Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?

[mongers]

Heh, the law students and young associates we get in just make me feel cynical - they are so eager, hard-working and bright, and so damned pleased to have a real law job. I have to resist the urge to rain on their parade with warnings of how easy it is to burn out.

Guys, just LOOK at me.

FYP

[Malthus]

Heh, the law students and young associates we get in just make me feel cynical - they are so eager, hard-working and bright, and so damned pleased to have a real law job. I have to resist the urge to rain on their parade with warnings of how easy it is to burn out.

Guys, just LOOK at me.

FYP

Not kind, but possibly true. 

[The Brain]

Heh, the law students and young associates we get in just make me feel cynical - they are so eager, hard-working and bright, and so damned pleased to have a real law job. I have to resist the urge to rain on their parade with warnings of how easy it is to burn out.

As if. This footage of Malthus was retrieved at great risk to our operatives: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bOKsOveYD0

[Malthus]

As if. This footage of Malthus was retrieved at great risk to our operatives: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bOKsOveYD0

Now there, right there, is the guy the Americans should have elected President!

[dps]

When I was a kid, they said similar things.  Video games and anime would destroy my generation, they said.  Maybe somebody once said that cars would destroy another generation.  Changed a generation, for sure.  Destroyed?  Doubt it. 

But, but, I kinda want the millennials to be destroyed.

[DGuller]

My wife has had to hire, manage, and fire tons of them.  My brother is dealing with a couple of them at work now, and I have I have several other acquaintances that have struggled with managing and working with them in their jobs.  Obviously there are exceptions to the rule, and hopefully the rest will grow up at some point.

It's often a mismatch of work styles as well.  The younger generation is less tolerant of authoritarian hierarchy at the workplace, they are more likely to be motivated by inspiration.  The "do it because I'm your boss and I told you to do it" doesn't work as effectively as "here is what we need done, and why we need it done".

[jimmy olsen]

Young adults are very insecure about their future and thus very self centered but they eventually grow out of it...yet for some reason people seem to think this is some kind of aberration. I don't get it. It is not like when babies shit in their diapers people fret that the next generation will never use the toilet.



'Oh no! This boomer generation is lazy and does not want to work for a living!'



'Oh no! This generation X is a bunch of lazy slackers!'



'Oh no! These millennials are lazy and entitled!'

I mean it is the same damn shit over and over again.

But it's not the same thing. The article does not argue that they are lazy or entitled or self centered. It's that voluminous data indicates that they suffer from crippling insecurity which has lead to a huge spike in depression and suicide. The numbers don't lie.

[Jacob]

It's often a mismatch of work styles as well.  The younger generation is less tolerant of authoritarian hierarchy at the workplace, they are more likely to be motivated by inspiration.  The "do it because I'm your boss and I told you to do it" doesn't work as effectively as "here is what we need done, and why we need it done".

Yeah, I have to say that if you find that an entire generation of people are difficult to manage that mostly speaks to your skills as a manager.

[mongers]

It's often a mismatch of work styles as well.  The younger generation is less tolerant of authoritarian hierarchy at the workplace, they are more likely to be motivated by inspiration.  The "do it because I'm your boss and I told you to do it" doesn't work as effectively as "here is what we need done, and why we need it done".

Yeah, I have to say that if you find that an entire generation of people are difficult to manage that mostly speaks to your skills as a manager.

Well you Are a mod here. 

[Jacob]

Well you Are a mod here. 

Languish gets the quality of service it pays for.

[Razgovory]

Well, there may be some truth in the idea that newest generation is lazy.  Employment is pretty low for people born in the last five years.

[CountDeMoney]

we were all eager once. it'll get beat out of them. all roads lead to CdM

The looks on their faces will be priceless.


Seriously, though;  this crop is ignorant and illiterate, but more importantly, they collectively lack interpersonal interaction skills of the depth necessary to navigate a work environment with other human beings. 

I don't believe in the whole vaccines = autism thingy, but man, they certainly make it fucking plausible.  Fucking Assburgers everywhere.

[Ed Anger]

Entitled little shits

[CountDeMoney]

When I was a kid, Dungeons and Dragons was going to turn us all into Satanic killers, assuming punk rock didn't do it first.  Admittedly social media is a more profound and far-reaching change than D&D or Punk, but still.

No, there's no "but still" here, False Equivalency Man.  One was a niche hobby, the other is the now-mainstream means of modern media and communication.

[Berkut]

On the one hand, the "ZOMG the next generation is shite we are all doomed" crap is so fucking done already.

On the other hand, it is silly to dismiss real, quantifiable data because the form of the basic observation resembles that generational bullshit that is so ubiquitous.

Example: The rise of the telephone in households in Victorian England was seen as the end of society as they knew it - young people were talking to each other on the phone, whenever they wanted, and without chaperones! This is going to lead to the end of managed relationships that defined much of the social structure! We are all doomed!

The "we are all doomed" part was bullshit, but the observation that this would result in radical change was not. It DID destroy (or contribute to the destruction) the previous way of interaction.

This is more of the same. The article can be completely correct in that this represents a serious change in how people will relate to each other, and that may have some significant negative consequences. But it probably has some incredible positive consequences as well.

Mostly though, it is change. And that scares us old people.