Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Teenagers are better behaved and less hedonistic (2018)

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 466 posts

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

#291

Post by jackcosgrove »

_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…

Credentials used to be a shortcut to less work.

Do a little more work up front, and you can do less/easier work for the same pay down the line. It was mainly a test of deferred gratification.

Now if you are lucky enough to get a good credential, your skids are still greased to some extent.

However I say that credentials used to be a shortcut because now the amount of work it takes to get a decent credential is way higher than it used to be. Is it really a shortcut if getting to the shortcut takes more work than just taking the more common path?

You can look at it from a supply-demand perspective. The easier path is the one with the same demand and less supply. Thirty years ago most people had still not caught on that credentials were the easier path. Now they have so credentials are no longer the easier path.

There is nothing intrinsic about any line of work that makes it always a better option than another. You have to weigh your personal preferences and the supply and demand for each job.

I remember in high school how powerful peer pressure was, but once you reach your late twenties none of that matters anymore.

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

#292

Post by qqssccfftt »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #280
qqssccfftt wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mandatory military service otherwise known as government mandated slavery

I think mandatory military service is the only way to get sufficient people interested in participating and educating themselves about current issues to have a functional democracy.

Mandatory military service is nothing more than nationalistic brainwashing.

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

#293

Post by jrs235 »

vegetablepotpie wrote: post #182
_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 wish adults understood the realities of being young in 2020. Even when I graduated HS in 2007 I could tell my experience and the academic expectations I needed to live up to were much higher than it was for my mom. After I graduated I saw younger friends take more AP classes than I did and do more leadership activities than I did. Expectations are always ramping up. It is no party. Our laws and bureaucracies haven’…

Typically in the past I have recommended that anyone without a high school diploma or G.E.D. not read The Underachiever's Manifesto. After reading about your experience and how things are today, maybe if every high school senior read it then things might generally cool off a bit. Sure there will still be those that don't but there will always be a few.

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

#294

Post by Gibbon1 »

nostrademons wrote: post #157
vostok wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Entirely possible, but there's also potential selection bias. I was a teen in the late 90s, and was friends with a lot of the druggie/stoner/party crowd. By and large, these people do not have kids, because they can't afford to. A good many of them are dead now, either from overdoses, or drug-related accidents (like crashing their car while going 100 mph while high), or suicide. The 55 years of American history post-…

Kind of reminds me of the kids I grew up around in San Jose back in the 1960's and 70's. A lot of them thought they could party, skate through school and then go work for FMC or some such just like their dads. If I had to guess 75% of them have long ago left California because they couldn't cut it.

At least in the Bay Area teens appear to be way more buttoned down and smart than my generation. Don't get me started on the boomer generation. My teachers said my and even more my younger sisters generation were a very welcome relief from those guys.

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

#295

Post by as1mov »

101404 wrote: post #111
nabla9 wrote: post #104

Finland has mandatory military service for males. So every year you most of the young men (mostly age 18 to 20) into a controlled environment and go through standardized testing and observation. - Physical fitness has gone down, overweight goes up. - Intelligence peaked among those who were born in 70's and has been in slight decline last 18 years. Similar results can be seen in other developed countries. - Anxiety d…

> Finland has mandatory military service for males. How is that kind of institutionalized sexism still legal?

Turns out feminists don't want the 'right' to be considered as expendable resources, so they conveniently pretend it doesn't exist.

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

#296

Post by jackcosgrove »

cle wrote: post #200
deagle50 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My HS was competitive but in the 90s you didn't have to build your global brand on social media or maintain a blog. The things we were measured by were largely private, like your grades, SAT scores, and application essays. Now you have to become a mini-celebrity and survive the onslaught of millions trying to knock you down. Every HS kid in the US is only a couple steps removed on social media.

Do you really need to do that? What evidence is there? (Serious question)

I know of a young person who felt compelled to obtain a patent in high school as part of buffing their brand.

Do you need to do this? No. Is that the perception? In some places.

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

#297

Post by peterangular »

softwaredoug wrote: post #161
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.

As a parent, I've noticed the biggest problem that prevents "free range" kids is other adults without kids. Those of us WITH kids relish getting the kids outside and out of our hair. But those without kids frequently are calling the parents to complain our children are roaming the neighborhood, perhaps on their property. Or they fear these kids will create problems. Usually, however, they're just kids being kids. Goi…

As someone without kids please keep your kids off of my property/etc. I know this will not be a popular thing to say but you have NO right to put the liability of someone getting hurt on my hands.

This isn't a knock on the kids, but much more the adult world in the US - lawsuits are real and I 100% would expect expensive legal issues if a kid got hurt on my property. Hiring a lawyer is incredibly expensive and the court system is literal hell.

So yeah - keep your kids off my lawn.

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

#298

Post by baryphonic »

deagle50 wrote: post #142
baryphonic wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I could not agree more. This hit me hard during the interviews on the Stanford campus that I mentioned. I see the embrace of PC culture amount the younger cohort a result of the intense status competition, the resultant shallowness and lack of meaning associated with accomplishments rewarded by gains to status and prestige (even when the accomplishment is real and beneficial), and a paucity of explanations for why the status problem exists beyond repackaged Marxism wrapped in relatively strange philosophical ideas from the 60s and 70s. It's easy to judge young people, so I force myself to feel a great deal of compassion for them.

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

#299

Post by eli_gottlieb »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #164
kick wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The value of an Ivy is the prestige that comes with it. CMU is only prestigious in computing. Academically Duke is better than most Ivies, and it's got some pretty nice name recognition because of its outreach programs, but it doesn't really have the prestige of most Ivies. I'm mostly just entertained that in a discussion like this, MIT is completely absent. For obvious reasons, granted, but it's still funny.

It makes sense that MIT is absent as large donations can’t guarantee your kid gets into MIT.

Oh really? They can't?

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

#300

Post by Joof »

_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…

You just suggested that a lot of ivy-league schools are second tier. I'm not sure you're very representative of the vast majority of people.

In Texas, there's stuff like Stanford and Cornell, which is ivy league -- 1-2 kids might do that. Then we have 2 top tier state schools, then it's the other stuff.

Everyone else I work with got some degree from an Ivy League. Half have PhDs. It carries some weight and I think we get better VC funding and it's easier to get customers, but I don't think the degrees do much beyond that.

Post reply on HN