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Teenagers are better behaved and less hedonistic (2018)

economist.com

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

#461

Post by _ozss »

deagle50 wrote: post #132
jshaqaw wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly this doesn’t sound that different from my own competitive high school experiences almost 30 years ago. The fact that you and your peers bin Duke and Cornell into the second tier bargain bin suggests that your subset of peers may not be a representative sample of the student universe.

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.

Yes, and this is why it is hard for those (like me, HS student, 16yo) who avoid social media as a matter of privacy. I personally get left out of friend groups, etc. and when I was applying for an internship, one of the questions was "Please list your social media handles/accounts here"... I'm pretty sure I know why I didn't get that internship :) They probably thought I was hiding something...

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

#462

Post by _ozss »

_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…

And I think that the major cause of this is parents' pressure. I experience it myself (also 16yo) and I see my classmates experience it to. Example: A group of us are doing a CAS project (required for the IB diploma) and we'd formed a group of boys. Before we finalised our group, one of the guys said (I kid you not) that his parents told him that having a girl on the group would help him on college apps. I wasn't opposed to the idea, but the motivation was clear: he didn't want to do it for diversity of opinion, he wanted to do it because his parents said so. And the attitude of the kids extends to how they perceive others. There's almost a hierarchy of students in my school: the ones that aspire to first-tier, second-tier, and so forth, to community college at the lowest step on the ladder. Students in the higher steps have internalised what they've been told about the college apps process, and scoff when someone suggests that maybe the community college or state college route is best, so that you're not saddled with student loan debt.

With regards to smartphones, I find that I have almost the opposite experience. My high school has the same three tiers as yours: IB/AP, Honors, regular classes. I find that smartphone use is generally the same across classes, yet it is done more openly in regular classes, under the table in Honors, and in the IB/AP classes, they resort to using their smartwatches to type (generally because the IB/AP kids are richer, another bad part of high schools in the US).

Also, wow. Your school doesn't have anyone dating? In my school there are many carnal relationships among students who take the regular classes.

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

#463

Post by 7thaccount »

WalterBright wrote: post #455
7thaccount wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting point and can help you go anywhere when starting off. With what you've done over the past couple of decades (I assume you're the guy that has written one of the first C++ compilers and invented D), would it not have been better for you to take more classes on compiler design or other computer science/computer engineering related courses? Did jet engine analysis (I assume you're a mechE) ever hel…

I took a compiler construction extension course offered by Stanford in the summer of 1982. That covered all I needed to know. Modern compiler technology is just more of the the same. My experience at Boeing has been surprisingly useful in writing software. Besides, perhaps you don't realize how cool jet engines are? :-) Taking that class was very satisfying for me.

Haha. I recall watching a video of one of your D talks when you talk about your car. Was it a mustang, charger, or challenger? I guess I can see where a love of jet engines would come from.

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

#464

Post by cambalache »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #458
cambalache wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing,the same way than current teenagers are not better or worse than any previous generation. All of this is just a healthy mix of recency bias and narcissism.

I think the difference between you and I is I was teenager in the 1970's

So 10 years, modern humans are 200k years old.

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

#465

Post by AndrewKemendo »

restalis wrote: post #459
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The older I get the more I'm convinced that having kids young is the right decision. I had my first daughter when I was 24 and now that I'm entering my prime earning years I don't have to worry about child care or being around 24/7 the same way I did when my kids were babies. I also have less "free time" now than when I was in college and I had way less than most college kids. It sounds counterintutive in this day an…

"I'm entering my prime earning years I don't have to worry about child care or being around 24/7 the same way I did when my kids were babies. I also have less «free time» now than when I was in college" Although not clear how much of that free time "less" means, I wish to point out that if you're a male (as I'd guess from your nickname), your contribution to the education of your descendants becomes the most useful a…

Well by free I mean basically out to see shows and go the bar and hang around watching movies etc.

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

#466

Post by mnky9800n »

quantumwannabe wrote: post #203
_5yps wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Second-tier compared to the world's top universities; that is, Harvard, Stanford, Oxford and their ilk. I've seen posts on this website[0] how some big tech companies almost exclusively skim off the top. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15543371

That's bs. I work for a big tech company, and do interviews for them as well. Most people went either to a state school, a normal university in another country, or a small liberal arts college. Very few big tech employees have degrees from the "elite" class of universities. The same is true for interviews, the vast majority of interviews are not given to the so-called "elite" class, and the new grads I've interviewed…

But that's because most people don't go to elite institutions. The only way to know this would be to build as data set of all the hires at FAANGs, for example, and then compare students from elite institutions to non elites. I would imagine these companies are not keen on sharing this data though.
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