Teenagers are better behaved and less hedonistic (2018) • Hacker News Board

Re: Teenagers are better behaved and less hedonistic (2018)

#141

Post by switch007 » Sun, Apr 26, 2020, 2:46 PM UTC

kick wrote: post #116

switch007 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The LGBT kids fuck to an extent, as do some of the lower achievers, but even then it's nowhere near as much as I expected. I'm trying to be charitable and not over-interpret the juxtaposition of "LGBT" and "lower achievers". I'm surprised you have so much time to study who is having sex. Quite remarkable.

It might actually reflect your own prejudice a bit that you're interpreting it that way. Speaking as a rainbow myself over here, it's...not unlikely? Throw a bunch of teenagers or young adults in support groups together with the subtext that they all have the same sexual orientation with no chance of being shamed for making advances for what's effectively the first time in most of their lives, and it doesn't take a f…

The way it was written makes out they have hard evidence of who is having sex broken down by grade and orientation. I don't believe that for a second.

I guess you just need to write assertively and nobody will question it.

Re: Teenagers are better behaved and less hedonistic (2018)

#142

Post by deagle50 » Sun, Apr 26, 2020, 2:47 PM UTC

baryphonic wrote: post #85

_5yps wrote: post #27

16-year-old here. My experience is probably markedly different from most teenagers in the US (I'm an immigrant who goes to a competitive school full of other immigrants) but I find that, for the most part, this article hits the nail on the head. High School is nothing like the usual media portrayal - I've never heard anyone even talk about a party, nobody's doing anything stronger than weed, nobody's fucking or even…

If there was something I could impart to this generation, it would be this. I deeply admire your commitment to entrepreneurialism and to taking a bit of ownership over what you can learn in terms of "return on investment." However, I would caution you to remember still what is the most rewarding in life. Too often I see a never-ending status tournament for those in the elite schools (all of those mentioned), and it c…

To expand on your point - I am starting to believe that the political correctness oozing out of teens and those in the early 20s today is actually compensation for a new form of selfishness that comes from being measured in real time on a global scale, and drives the non-stop status games you described.

Re: Teenagers are better behaved and less hedonistic (2018)

#143

Post by aerovistae » Sun, Apr 26, 2020, 2:49 PM UTC

_5yps wrote: post #27

16-year-old here. My experience is probably markedly different from most teenagers in the US (I'm an immigrant who goes to a competitive school full of other immigrants) but I find that, for the most part, this article hits the nail on the head. High School is nothing like the usual media portrayal - I've never heard anyone even talk about a party, nobody's doing anything stronger than weed, nobody's fucking or even…

Geez, your writing voice does not sound 16.

Re: Teenagers are better behaved and less hedonistic (2018)

#144

Post by MivLives » Sun, Apr 26, 2020, 2:50 PM UTC

stareatgoats wrote: post #35

_5yps wrote: post #27

16-year-old here. My experience is probably markedly different from most teenagers in the US (I'm an immigrant who goes to a competitive school full of other immigrants) but I find that, for the most part, this article hits the nail on the head. High School is nothing like the usual media portrayal - I've never heard anyone even talk about a party, nobody's doing anything stronger than weed, nobody's fucking or even…

> I've never heard anyone even talk about a party And the stuff about sexual intercourse - really? Such a far cry from my own high school years (in the seventies), I can hardly believe it. Sounds more like the stuff I would try to convince my mother, with mixed success. Otherwise, kudos for such mastery of language at 16.

As is mentioned elsewhere a lot of that might be the case of just no one talking about it publicly. I went to high school in the era when smartphones just started to be a thing. No one was really talking about sex out loud, people would get caught with drugs occasionally (a lot of xanax and weed), but why would anyone talk to the person who sat at the lunch table with the kid who wore a tail everyday.

I was also in one of the first schools that issued laptops to all students. The use of them was similar to how the parent post described smart phones. The honors/ap kids would either type notes or just not use them. The CP kids would be on... whatever the unblocked site of the day was (people figured out pretty early on that google docs/google wave were good ways to chat). The weirdos like me were playing cat and mouse with the tech people hosting proxies, imageboards, and meebo (IM client) repeaters. I'll never forget the day we went to the stupid url we used for it, and it redirected to barney.com. We also had a rather robust sneakernet set up for distributing giant packs of flash games and early versions of minecraft.

Re: Teenagers are better behaved and less hedonistic (2018)

#145

Post by ineedasername » Sun, Apr 26, 2020, 2:50 PM UTC

_5yps wrote: post #27

16-year-old here. My experience is probably markedly different from most teenagers in the US (I'm an immigrant who goes to a competitive school full of other immigrants) but I find that, for the most part, this article hits the nail on the head. High School is nothing like the usual media portrayal - I've never heard anyone even talk about a party, nobody's doing anything stronger than weed, nobody's fucking or even…

Why does the school allow anyone to keep their phones on their desks, much less tolerate use during class time?

Re: Teenagers are better behaved and less hedonistic (2018)

#146

Post by vostok » Sun, Apr 26, 2020, 2:51 PM UTC

matwood wrote: post #110

_5yps wrote: post #27

16-year-old here. My experience is probably markedly different from most teenagers in the US (I'm an immigrant who goes to a competitive school full of other immigrants) but I find that, for the most part, this article hits the nail on the head. High School is nothing like the usual media portrayal - I've never heard anyone even talk about a party, nobody's doing anything stronger than weed, nobody's fucking or even…

Wow, how things have change from when I was a teen in HS in the early 90s. I was a 'responsible' one because I had a job. Few people thought about 'getting in' (IIRC the valedictorian went to the AF academy), but otherwise we all just wanted to graduate and go to one of the 2 big state schools or the local college. I was smart enough, i.e. paid attention in class, that I never had to study (that caught up with me in…

I would guess that more of this difference is explained by class/social factors than by the passage of time.

Re: Teenagers are better behaved and less hedonistic (2018)

#147

Post by oblio » Sun, Apr 26, 2020, 2:51 PM UTC

daptaq wrote: post #121

_5yps wrote: post #27

16-year-old here. My experience is probably markedly different from most teenagers in the US (I'm an immigrant who goes to a competitive school full of other immigrants) but I find that, for the most part, this article hits the nail on the head. High School is nothing like the usual media portrayal - I've never heard anyone even talk about a party, nobody's doing anything stronger than weed, nobody's fucking or even…

> I've never heard anyone even talk about a party, nobody's doing anything stronger than weed, nobody's fucking or even dating at all. That's easy to explain: You don't have to talk about these things anymore, because of IM & co.. It's all still happening, but it's easier to hide it from the "dweebs". I've seen both sides, and it's really surprising how well this unwritten system works. At best you realize a few year…

> I've seen both sides, and it's really surprising how well this unwritten system works.

Mind giving more details for someone who was last a teen more than a decade ago? :-)

Re: Teenagers are better behaved and less hedonistic (2018)

#148

Post by Igelau » Sun, Apr 26, 2020, 2:51 PM UTC

namelosw wrote: post #119

Kids are so less adventurous nowadays. I'm not sure about teenagers, but for college students, it's more obvious. I believe it's because society is less forgiving - young people spent a ton of money or taking loans, work hard at school, cannot find jobs that are not stressful and underpaid. Or couldn't even find jobs at all. One step wrong and they would be screwed.

It's not just that, but we became a culture where your neighbors will call the police if you let your kids walk around the block alone.

The Baby Boomers criminalized and curtailed almost all the risk that made childhood and teenage years adventerous. I got to watch things getting systematically removed as I grew up. My brother is a few years older than me and we went through the same junior high. His experience including shop class, wrestling in gym, and dissecting a frog. Mine didn't.

Re: Teenagers are better behaved and less hedonistic (2018)

#149

Post by alistairSH » Sun, Apr 26, 2020, 2:52 PM UTC

empath75 wrote: post #82

_5yps wrote: post #27

16-year-old here. My experience is probably markedly different from most teenagers in the US (I'm an immigrant who goes to a competitive school full of other immigrants) but I find that, for the most part, this article hits the nail on the head. High School is nothing like the usual media portrayal - I've never heard anyone even talk about a party, nobody's doing anything stronger than weed, nobody's fucking or even…

I doubt that’s the general experience of high schoolers. I was in honors and AP programs in high school in the 90s and I’d have described a similar dynamic at my school, until one year my ADHD got the better of me and I failed english and had to go to summer school. It turns out a whole lot of kids in my high school were doing drugs and having parties and having sex. They just aren’t in your classes at your school. T…

Strange, I finished HS in '95 and was taking mostly honors and AP throughout. We partied plenty. Drugs weren't rampant, but pot, X, and assorted pills were common. College choices were generally strong - most of us landed at UVA, VT, or W&M (hard to go wrong in VA) but a some landed at the Ivies, Chapel Hill, Duke, etc.

As far as I can tell, the big difference between then and today, at least here in metro DC, is the competitiveness of admissions to the top-tier state schools. UVA, VT, and W&M used to be sure things for anybody with a B+ GPA, some AP coursework, and 4 years of consistent extracurriculars. These days, everybody has a better-than-perfect GPA (due to AP bonuses) and a lifetime of hyper-focus on one or two extracurriculars. Doesn't seem to be any time for exploration and just having fun any more.

Re: Teenagers are better behaved and less hedonistic (2018)

#150

Post by MivLives » Sun, Apr 26, 2020, 2:52 PM UTC

namelosw wrote: post #119

Kids are so less adventurous nowadays. I'm not sure about teenagers, but for college students, it's more obvious. I believe it's because society is less forgiving - young people spent a ton of money or taking loans, work hard at school, cannot find jobs that are not stressful and underpaid. Or couldn't even find jobs at all. One step wrong and they would be screwed.

It's harder to be forgotten. One mistake can follow you for the rest of your life, via social media, via background checks.