When the New Silents look back on the month of January 2012, they might recall a few contradictory events that had bearings on how they handle digital information. On January the 5th Sweden officially recognized Det Missionerande Kopimistsamfundet (the Missionary “Copy-me” society) by granting it religious status, which in essence sanctifies the act of file sharing. This…
“Kids nowadays! Hmpf!” Whether you’re 5 or 85, at some point you might unwittingly have been dragged into a generational comparison in which your age cohort is made out to look ruder, lazier or more spoiled than the bygone youth of the spokesperson. The statement is often followed up with a sentence that starts with “In…
In Growing up with Princess Inc earlier this year I wrote about growing gender polarization. In the post I discussed the idea that shifts between androgynous and more overtly gendered fashion trends and body ideals are linked to social and economic fluctuations. Generational experts Strauss and Howe explained in The Fourth Turning that in eras when society struggles…
Inspired by a string of generational reports from the PEW research center, NPR has recently focused on generational differences in politics and economics. All the stories in their “Generational Politics” segment follow the four generations that currently constitute the voting population. The series looks at typical economic situations given the economic downturn, political leanings, value…
How will the unemployment and economic recession (or recessions as it more looks like) affect the New Silents in the U.S.? Amongst several dismal prognoses, over a quarter of this generation is expected to endure child poverty – and that is a conservative estimate. Derek Thompson of the Atlantic discusses how America’s decline from prosperity…
After numerous studies and reports mapping the Millennial generation and especially their attributes in the workforce, predictions about the post-Millennials are finally starting to pop up in news sources and in market research reports (here, here and here). At After the Millennials, we try not to let this type of fodder escape our radar!
Embedded video from CNN Video A blog post at Gen X Files ponders if parents today are ditching their tendency to over-parent. A short CNN clip and a sudden tide of blogs and books of the “bad-mom-confession” type suggest that the helicopter parents are beginning to slow down their propellers a bit. A Times article from 2009 strongly suggests…
Generational experts Strauss and Howe argue that the kids from the Silent generation (born 1924 -1942) were the most gender-polarized in the 20th century until they became radicalized in the early 1960s. From Shirley Temple’s sausage curls to eerie robotic wives in their squeaky clean Stepford homes, girls and women fit neatly into the gender stereotypes until they…
Institute for Emerging Ethics and Technologies are discussing these days the appropriateness of discussing transhumanism with children, or more precisely: Should we tell them that they have a plausible chance of living forever? I remember the first time my oldest daughter asked me if I will ever die. Knowing that life extending technologies probably will…
‘Tiger mother’ Amy Chua refuses to let her children go to play dates and sleepovers. She protects them from the evils of TV and computer games. She protects them from a whole world outside of violin practice and top grades. Are these types of parents really the opposites of indulgent Helicopter parents or are they rather the…
