Life is just full of its beautiful contradictions, but ultimately that’s what we love about it. Take for example the youthful generation that we all love to bash every so now and then and how much they ‘don’t listen’ and can be the most rebellious little hormonal creatures that you ever came across and would have rather just bought a dog all those years ago.
Well in a recent article I read, a study was discussed about how, despite popular opinion, the troublemakers of society that make Instagram awkward to browse through may actually ‘listen’ far more than we give them credit for. The study, conducted by researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College, went on to test a selected group of teenagers and adults by completing a behavioural learning game.
Basically it had one adolescent listening to two different people, one from their own age group and then another from the adult group each of whom gave them advice and then it was up to the teenager to decide which person’s advice to follow and the results were very fascinating.
Despite what is obviously expected by both society and the researchers, the teenager followed the advice of the older individual despite the advice being false [though they didn’t know it at the time] and this happened continuously in their research. How interesting, don’t you think?
This draws me to wonder on the many arguments people tend to have about our teenagers today and how they go off the reservation and do their own thing, is that really true? I mean think about it, aren’t we telling these young souls to go out and be who they want to be, make something of themselves and live how they want to live?
So then, isn’t what we see the result of all that?
What if, and correct me if I’m wrong, our disappointment and dismay as we watch youngsters set themselves on fire for fun or go out and live recklessly because YOLO, what if all this is just because they do not represent what we have envisioned for them? Because let’s be real, we’ve all pictured what the future looks like and it would be a lie to say we don’t expect a certain breed of human to achieve that future. But sometimes expectation and reality don’t always blend very well and the results can be…well, disappointing.
Instead we’re left with a majority of young people more interested in immediate gains to satisfy their dwindling attention span while they expect to be let through the gate of adulthood, because of some strongly misplaced sense of entitlement. It’s a rough reality, but a reality none the less.
What if, and correct me if I’m wrong, our disappointment and dismay as we watch youngsters set themselves on fire for fun or go out and live recklessly because YOLO, what if all this is just because they do not represent what we have envisioned for them? Because let’s be real, we’ve all pictured what the future looks like and it would be a lie to say we don’t expect a certain breed of human to achieve that future. But sometimes expectation and reality don’t always blend very well and the results can be…well, disappointing.
Instead we’re left with a majority of young people more interested in immediate gains to satisfy their dwindling attention span while they expect to be let through the gate of adulthood, because of some strongly misplaced sense of entitlement. It’s a rough reality, but a reality none the less.
What’s worst is that reality is in part to be blamed on the elders that advised the wayward young. The examples they have left behind and the promises they have broken have left the scars that brand these young and shape them, so is it any surprise that they slowly grow to be the way they are?
So what could be a viable solution that exists to fix things before they break so badly that repair becomes nothing but an old man’s whispered dream? Maybe for one we could start by acknowledging the fact that those elders were once young and though their advice may sound great it may not always be right and though the young may still be naïve, they will one day be elders of another time and their advice may actually be worth some salt.
So what could be a viable solution that exists to fix things before they break so badly that repair becomes nothing but an old man’s whispered dream? Maybe for one we could start by acknowledging the fact that those elders were once young and though their advice may sound great it may not always be right and though the young may still be naïve, they will one day be elders of another time and their advice may actually be worth some salt.
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