretly marries his true love (and the Church blesses the marriage). Imagine, if you can, the reaction of parents, churches and schools today to such behavior.

I'd see Romeo and Juliet as the quintessential adolescents - it's a tale of whirlwind romance, gang violence and complete absence of self control on the part of the key protagonists. Isolated from the context of 16th century Verona and stripped of Shakespeare's poetic flair, the plot could easily be taken from a modern slushy teen drama.

But it does serve as a sort of evidence that 16th century society didn't view teenagers the same way modern society views them.

Re: Are "teens" born or made? An interesting twist.

#78

Post by ajju » Tue, Mar 08, 2011, 1:41 PM UTC

Andrew_Quentin wrote: post #70

patio11 wrote: post #7

One wonders about the wisdom of treating any interaction with an adult as being tantamount to asking for sexual exploitation while simultaneously dumping kids in a youth culture which says that sex is the best thing that everyone except them is having. I had a very fortunate upbringing in a lot of ways, but I think I talked to maybe three adults who were not parents, teachers, or family in an eight year period. That…

That is your experience. Hardly the problem we all have. Do you not have uncles, did they not come for dinner, what of aunties, and did you never go to your friends house where you would meet their parents, etc. I do not think anyone isolates kids or teenagers. I think, instead, the media attempts to portray such a picture so as to sell more papers. Regarding your latter comment, in a world where you do not mix even…

Here's some more anecdotal evidence from my personal experience that "hanging out with a 30 year old" in sixth grade is not always bad, and shouldn't always be considered strange.

I grew up in a small middle class neighborhood in a small town and was fortunate in that my dad went to one of the best engineering schools in the country. From ages 6 to 14, two of his friends taught me more about business and science than any kid can hope for, and I had a ball learning it.

The first was a small town shopkeeper who was our neighbor. Initially, I would go to his shop with my dad every Sunday and hang around and explore it for hours while they chatted. He would teach me bits and pieces about business more through example than words: treating customers and employees right, pricing products right, managing people etc. Eventually, I'd often go to his shop alone and hang out and sometimes he'd let me man the cash register for an hour or two. It was a huge responsibility and one that I was proud of. Many people today would consider a 8-14 year old going to a shop and hanging out with a 30 something shopkeeper alone weird, but I only benefited from this relationship. Obviously this was someone my parents knew and trusted, but I can't help but think these few years shaped my desires to be an entrepreneur and helped me along the way.

The second person was a guy who had a job building/fixing machinery at gas refineries who my dad went to school with. He was divorced early and never remarried, a recluse who liked to study and talk about physics and chemistry. He was also eccentric and (what I recognized later as) a consummate geek: generally shy but never shy about tearing apart bad/flawed arguments anyone made. He was also unfailingly fair about accepting defeat in arguments when he was wrong. In our small town, judging from the outside, I'd say most people would have called him a weirdo and they probably did. My parents trusted him though and I regularly hung out with him, often alone. He had a huge role to play in my interest in science and (what I hope is) my ability to never be shy about making my case, but to treat opponents fairly. Fun aside: this gentleman retired at 55 from his job with significant savings and went BACK to school for a Ph.D. in math, because he loves to learn.

NB: I do not have kids yet, and it is possible that some biological or cultural switch that goes on when I have children will change my perspective on this making me more protective. I hope it doesn't make me wary of all adults though.

Re: Are "teens" born or made? An interesting twist.

#79

Post by jimbokun » Tue, Mar 08, 2011, 1:45 PM UTC

patio11 wrote: post #46

kenjackson wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One wonders about the wisdom of treating any interaction with an adult as being tantamount to asking for sexual exploitation... but I think I talked to maybe three adults who were not parents, teachers, or family in an eight year period. Did your family subscribe to any specific religion or something that would lead to this behavior? I just had never heard of something like this. Although I guess if the age span is 0…

We were a middle-class(-ish) Catholic family in the suburbs. I think alienation from the larger community is not that abnormal of an experience these days. For example, if you read books or watch TV from the fifties, you might have a twelve year old boy with a friendship with a man in the neighborhood, perhaps in the context of sharing their common interest in carpentry or fence-painting, and doing totally innocuous…

Are you still in Japan?

Asking because I'm curious whether this kind of adult/child relationship stigma is as prevalent there as it is in the U.S.

Re: Are "teens" born or made? An interesting twist.

#80

Post by ajju » Tue, Mar 08, 2011, 1:54 PM UTC

follower wrote: post #69

patio11 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I deny the possibility of such a thing: I'm the professional communicator. If I get misunderstood then there was an opportunity for me to have phrased it better. (Ditto for when Mrs. Smith thinks she was triple charged by The Googles for her software because she thinks one mail from me, one mail from Google, and one confirmation page counts as three charges. Not her fault -- my fault. I live and breathe e-commerce --…

> Ditto for when Mrs. Smith thinks she was triple charged by The Googles [...] I should have made that more clear for someone who might only buy one thing online ever. An intriguing observation, how did you solve the problem?

Presumably by reassuring the customer, in bold font, on the confirmation page and in the email from him, both of which he controls, that they have only been charged once.