51–60 of 93 posts
Hooray for anecdotal evidence! I even agree with some of it, but there's sweet fuck all to back up any of it. A highlight for the those of you that couldn't make it through the whole way: "A generation ago, my college peers and I would buy a pint of ice cream and down a shot of peach schnapps (or two) to process a breakup. Now some college students feel suicidal after the breakup of a four-month relationship." This s…
I'm thirty but I do notice many of my coworkers and other folks my age cannot grow up. It's not even just a matter of getting a job. Most of the folks I know are still partying all the time as if they're at a high school kegger. I'm not sure of the exact cause, but I do think people having children later in life (late 30s, early 40s for many people I know) coupled with the fact that most of them are only having one c…
All the stupid things he did as a kid are now illegal, and while some segment of the youth population will continue to do those stupid things despite the law, many others will feel the need to refrain, causing pent-up energy, for lack of a better description. Until you get that out of your system, it is difficult to move on to the next stages of life.
From anecdotal observations of the people in my life, it does make a lot of sense to me. The recurring theme I hear is when people are ready to settle down is that they have grown tired of the youthful lifestyle. That is something that only happens after you have experienced it.
I'm 21, do not have a college degree, work for 7.50hr, and feel exactly like this with the exception that I have to deal with it on my own because I neither have the time or money to spend on therapy. I've learn to deal with things and keep it moving because no one else is going to lend you a hand unless you have something to give in return; that's how I see it anyways.
It seems every generation discovers the same new problems of every generation before it. And as each earlier generation matures, it describes the new generation disparagingly. This article described the movie The Graduate, which everyone felt described a generation coming of age in the 60s. Pick other movies and books for other times. Take it far enough back and you have this quote " Our youth now love luxury. They h…
I'll discuss the first point in the article: He mentions that the current generation thinks it's moving faster. And he cites some inventions (the train, the telegraph, the radio, the telephone). Well, didn't all of these "inventions" happen in THE SAME generation? We're not talking about 5 generations between the inventions, many of them happened within years of each other. This certainly allow me to believe that tec…
Your definition of generation is 3-5 times longer than the usual definitions.
Addressing approximate timeframe of commercialization:
> the train
1812. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salamanca_(locomotive)
> the telegraph
1837, +25 years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooke_and_Wheatstone_telegraph
> the telephone
Bell/Gray was 1876, commercialization by 1878. +40 years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_telephone
> the radio
Mid-to-late 1890s. 1895-1877=18 years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invention_of_radio
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Life is hard. Help, you assholes. Are you serious with this statement? This is exactly the attitude that the article and all of the others like it are referring to. Life is hard. Be harder.
Ever wonder why people in third-world countries generally don't grow up to be successful like boomers did? Did you always think it was because they weren't tough enough ? Actually, it's because the boomers had an awesome environment to grow up and have a career in. That environment doesn't exist anymore because the economy has tanked. Boomers literally have no idea how good they had it.
It seems silly, but I feel compelled to remind today's youth that we all stand on the shoulders of giants. Also, none of us know as much as we think we do.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So you are stating that the hardships of a college student in the USA right now even remotely comparable to a poor person trying to get along in a third world county?
Nope, I'm saying you have to have a really good environment (i.e. "help") to be that successful.
What I realize quite often when I'm talking to friends and what I hear very often when I talk to my parents is a lack of deep social connections.
If you have a social circle you really like and you can count on it's far easier to organize yourself and get your stuff done. Because you learn that stuff together in your circle. You just grow faster in a group of like-minded people than fighting all the bullshit alone.
Finding this social circle is pretty hard for me. If this social circle is lacking or you just does not care about you if you don't fit their worldview you are on your own. Now you are scared and desperate to to fit somewhere in.
Everyone is fighting their fight alone. It's more often than not a piss-match about status and money and importance than a real friendship. The partying is the illusion of this social circle that you want to keep in your life. If you drop this you'll have to face that you are totally alone and nobody gives a fuck about you.
If I talk to my parents or grandparents I realize that they still meet with their colleagues from school or university or old jobs.
If you don't function now nobody cares. Old friendships just vanish.
This may be my problem. I'm not sure. Maybe I'm an loner or idiot. But there is a difference in comparison to earlier generations and most people I know or talk to feel pretty alone very often.
This isn't a story representative of a generation, this is a story about one messed-up 30 year old. I can't think of anyone I know who can't figure out how to do laundry and homework in one day, and I don't think it's because I'm in a circle of particularly self-sufficient Gen-Yers. Honestly, if the Onion were stuck for content they could publish this article word-for-word and I'd gladly believe it was supposed to be…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ever wonder why people in third-world countries generally don't grow up to be successful like boomers did? Did you always think it was because they weren't tough enough ? Actually, it's because the boomers had an awesome environment to grow up and have a career in. That environment doesn't exist anymore because the economy has tanked. Boomers literally have no idea how good they had it.
Yes, and the millennials have an awesome environment to grow up and have a career in. The tech industry has one of the lowest barriers to entry ever seen. The more advanced science fields are making dramatic strides, all you need is the education and motivation to get into the industry. Quit looking backwards with green tinted glasses and consider how good you yourself have it right now. Take some goddamn responsibil…
How? She was given secretarial work in the 70's and slowly clawed her way up while raising 3 kids, and was even lucky enough that her 7 years out of the work force in the early 90's when we were young didn't affect her career trajectory very much.
The possibility of this happening nowadays is slim to none. You need a degree to even be looked at for a lot of office work these days, and you can be sure you're not going to be promoted when they can bring in someone younger, with a degree relevant to their business sector, willing to work for less to fill any positions you could potentially be considered for. This also applies to lots of liberal arts majors as well as just high school students.
It also doesn't help that for as long as I can remember, my teachers, parents, and counselors have told me, my siblings, my friends, my classmates, and my generation that we should follow our passions and dreams, and success will follow. Luckily I like math, science, computers, and I've been a bit of a geek since I was a toddler, so I fell into my, coincidentally, highly-in-demand CS degree quite naturally. The same cannot be said of the bookish history, literature, or philosophy nerds I know.
There is blame all around, but from my perspective it seems like a lot more of it lay at the feet of our forebears than us.
But hey, at least us computer geeks have it good, eh?
Yay! Another article where the older generation shits on a younger generation. Is it possible - and this is just me talking here - that maybe our generation isn't composed of a bunch of emotional weaklings who can't bear the stress of life, but that you guys fucked it up pretty badly for us? Your self-interested conservative personal responsibility do it yourself policies bankrupted the economy because you were aslee…
There a literally millions of open positions in the US economy, and millions of upper-middle class liberal-college educated jobless millennials who can't be bothered to master these STEM fields to qualify. They all want to be an aid worker & save the world or something, or to be paid for playing a banjo. The only reason half of the people even get jobs is better qualified, harder working foreigners are kept out of th…