A group of colleagues were talking about resiliency across generations, as there was an age gap of almost twenty years between us, and even the youngest said that he believes his generation and younger, are soft. I don' think it is their fault however, as they have been conditioned to be this way through the way they have been raised and the culture that has been provided them to build upon.
Everything is on demand, everything is pre-chewed, and they have been told that their feelings are the most important thing in the world. It is no wonder that when they come across any kinds of resistance, they fell it harder than the generations who came before them.
But, I was wondering if there is also a physical component to it also, since children today are also far less physically active than they were earlier. Not only this, when they are active, everything has been nerfed for them, so they don't hurt themselves as much, cut themselves less, feel less pain. This means less tears, but it also means not having to improve technique to not get hurt, or use a little more thought as to what is dangerous or not. This has to have an impact on their future selves.
And, I think it does, because they go through early life relatively safely, with very little physical or psychological resistance, having their emotional state supercharged as the most important part of them, only to meet resistance later in life. They go into a workplace and get "bullied" by a boss who tells them to do their job, and they react emotionally, but it gets translated as if physical pain more easily, because their bodies haven't gone through the process of feeling and healing.
If one of the senses is out of whack on not judging experience appropriately, it means that the others will struggle to agree on what is happening and what is the best course of action. This is kind of what is happening when we let our emotions dictate our behavior, because it overpowers the senses, and makes us react, even if it isn't doing a very good job of evaluating inputs or the validity of the reaction.
The younger generations are far less physical than my generation, and they shift from playing outside onto gaming consoles at a very young age. This impacts their bodies directly, but there is also a change in diets, with much more sugar, which also affect hormone levels. This likely affects their moods also, right?
We are what we eat.
And perhaps, whatever the younger generations are eating nutritionally and culturally, has led them down a road where they are struggling emotionally more. They are less resilient, getting affected by lower-level events, but reacting with more volatility. This is driven even harder by their identification with minutiae to separate themselves out from others, or group themselves with a minority - because being a part of a minority gives victim status, no matter whether the differentiation matters or not.
Something to think about at least.
Of course, not everyone in that age group is the same, but when talking about large groups of people, averages matter. There are exceptions, but if we are going to look at making a difference in society, or even in our own personal lives, we have to acknowledge that on average and across most facets of our lives, we are unexceptional.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
I think one thing these sorts of arguments forget to take into account is all the people from older generations that were horribly injured or killed unnecessarily. When I was at primary school a couple of different kids were killed in car crashes. One of my cousins has had a limp almost his entire life from those trampolines with the exposed springs and more than half my mates have had knee reconstructions from playing footy... and they're massively struggling with their fitness way more than I am.
It's hard to measure resiliency because younger generations also have way more stressors than we ever had. Did you ever have to worry about stupid things you did getting you canceled? Or being bullied 24/7 online? Or impossibilities of ever owning a house? Or multiple recessions? Or climate change? Or a rise in authoritarianism? It might not feel like it, but we were teenagers running on easy mode in comparison.
I imagine younger generations would have lived much healthier lives for much longer considering we know so much more about diets. Some kids are eating more sugar, for sure, but the helicopter parenting of today is providing kids with way healthier meals than we ever ate. Unfortunately we'll never know if younger generations will live longer and more quality lives because they'll likely be swept up in floods because Boomers voted really selfishly.
My four children who are 39 to 47 years old are not soft. They all play sports in high school. For example, my daughter Gaëlle, when she was 14 years old, ran the 800 m in 2:14, which is remarkable for a girl of this age. They had psychological problems, but this is not too surprising as they have been abandoned by their mothers twice.
For my Canadian grandchildren, who are 14 to 20 years old, this is not the same story. The two oldest (20 and 19) do not know what they want to do in life. They did not start university after high school graduation. For the youngest (14) I am not sure; we will see when he finishes high school. All three have been more or less abandoned by their fathers.
I cannot say too much about my American grandchildren who are 16 and 18. The young one seems to know what to do in the future, which is not the case for the oldest.
That is fast!
Psychological problems happen, but the intensity of problem that leads to them for many now, is far less. The emotional reaction is the equivalent of swatting a fly with a hammer.
I have my niece in her twenties who was raised relatively softly. She is intelligent, but hasn't found a place in the world that she is willing to commit to. My wife's niece and nephews are younger, but also not looking likely to really buckle down to something. Lots of drifters.
There are a few out there who seem to proactively look to build a life, instead of passively be given a life.
I wonder if abandonment is more common now that people seem unable to commit to anything for long-term? Everyone is looking for something better, and it is easily available. However, old adages like "the grass is always greener on the other side" don't seem to have survived into the younger generations.
This post made me think of a project I was working on this past weekend. Cut my hands to hell, I was bleeding all over the places and my one hand has scars all over it. I doubt many of the current generation would have even bothered to finish the project. I'm glad I was raised in a time where I am not afraid to get my hands dirty or losea bit of blood.
I forgot to ask - what were you making? :D
Light up trees for outdoor Christmas decorations. Basically a tomato cage wrapped in chicken wire and then covered in lights. I'm sure you can buy them pretty cheap, but I like making them by hand. It was the chicken wire that tore me up.
I know chicken wire cuts well!
One of the cuts is right on my knuckle and I keep opening it back up every time I put my hand in my pocket. It's horrible!
This is exactly right. Kids used to be given more responsibility and chores around the house too and, most kids made it through to adulthood without cutting off fingers, toes, arms, heads...
Over the generations we probably have become less durable and more soft. We do not generally try to outpace the generation before us, but rather get comfortable in the generosities of conveniences of what the world offers. we are fat, lazy, dependent, selfish, unmotivated. Folks don't get the same physical, mental, spiritual or emotional exercise. And such can become the decline of a society. But hey, look at all the comforts we have to fatten us up.
All the comforts so that we can avoid looking at all the suffering :)
Friend @tarazkp, I am disturbed by this part of the comment you made to the first commenter on your post. I've looked at several family photographs and I can't find any trait that identifies him as a person of colour, or am I misunderstanding the answer?
I knew a young woman with African American features who was identified mainly by the fullness of her lips. She had a hard time graduating as a medical doctor in the United States -she made it-.
In relation to the subject of this publication, I would simply conclude that the differences between generations are based on technological progress, which results in an ease of use that our generation did not have.
Are you talking about @aussieninja ? I am talking about me. I am a "person of color" ;)
What makes the "African" or "American" part of the features? It is funny to consider, isn't it?
Technology is a big part of it, but it isn't just ease of use, it is also opportunity to avoid.
They not only do not do as much exercise, but the problem is that now, some of them don't even walk daily as some work from home and others use electric skates to move around town. Add the awful diet most of them eat and we have the perfect mix for a health nightmare generation
Just imagine if there were step counters back when we were kids.
I think we are seeing more of the younger generation as soft and emotionally unstable because of social media, and they like to share every part of their life. I'm not saying it isn't true, but it might be a bit overblown. I have seen a lot of older people get heated for the small things as well. They like to raise their voice when they talk, but when a younger person matches their tone, they get angry; they feel disrespected. They always want special treatment, and I have seen a lot of different Karen videos. I think there are soft and emotional people from all generations. We just didn't see it much from older generations because of a lack of social media. Sure we are seeing more complaints from the youth, but they are still toughing it out and moving on with their life. They just like to share it all the time.
Yes! It is an outlet for the victims to connect with other victims. A place for gathering attention on victimhood, which means there is a spread of disempowerment, not empowerment. The hero is the biggest victim.
Ever notice how many of those Karen videos don't show what led to the video being made? There is a selection bias in these. There are always randomly crazy people.
I’m a teacher and I teach people around the age of Smallsteps. There are a few things that we should always leave them to do but they are being over protected. Kids have to be really monitored now so they won’t hurt themselves even though they know they’re not supposed to
The physical activities we used to do back then is not what they can do anymore and I don’t know why. It annoys me though
My daughter finds it hard to find friends who are willing to play as actively as she does in the yard. Many seven year old kids are more interested in sitting around on their devices. My daughter has a watch that only makes calls to some numbers.
When things like this happen. There needs to be a war. Because war makes new generation stronger physically. And depression and the inflation in the market make them strong mentally. This is what most of the people has to do in order to grow. Because this generation born after 2000 would not be raising any strong soldiers, nor mentally strong managers. They'd just pamper each others feelings and love each other verbally meanwhile incidents like pandemic will wipe them out easily.
I agree (unfortunately) that it seems that if we want to be better, we have to suffer enough. Propping ourselves up to reduce suffering, can mean that we don't get to the point where something has to be done.
18yo has said the same thing previously XD
Is that what stuff is like normally these days? That explains a few things, I think there were a lot of people that considered me borderline neglectful because I was kind of just keeping tabs on things to make sure there wasn't going to be any really major damage/fallout and that base levels of politeness and decency were being maintained but otherwise just let them stuff around and find out.
I remember reading or being told something along the lines of all the monocropping that gets done has depleted the soil of necessary nutrients and minerals and things so even if you ensure healthy diets they're still not as nutritious as food in the past was so that also probably doesn't help.
I think this is good parenting. Low-risk environments where they can play and test themselves. Small hurts, big gains.
I have heard the same about the diets. There are also things like microplastics and other chemicals that likely affect us in unknown ways also. However, that is only part of the excuse, right?
That was exactly the idea.
And yeh the comment about the diets wasn't supposed to excuse the other stuff, I just noted it because you were talking about diets in the unlikely event you hadn't already read/heard about it :)
I can remember i got my first mobile phone when the age is almost 18 , before that i had a very little knowledge of mobile, internet. I know the internet from 2015 i think. The new generations using those from the very childhood. There are so many things that effecting them like this one.
Resilience comes from the routines, and needs develops the routines, older generations were physically far more active because that's how their environment and resources moulded them to be.
Today's generation is living as per today's environment and resources, which is far more technologically advanced, means, comfort and less physical activities. I think we can conclude this situation as a "social environmental life cycle".
I never considered this from a physical perspective. But this has definitely become apparent with a partner who is 15 years younger than me.
The generational differences are eye opening. She likes to text, I like to call. She likes iPhone, I like Samsung. She wants everything planned out, I go with trial and error. Tbh, I like to think of this as one of our strengths though, that we have so many differences that we can complement each other better.
As a teacher, I can't help but agree - you see parents basically mollycoddle their kid and it's all about supporting their feelings when we're like, for goodness sake, just deal with it! Life is going to get harder for you so just take it on the chin and move on. It's always 'what can you do to make my Johnny's life easier' instead of 'Johnny, you made the mistake, you deal with it'.
I also absolutely agree that without getting out and moving about their mental health isn't going to be as good. A lot of absent or overworked parents that can't be around mentally or physically to control what screen time the kids have, and brutal peer pressure combined with alogoriths that feed dopamine addictions guarantee this will happen. And the parents are doing the same thing, with no understanding of what it's doing to them.
But, it gives me hope that it's not all kids. I know so many that reject this 'modern' life and choose their hobbies and interests over slavery to their phones. They don't WANT to be the tik tok generation.
As for nutrition, jesus. I've been working at middle to upper class independent schools and they're all well fed. Their healthy skin and even moods are a stark contrast to the overweight, pimply teenagers I've seen in public schools when I've worked there. And you just KNOW that skipping breakfast and eating junk isn't doing their mental health and behaviour any good. I used to have one kid who'd eat a pack of skittles before the last periods of the day and he would quite literally bounce in and then out the fire escape. My friend just got back from working at an indig. shcool in Gulf of Carpentaria where kids had these INSANE mood swings that were directly attributed to their sugar intake - these kids drink a 2 litre bottle of coke a day. Forget the paternalistic banning of alcohol - sugar should also be banned. And we use sugary sweets as a reward for behaviour!!! Both me and Jamie refused to do that as teachers, even if students love the teachers who bake them muffins and give them little mars bars.