Millenials/Kids today...

[Cyclonepride]

Agree. I'll take my daughter as an example. She's a sophomore in high school and she thinks she's dumb, and she thinks I'm smarter than her. My jaw drops when she says things like this. She's maintained a 4.15 GPA, taking five advanced courses each semester. This in addition to year-round softball training, pretty much every night of the week. She's also playing volleyball at school this fall.

When she talks about other kids she knows taking the ACT, their scores are generally in the 28-33 range. AND THEY DID THIS AS FRESHMEN or SOPHOMORES. I took it once when I was a junior, got a 29, and said yep that's enough for me.

Kids are incredibly smart these days. The problem isn't their intelligence, it's their confidence. They're too sheltered, their parents don't allow them to fail on their own, and they can't deal with adversity. (Speaking generally, obviously. There are outliers.)

Excellent, excellent point.

 

[Mtowncyclone13]

The one thing I've noticed is that they are louder than when I was that age and their lack of life experience amplifies what we know to be true as we age.

I may have thought some of the same (wrong) things but it wasn't out there for everyone to grab a hold of. The biggest area would be that life is not lived in absolutes and nuance is everywhere. With social media and an undeveloped brain kids should out their absolutes for everyone to hear.

 

[ArgentCy]

The long-term trend is actually for intelligence to increase...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect

I volunteer for some academic competitions for talented and gifted students in the Maryland and Virginia suburbs, and some of the high school students involved in the same are almost frighteningly intelligent compared to what I remember from the same era. I have no worries there will not be future stars and leaders coming out of that.

I think there is a bifurcation in the "path" many children and young adults take in life. The playing field used to be a lot more level in my parents and grandparents' generations (and I am 31 now) when socioeconomic and familial circumstances were more even across the population compared to where they are now. That has changed significantly of late.

There are a lot more families now of single-parents, who are obviously fighting the good fight, but the less certain home and economic situations that come with it are putting a lot of kids behind on the "social capital" pyramid. At the same time, there has been a rise of "super-couples" -- two parents in a stable marriage, both with good careers and most often both with college degrees, bringing a few children into the world and endowing them with practically every advantage from birth through starting college and even into the labor market.

We have more falling behind and more surging ahead than we used to.

These socioeconomic changes and the "positive assortative mating" of the super-couples is changing our society in ways we do not often appreciate. We often want to put simple economic explanations on them (i.e., immigration, globalization, capitalism, inequality, etc.), when many of them have deeper familial and demographic roots.



I actually think parenting has trended towards the "smothering" nowadays. Adolescence keeps getting extended because of the parents, not the kids.

I think of how much interaction and supervision most kids I see nowadays from their parents, particularly in those good familial circumstances, has gone up and up and up. I compare it to what I had... a father who traveled almost perpetually for work and a mother always more interested in her own social life, to be honest... and think I was basically on my own day-to-day far earlier and had way more autonomy at a younger age compared to kids now.

I think that over-parenting does leave some of them docile and overly risk-adverse, though. Sometimes you need to screw up on your own to learn.

I've seen other research that shows the opposite. It appears the Flynn data is on rural Africa and this would be expected with improved nutrition. However, in the Western world IQ appears to be dropping.

https://www.upi.com/Health_News/201...-lost-an-average-14-IQ-points/77081369362633/

"These findings strongly indicate that with respect to general intelligence the Victorians were substantially cleverer than modern Western populations," the study authors said.

 

[Sigmapolis]

I've seen other research that shows the opposite. It appears the Flynn data is on rural Africa and this would be expected with improved nutrition. However, in the Western world IQ appears to be dropping.

https://www.upi.com/Health_News/201...-lost-an-average-14-IQ-points/77081369362633/

"These findings strongly indicate that with respect to general intelligence the Victorians were substantially cleverer than modern Western populations," the study authors said.

There is considerably debate about the size/scale of the Flynn effect.

The general appreciation of intelligence over time is not really a question, however...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4152423/

The Victorian Era was 1837 to 1901. I have a hard time believing that a society where the literacy rate was something like the 50% range...

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Literacy-in-England-1580-1920_fig3_228553349

...was somehow "substantially cleverer" than ours.

The high school graduation rate in the U.S. in 1900 was less than 10%, too.

 

[BCClone]

I think general intelligence seems to be on the up, but common sense (or every day knowledge or skills) seems to be dropping. Replacing one thing for another.

 

[Hayes30]

Just so everyone knows. If your 38 years old your a millennial. That generation stops roughly at 24 or so years of age.

 

[coolerifyoudid]

Agree. I'll take my daughter as an example. She's a sophomore in high school and she thinks she's dumb, and she thinks I'm smarter than her. My jaw drops when she says things like this. She's maintained a 4.15 GPA, taking five advanced courses each semester. This in addition to year-round softball training, pretty much every night of the week. She's also playing volleyball at school this fall.

When she talks about other kids she knows taking the ACT, their scores are generally in the 28-33 range. AND THEY DID THIS AS FRESHMEN or SOPHOMORES. I took it once when I was a junior, got a 29, and said yep that's enough for me.

Kids are incredibly smart these days. The problem isn't their intelligence, it's their confidence. They're too sheltered, their parents don't allow them to fail on their own, and they can't deal with adversity. (Speaking generally, obviously. There are outliers.)

I'll add that kids are expected to know "what they're going to be when they grow" up a lot sooner than we ever did. There is a school district near me where kids can choose which high school to go to based on the different specialized classes that are offered. That's great for those that may already know, but I think it adds a level of unnecessary pressure on kids to make the right choice at a time when they should really be all about exploring different opportunities.

Not being allowed to fail and recover, coupled with being expected to make fairly major life decisions when a kid is in their early teens seems like a dangerous recipe.

 

[BCClone]

I'll add that kids are expected to know "what they're going to be when they grow" up a lot sooner than we ever did. There is a school district near me where kids can choose which high school to go to based on the different specialized classes that are offered. That's great for those that may already know, but I think it adds a level of unnecessary pressure on kids to make the right choice at a time when they should really be all about exploring different opportunities.

Not being allowed to fail and recover, coupled with being expected to make fairly major life decisions when a kid is in their early teens seems like a dangerous recipe.

I still don't know what I want to do.........and I'm in my 40s

 

[madguy30]

A big issue i have today is with vanity, which has always been there. Just easier to experience, like everything else, and it's not just young people.

It's sad that we have to search for ways to relax and be 'mindful' when all it takes is going outside without your phone.

Main difference with young people just in experience is how they really don't seem to know a world where everything you do isn't documented. I get some weird looks when I talk about going to a concert, and watching the...concert.

 

[madguy30]

I still don't know what I want to do.........and I'm in my 40s

Not in my 40s but I generally scoff at the 5 year plan questions.

Not one single person actually knows what the next 5 years are going to look like.

 

[srjclone]

Just so everyone knows. If your 38 years old your a millennial. That generation stops roughly at 24 or so years of age.

I believe it is 22. I think they started the new gen at birth dates of 1997. Millenials are generally kids who had memories of the 90s or should be able to remember the Millennium. (or at least that is how I remember/judge it).

From My experiences, If they are a "millennial" and over the age of like 32, they try to distance themselves from the rest of the Millennial grouping.

 

[CYme]

Just so everyone knows. If your 38 years old your a millennial. That generation stops roughly at 24 or so years of age.

Millenial definition varies, as should your use of you're.

 

[ArgentCy]

There is considerably debate about the size/scale of the Flynn effect.

The general appreciation of intelligence over time is not really a question, however...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4152423/

The Victorian Era was 1837 to 1901. I have a hard time believing that a society where the literacy rate was something like the 50% range...

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Literacy-in-England-1580-1920_fig3_228553349

...was somehow "substantially cleverer" than ours.

The high school graduation rate in the U.S. in 1900 was less than 10%, too.

Literacy and IQ are not really the same thing when access to education was reserved for the wealthy. Also many of those graduating from 8th grade were as educated as well as many High School grads are today, perhaps even better.

 

[ArgentCy]

Millenial definition varies, as should your use of you're.

I think the definition that will eventually stick will have to do with 9/11. If you have clear memories of that event you are probably Gen X. If you remember it but were too young to understand or know what was occurring I'd say you are a millennial.

 

[harimad]

I'll add that kids are expected to know "what they're going to be when they grow" up a lot sooner than we ever did. There is a school district near me where kids can choose which high school to go to based on the different specialized classes that are offered. That's great for those that may already know, but I think it adds a level of unnecessary pressure on kids to make the right choice at a time when they should really be all about exploring different opportunities.

Not being allowed to fail and recover, coupled with being expected to make fairly major life decisions when a kid is in their early teens seems like a dangerous recipe.

This is such a huge issue. I mentioned my daughter plays softball. We're friends with families of girls who are already verbally committed to play at Michigan, Florida, Auburn, and Syracuse. They just turned turned 15, 13, 14, and 14 respectively. There's no way they have any idea yet what they want to do in life, but they've already committed to schools. (I'm the last one to talk though, since DD "knows" she wants to go to ISU. Right now she wants to study genetics. We'll see what she wants a year from now.)

 

[cykee05]

As a society we have striven to make our lives easier by implementing technology to replace actual work. While admirable, I'm not so sure it's completely beneficial - as evidenced by the overwhelming number of overweight and obese people in this country.

A little physical work - mow the yard, shovel snow, etc - isn't demeaning or beneath anyone. Yet I would argue the vast majority of young people today seem to view it that way.

And before you reply, yes, I'm an old guy, but this isn't a rant, merely an observation.

This probably isn't the norm but as a 31 yr old, after working at a computer every day, I look forward to opportunities to work with my hands.

 

[besserheimerphat]

Literacy and IQ are not really the same thing when access to education was reserved for the wealthy. Also many of those graduating from 8th grade were as educated as well as many High School grads are today, perhaps even better.

Earlier you said the Victorians were more "clever" - I'm not sure if that was your word, or a word from one of your linked articles. However, I think part of what we need to be mindful of is that during that era most of the developed world was figuring out how to reduce physical labor through mechanization. Mechanization is possible to do with little to no formal education, and the effects are often observable and immediate.

Now things are improving digitally to reduce mental labor. While it is possible to write effective code without much formal education, it still takes thousands of hours of learning to get to that point. And the effects are harder to observe because the software is locked up inside the physical devices we already have. How much has the smartphone changed in the past 5 or 10 years? They're all little slabs with a couple buttons and a couple power/data ports. But all of the advancements have come in software. And most of that software is for entertainment rather than "work." There are undoubtedly hundreds or thousands of "clever" improvements in each iteration, but you don't see them because they aren't tangible or the overall effect is marginal compared to the current baseline.

 

[Sigmapolis]

Literacy and IQ are not really the same thing when access to education was reserved for the wealthy. Also many of those graduating from 8th grade were as educated as well as many High School grads are today, perhaps even better.

I am not one who tries to talk down on people in pre-industrial societies (either in the past or current) as somehow unintelligent or primitive or anything like that.

Your typical European peasant of pre-industrial society, from the Greeks all the way through to the British, had a ton of functional skills (carpentry, blacksmithing, etc.) and had encyclopedic knowledge of botany, agronomy, and animal husbandry. Think about the old farmer uncle or grandfather surely many of you had -- very little "book learning," but he knew the heck out of what he was doing day-to-day and was a consummate jack of all trades.

The women were the same. They had to be in order to stay alive and feed their children.

Now imagine your grandfather or grandmother and the same gap between them and their grandparents, oftentimes from back in the "old country." Those people were not stupid, but their intelligence was not very adaptable and flexible to new things.

They were good at what they did, but they had very little ability to adapt or contemplate anything besides what was immediately in front of them because abstract thought was utterly useless in such an agrarian society. Flynn does a great job describe this in a number of his articles about how different brains work at different levels of development.

They would not have the ability to constantly learn and adapt, picking up and discarding new skills and information all the time, the way we do.

I do not think people from the past were "stupid," and they were clever, but in their own, limited ways. I do not know how you can say a society that lacked basic literacy and numeracy was somehow more intelligent than ours, though.

I have even seen the case made, which I do thing there is some potential in, that going from a peasant society to an industrial society actually decreased intelligence temporarily before the benefits of industrialization spread to the masses. People went from having to do very adaptable and inventive work as peasant farmers to rote, repetitive work in factories, which turned that master farmer into a cog in a machine. The former was smarter.

This also explains the "quibbles" in the Flynn effect in societies like peasant Africa or China. Early industrialization might be the nadir before a rapid surge.

 

[Hayes30]

I think the definition that will eventually stick will have to do with 9/11. If you have clear memories of that event you are probably Gen X. If you remember it but were too young to understand or know what was occurring I'd say you are a millennial.

Kind of I guess. I was in JR High when 9/11 happened and I understood what was going on, but I'm just a bit to young yo be a Gen X still.

 

[Hayes30]

This probably isn't the norm but as a 31 yr old, after working at a computer every day, I look forward to opportunities to work with my hands.

I'm just the opposite. At age 30 I work with my hands in a factory 12 hours a day and can't wait to go home to watch tv and get on Cyclonefanatic.