Net Generation: spoiled, narcissistic layabouts?

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12853955

by alienasia • 18 years ago

4 4 18 years ago

economist.com

prospero• 18 years ago

Baby Boomers: stodgy, ponderous dinosaurs?

Haberdashers: mad as hatters?

Ducks: bent on world domination?

Tangurena• 18 years ago

The "older" generation always complains about the younger ones. And that has gone on since the days of Plato and Aristotle. Why! Back in my day, we walked 15 miles to school, and it was uphill both ways! Don't worry, in 10-20 years, the "facebooker generation" will be whining about the new kids of that era.

And perhaps one of the best satires of this eternal trend is a skit called The Four Yorkshiremen. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Yorkshiremen_sketch

Why! Back in my day, we didn't have any of those new fangled programming languages like C and assembly, we programmed in ones and zeros. And we were too poor to have zeros so we carved them out of potatoes. And we liked it!

People slowly get more ethical/moral as they age - slowly enough that the change isn't noticable - instead they think that they were always "this way." If your older self could meet your younger self, your older self would probably complain about the lazy good-for-nothing younger self as well. People grow up. Our civilization won't burst into flames because the young punks are here - in 20 years, those young punks will be "the establishment" and complaining about the newer punks.

jderick• 18 years ago

Maybe spoiled, narcissistic, layabout parents have the same kind of kids?

ahoyhere• 18 years ago

Allegedly Socrates, attributed to Plato:

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."

(the source of the quote may be contentious, but with a little cursory searching I was able to find it being attributed to Socrates (via Plato) as far back as the late 1800s, so... it's still surely not new.)

Net Generation: spoiled, narcissistic layabouts?

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