It's that time of year again when we sum up the progress of the old year and speculate the future events of the next. As a futurist who spend my time gazing at the youngest generation I can't let this opportunity pass me by. So...
[caption id="attachment_2375" align="alignleft" width="320"] Did family sitcoms change from this...
Future graduation attire?[/caption]
Appealing to the hearts and minds of the Homelander kids (post-millennials) happens by addressing their taste for technology and modern communication devices. Growing up with touchscreens as the main window to the world, these kids are seriously steeped in a lifestyle and educational agenda that revolves around digital - where technologies are used as learning devices (educational platforms), often through gamified experiences, as well as study objects (coding, programming). For-profit university Ashford University does a good job at mining this sentiment in a commercial featuring children caressing their devices like they did their teddy bears a few years earlier. The message is clear: To be relevant and effective with the class of 2025 education needs to live in the tablets and smart phones, or soon bionic lens projections. The commercial revolves around catchwords like "smart" and "bright", words recent surveys show cling well in the ears of kid today. So much in fact, that smart as an aspirational goal is overpowering any other superhero power that previous generations of kids used to idolize.
If you read parenting blogs (and maybe even if you don't) you might have read the now famous Texas mother Kim Hall's letter to teenage girls. The post went viral last week and stirred controversy in as crowded parts of the blogosphere as Huffington Post and BlogHer. Apparently she lives right here in Austin, but I don't know her. Mrs. Hall reacts publicly to her sons' female friends who pose in less than demure ways on their social media. In an open letter, with a tone that alternates between what seems to be genuine matronly concern and sanctimonious passive aggression (always with the smile!), she explains to them that they will be banished from the Hall family's social media circles if they let their digital girdles fall.
So now after the dust is settled and what is said has been said, I'm offering my thoughts on why this particular post went viral. And what it says about parenting trends and social changes in the horizon.
Here are a few keywords:
Historical/ chronological myopia
Slutshaming dressed as feminism
The double standard of digital sharing
The parental panopticon
I want to see The Great Gatsby. And then I hope Hollywood will churn out ‘Grapes of Wrath’ and ‘Death of a Salesman’ soon after. History rhymes, and once again we’re at this junction in time when the younger generations are reexamining the validity of...
Dancing to the beat of their own drums?[/caption]
A whole generation of single children have come of age, revealing some interesting sociopsychological observations. Although China's one-child policy implemented in 1979 has helped curb population growth, their aspiring leaders and innovators are showing some undesirable tendencies that are not as prominent among children with siblings. Only a quarter of Chinese families had single children in 1975 compared with 91 % in 1983. So by comparing children born right before and right after the one-child policy took effect, researchers from Australia National University were able to keep other cohort-dependent variables fairly constant. What they found is that the single children tend to have lower social skills and weaker economic attainment than their slightly older peers with siblings.
The now grown up participants were tested playing various strategic games: dictator, trust, risk and competition and with follow up surveys. Those who were born after the policies took effect indicated by the results that they were less cooperative, less trusting, more risk aversive and less competitive than the ones who were born before the policy. The researchers were even able to document that the sibling-deprived participants more frequently demonstrated signs of neuroticism. Social interaction with peers and extended family could not mitigate the sibling effect. The full study was published in Science this last January.
Millennials are more stressed than other generations. All generations worry more now than in the past when the economy looked more promising, but young adults feel the blues the most. With current unemployment and underemployment rates, soaring student loans and generally bleak opportunities, it is hardly surprising that young adulthood in the 2010s is stressful. The reality today is in stark contrast to MTV’s happiness study from half a decade earlier, which found the corresponding age group to be far more optimistic back then than they appear to be today.
It’s not cool to have your dreams messed up before you even got a shot at them. But from my generation X perspective I am somewhat surprised that millennials are walking off with the "stress award". A fact less known than the oft-cited injustices experienced by millennials these days is that generation X was the hardest hit by the recession and it's aftermath. Think being underemployed and underpaid is hard in your 20s? Try that in your 40s! All while warding off house foreclosures and figuring out how to fund your children's orthodontic treatment and skyrocketing educational expenses.
So while millennials worry about not getting around to live the American Dream, gen-X got to live it for a while - until they lost it all to the bank. But somehow they just trudge along, often too exhausted to notice or say anything. Maybe it's the nihilist in us. The self-loathing cynic. Or maybe there are simply too few of us to get much press.
In my post Online privacy and the cyberbaby-generation I addressed what I think is a distorted narrative when online sharing habits and privacy concerns are discussed. Despite the fastest adoption of social media happening among the older cohorts, a slew of studies and articles seem to limit their focus to young people's internet habits. When grown ups distribute content, often intimate details of (unconsenting?) minors over a vast social media landscape, they are affecting another person's online reputation. Even if most parents share less incriminating content about their kids than kids share about themselves, there is something profoundly different about falling victim to other people's stupidity than to your own when regretful content is made public. If we overlook the "oversharenting" trend among our own parenting generation, we don't only fail to notice the asymmetry between the generations (children don't share content about parents as much as vice-versa, often because they are too young to join in the game), but we implicitly assume young people are less adept at protecting their online reputation.
A picture is worth a thousand words, but I don't have near enough infographics on this blog! So here's my very special Election Day Post that aspires to be the pop-cultural, right brained amateur version of Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight blog. Well not quite exactly, but...
“How do I love (bankrupt) thee? Let me count the ways.”
This election year it’s hard not to take note of all the various ways in which the next generation is screwed. Younger cohorts will struggle with student loans, possibly endure continued high unemployment rates, foot most of the bill from the national deficit and suffer the effects of a national economy that has paid out more than it has taken in over a long time. The Z’ers, or Homelanders, see their grown up sisters and brothers test their wingspan only to return back to the safety of parental den when things go wrong. They are advised that an expensive college degree is the only means to a comfortable future, yet that there are no guarantees for anything anymore. One would think in a time when individuals feel the effects of a troubled economy family bonds grow stronger. And they do. Many parents gladly open up their homes to boomeranging grown children and quarterback them each time they test their employment muscles in the slow job market. But what the long-term financial security? If the younger generations are going to be held back for decades by the locked doors they meet now won’t family assets once again gain importance as a source of income? If neither a college degree nor a mortgage seems like a good investment you should at least be able to look forward to your fair share of the family estate. Right?
