6 ms·

The Self(ie) Generation

26 points by uladzislau 13y ago

bridger 13y ago
"...numbers that are at or near the highest levels of political and religious disaffiliation recorded for any generation in the last quarter-century." Seriously. How many generations are in a 25-year span?
- kepano 13y ago
  I believe that segment refers to all generations alive today, not generations born in the last 25 years.
  - dlhavema 13y ago
    that's how i read it too, that "my people" are the most disassociated of all the current generational groups of people.
ketralnis 13y ago
The Times and friends seem to write a whole lot of "kids these days" articles about the so-called Millennials. Usually about how self-centred or lazy or entitled they are but sometimes as lazy as "they use the internet more" and "they take a lot of selfies and make so many twitters". Does every generation do this about its youngers? I've only lived through a few "named" generations but I feel like I didn't see nearly this much judgemental coverage about other ones. I know every generation thinks that they're the best and the others are all just old fogeys or youngin twerps but most editoral outlets don't seem to cover much else lately.
- vinceguidry 13y ago
  > Does every generation do this about its youngers? This sort of journalistic sophistry has been popular since the end of World War Two and catered to the need for the Baby Boomers (the only group to which this sort of generalization can really be accurate) to justify their feelings of self-importance, as they knew they couldn't match the heroics of their warrior parentage. If you think this is bad, you should have seen what they wrote about Gen X. Nobody but the Boomers really gives a shit about it, and once they're all gone, I predict this naming-and-shaming nonsense will go with them.
  - devindotcom 13y ago
    I really don't think so. Being perplexed/disgusted by the iniquities of the younger generation has been going on for a long time and will in all likelihood continue. I do agree that there's a lot of boomer-focused "get off my lawn" stuff in the NYT, though. That's their audience.
    - vinceguidry 13y ago
      > Being perplexed/disgusted by the iniquities of the younger generation has been going on for a long time Well, sure, but there's a difference between the normal run-of-the-mill "kids think they invented sex"-type bitching and this naming-of-the-generations claptrap. Google up some of the old articles, they're the height of verbose, narcissistic inanity. It took a special kind of self-involvement to generate this crap.
- devindotcom 13y ago
  Pretty sure it's common to older generations throughout history. The famous one (possibly apocryphal, I can't remember) is Socrates lamenting the fact that kids these days were writing things down instead of memorizing and preserving the oral tradition. Edit to add also that Horace wrote (in latin of course): "And yet with crimes to us unknown, Our sons shall mark the coming age their own."
- nl 13y ago
  Oh yes!! I remember a circa 1993 article about Gen-X (or whatever): about how they were lazy, grunge was just wanna-be 70's rock, they never did anything new and were just copying the Boomers. I wish (WISH!) I'd kept it so I could have emailed the author to ask if they got in on the Netscape IPO.
zacinbusiness 13y ago
Generalizations are annoying. Not sure which "gen" I am (was born in mid 80's) I have dealt with it from family quite a bit and so has my wife. Saying we stayed in school rather than get "real jobs" (we each have masters degrees and she's a full time professor and I work as a full time business consultant). And that we don't understand "hard work" (she easily works 80 hours a week counting time in and out of the classroom and meetings and I regularly work until dawn). It's understandable as that's just sort of how people react to young people, but it is tiring.
interstitial 13y ago
As the Millennials gather in self-pity on HN. I just throw in I try to avoid hiring Millenials at all cost. They are so full of self-worth, they have nothing to prove - ever. Will bail when any project gets tough, believe they are entitled to all privileges earned after 30 minutes on a job. Worse, you might have to talk to their parents on the phone about their poor job review.
- msandford 13y ago
  I'm over 30 so probably not a millenial. Honestly whose fault is is that millenials are so shitty? It's not the millenial's fault that their parents raised them horribly, didn't ever let them fail (for fear of ruining their future!) and obsessively planned any and all aspects of their lives. When did the "everyone should have lots of self-esteem because we're all unique snowflakes!" movement get started? If you take the year that really got going and add 10-20 to the number, does that roughly approximate the point at which you started to realize that these kids are all worthless? Of course that generalization that I've made of the parents and education of millenials isn't entirely true; I'm sure plenty of them had perfectly decent parents. But if we're going to make generalizations let's talk about both sides of it. Kids don't really grow up in a vacuum.
  - argumentum 13y ago
    According to the article, you probably are included: > defined by Pew as Americans ages 18 to 33
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
    - msandford 13y ago
      Okay, let's go! "Generation X, commonly abbreviated to Gen X, is the generation born after the Western Post–World War II baby boom. Demographers, historians and commentators use beginning birth dates from the early 1960s to the early 1980s." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_X http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_X "Millennials, or the Millennial Generation,[1] also known as Generation Y, are the demographic cohort following Generation X. There are no precise dates when the generation starts and ends. Commentators use beginning birth years from the early 1980s to the early 2000s." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennials http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennials "Generation Z is one name used for the cohort of people born after the Millennial Generation. There is no agreement on the exact dates of the generation with some sources starting it at the mid or late 1990s [1] or from the mid 2000s [2] to the present day. This is the generation that is currently being born." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Z http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Z Alright so what have we learned? Gen X: early 1960s to early 1980s Gen Y: early 1980s to early 2000s Gen Z: mid 1990s/early 2000s to today and further You can't really have a clear start and end date to broad generalizations because the nature of a generalization prevents it.
mattholtom 13y ago
He noticed that "self" is the root of "selfie"... Deep insight here folks.
nl 13y ago
"Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers." -- Socrates
- mappum 13y ago
  Socrates was just pretty conservative, he was also against the idea of writing: " ...this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality."
  - leephillips 13y ago
    "they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing" Does this describe me, with Google at my fingertips? I hope not.
    - icelancer 13y ago
      I believe it describes a great number of people.
  - neuralk 13y ago
    In some sense, he is right. With writing, people did not develop memories as powerful as they did when traditions were oral -- there was no need. How many people can recite epic poems or plays from memory, let alone the Odyssey? Extremely few could these days, relatively few could 1000 years ago, and many more could 2000+ years ago. And you can bet that those who developed powerful memories in the time of Socrates would be among the most wise and cultured, so his complaint is not an unreasonable one to make. Besides, Socrates was perennially the devil's advocate and its not impossible if you had caught him on a different day he would've argued the opposite case. Taking it further, his quote applies equally to the advent of the internet, especially search engines. Many people outsource their memory to Google -- they will even look up things on their phone in the middle of a conversation because they've forgotten its name.
victoro 13y ago
I don't see why the majority of HN commenters assume that the article has a negative bent. All he did was list the results of the PEW study and briefly discuss political ramifications for the two major US parties. The only fault I can find with this article is the completely erroneous last sentence (and title) which mentions the "selfie" -- this just seems to be a bit of link bait as selfies are a seemingly hot topic lately. Otherwise, I think this is a pretty interesting summary of survey results and downright neutral compared to the vast sea of curmudgeonly articles about Millenials floating around these days.
NextUserName 13y ago
They [Young People] have exalted notions, because they have not been humbled by life or learned its necessary limitations; moreover, their hopeful disposition makes them think themselves equal to great things -- and that means having exalted notions. They would always rather do noble deeds than useful ones: Their lives are regulated more by moral feeling than by reasoning -- all their mistakes are in the direction of doing things excessively and vehemently. They overdo everything -- they love too much, hate too much, and the same with everything else. (Aristotle) "The world is passing through troublous times. The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint. They talk as if they knew everything, and what passes for wisdom with us is foolishness with them. As for the girls, they are forward, immodest and unladylike in speech, behavior and dress." (From a sermon preached by Peter the Hermit in A.D. 1274) "I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words... When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise [disrespectful] and impatient of restraint". (Hesiod, 8th century BC) "I believe what really happens in history is this: the old man is always wrong; and the young people are always wrong about what is wrong with him. The practical form it takes is this: that, while the old man may stand by some stupid custom, the young man always attacks it with some theory that turns out to be equally stupid." (G.K. Chesterton) Socrates 'The children now love luxury; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are tyrants, not servants of the households. They no longer rise when their elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize over their teachers.' (Commonly attributed to SOCRATES by Plato) http://proto-knowledge.blogspot.com/2010/11/what-is-wrong-with-young-people-today.html http://proto-knowledge.blogspot.com/2010/11/what-is-wrong-wi...
- waps 13y ago
  To be fair, you can find the reverse as well : elders complaining their youth is too pious, too restrained, or won't touch alcohol (popular in the late Roman empire). Moreover you can also find large populations moving from atheism/disbelief to religion.

26 points by uladzislau 13y ago

"...numbers that are at or near the highest levels of political and religious disaffiliation recorded for any generation in the last quarter-century." Seriously. How many generations are in a 25-year span?

kepano 13y ago
I believe that segment refers to all generations alive today, not generations born in the last 25 years.
- dlhavema 13y ago
  that's how i read it too, that "my people" are the most disassociated of all the current generational groups of people.

ketralnis 13y ago

The Times and friends seem to write a whole lot of "kids these days" articles about the so-called Millennials. Usually about how self-centred or lazy or entitled they are but sometimes as lazy as "they use the internet more" and "they take a lot of selfies and make so many twitters". Does every generation do this about its youngers? I've only lived through a few "named" generations but I feel like I didn't see nearly this much judgemental coverage about other ones. I know every generation thinks that they're the best and the others are all just old fogeys or youngin twerps but most editoral outlets don't seem to cover much else lately.

vinceguidry 13y ago
> Does every generation do this about its youngers? This sort of journalistic sophistry has been popular since the end of World War Two and catered to the need for the Baby Boomers (the only group to which this sort of generalization can really be accurate) to justify their feelings of self-importance, as they knew they couldn't match the heroics of their warrior parentage. If you think this is bad, you should have seen what they wrote about Gen X. Nobody but the Boomers really gives a shit about it, and once they're all gone, I predict this naming-and-shaming nonsense will go with them.
- devindotcom 13y ago
  I really don't think so. Being perplexed/disgusted by the iniquities of the younger generation has been going on for a long time and will in all likelihood continue. I do agree that there's a lot of boomer-focused "get off my lawn" stuff in the NYT, though. That's their audience.
  - vinceguidry 13y ago
    > Being perplexed/disgusted by the iniquities of the younger generation has been going on for a long time Well, sure, but there's a difference between the normal run-of-the-mill "kids think they invented sex"-type bitching and this naming-of-the-generations claptrap. Google up some of the old articles, they're the height of verbose, narcissistic inanity. It took a special kind of self-involvement to generate this crap.
devindotcom 13y ago
Pretty sure it's common to older generations throughout history. The famous one (possibly apocryphal, I can't remember) is Socrates lamenting the fact that kids these days were writing things down instead of memorizing and preserving the oral tradition. Edit to add also that Horace wrote (in latin of course): "And yet with crimes to us unknown, Our sons shall mark the coming age their own."
nl 13y ago
Oh yes!! I remember a circa 1993 article about Gen-X (or whatever): about how they were lazy, grunge was just wanna-be 70's rock, they never did anything new and were just copying the Boomers. I wish (WISH!) I'd kept it so I could have emailed the author to ask if they got in on the Netscape IPO.

zacinbusiness 13y ago

Generalizations are annoying. Not sure which "gen" I am (was born in mid 80's) I have dealt with it from family quite a bit and so has my wife. Saying we stayed in school rather than get "real jobs" (we each have masters degrees and she's a full time professor and I work as a full time business consultant). And that we don't understand "hard work" (she easily works 80 hours a week counting time in and out of the classroom and meetings and I regularly work until dawn). It's understandable as that's just sort of how people react to young people, but it is tiring.

interstitial 13y ago

As the Millennials gather in self-pity on HN. I just throw in I try to avoid hiring Millenials at all cost. They are so full of self-worth, they have nothing to prove - ever. Will bail when any project gets tough, believe they are entitled to all privileges earned after 30 minutes on a job. Worse, you might have to talk to their parents on the phone about their poor job review.

msandford 13y ago
I'm over 30 so probably not a millenial. Honestly whose fault is is that millenials are so shitty? It's not the millenial's fault that their parents raised them horribly, didn't ever let them fail (for fear of ruining their future!) and obsessively planned any and all aspects of their lives. When did the "everyone should have lots of self-esteem because we're all unique snowflakes!" movement get started? If you take the year that really got going and add 10-20 to the number, does that roughly approximate the point at which you started to realize that these kids are all worthless? Of course that generalization that I've made of the parents and education of millenials isn't entirely true; I'm sure plenty of them had perfectly decent parents. But if we're going to make generalizations let's talk about both sides of it. Kids don't really grow up in a vacuum.
- argumentum 13y ago
  According to the article, you probably are included: > defined by Pew as Americans ages 18 to 33
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
  - msandford 13y ago
    Okay, let's go! "Generation X, commonly abbreviated to Gen X, is the generation born after the Western Post–World War II baby boom. Demographers, historians and commentators use beginning birth dates from the early 1960s to the early 1980s." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_X http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_X "Millennials, or the Millennial Generation,[1] also known as Generation Y, are the demographic cohort following Generation X. There are no precise dates when the generation starts and ends. Commentators use beginning birth years from the early 1980s to the early 2000s." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennials http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennials "Generation Z is one name used for the cohort of people born after the Millennial Generation. There is no agreement on the exact dates of the generation with some sources starting it at the mid or late 1990s [1] or from the mid 2000s [2] to the present day. This is the generation that is currently being born." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Z http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Z Alright so what have we learned? Gen X: early 1960s to early 1980s Gen Y: early 1980s to early 2000s Gen Z: mid 1990s/early 2000s to today and further You can't really have a clear start and end date to broad generalizations because the nature of a generalization prevents it.

mattholtom 13y ago

He noticed that "self" is the root of "selfie"... Deep insight here folks.

nl 13y ago

"Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers." -- Socrates

mappum 13y ago
Socrates was just pretty conservative, he was also against the idea of writing: " ...this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality."
- leephillips 13y ago
  "they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing" Does this describe me, with Google at my fingertips? I hope not.
  - icelancer 13y ago
    I believe it describes a great number of people.
- neuralk 13y ago
  In some sense, he is right. With writing, people did not develop memories as powerful as they did when traditions were oral -- there was no need. How many people can recite epic poems or plays from memory, let alone the Odyssey? Extremely few could these days, relatively few could 1000 years ago, and many more could 2000+ years ago. And you can bet that those who developed powerful memories in the time of Socrates would be among the most wise and cultured, so his complaint is not an unreasonable one to make. Besides, Socrates was perennially the devil's advocate and its not impossible if you had caught him on a different day he would've argued the opposite case. Taking it further, his quote applies equally to the advent of the internet, especially search engines. Many people outsource their memory to Google -- they will even look up things on their phone in the middle of a conversation because they've forgotten its name.

victoro 13y ago

I don't see why the majority of HN commenters assume that the article has a negative bent. All he did was list the results of the PEW study and briefly discuss political ramifications for the two major US parties. The only fault I can find with this article is the completely erroneous last sentence (and title) which mentions the "selfie" -- this just seems to be a bit of link bait as selfies are a seemingly hot topic lately. Otherwise, I think this is a pretty interesting summary of survey results and downright neutral compared to the vast sea of curmudgeonly articles about Millenials floating around these days.

NextUserName 13y ago

They [Young People] have exalted notions, because they have not been humbled by life or learned its necessary limitations; moreover, their hopeful disposition makes them think themselves equal to great things -- and that means having exalted notions. They would always rather do noble deeds than useful ones: Their lives are regulated more by moral feeling than by reasoning -- all their mistakes are in the direction of doing things excessively and vehemently. They overdo everything -- they love too much, hate too much, and the same with everything else. (Aristotle) "The world is passing through troublous times. The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint. They talk as if they knew everything, and what passes for wisdom with us is foolishness with them. As for the girls, they are forward, immodest and unladylike in speech, behavior and dress." (From a sermon preached by Peter the Hermit in A.D. 1274) "I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words... When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise [disrespectful] and impatient of restraint". (Hesiod, 8th century BC) "I believe what really happens in history is this: the old man is always wrong; and the young people are always wrong about what is wrong with him. The practical form it takes is this: that, while the old man may stand by some stupid custom, the young man always attacks it with some theory that turns out to be equally stupid." (G.K. Chesterton) Socrates 'The children now love luxury; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are tyrants, not servants of the households. They no longer rise when their elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize over their teachers.' (Commonly attributed to SOCRATES by Plato) http://proto-knowledge.blogspot.com/2010/11/what-is-wrong-with-young-people-today.html http://proto-knowledge.blogspot.com/2010/11/what-is-wrong-wi...

waps 13y ago
To be fair, you can find the reverse as well : elders complaining their youth is too pious, too restrained, or won't touch alcohol (popular in the late Roman empire). Moreover you can also find large populations moving from atheism/disbelief to religion.