“Gen X managed to stretch adolescence beyond all previous limits: Its members started becoming adults earlier and finished becoming adults later. Beginning with Millennials and continuing with iGen, adolescence is contracting again—but only because its onset is being delayed. Across a range of behaviors—drinking, dating, spending time unsupervised— 18-year-olds now act more like 15-year-olds used to, and 15-year-olds more like 13-year-olds. Childhood now stretches well into high school.”
You said you work with young adults. Can you expand more on what the author said above? I can’t quite believe it. These same kids are exposed to porn on these smart phones and do the sexting thing (share nude photos with their classmates of the opposite sex).
Driving, for starters. Kids aren't learning to drive. They don't care to drive. Delinquent behaviors such as sinking and smoking. When I was a teen in the 80s, we snuck off to keg parties on the weekends and got drunk. Kids today don't do this. They're the most sober generation I've seen.
You mention sexting and porn. Yes, this goes on but that's where their sex life ends. We didn't have sexting and porn was harder to come by but we were having actual sex with each other. Today's young people seemingly have no interest.
And other non-delinquent behaviors; kids don't have jobs and they don't have time unsupervised. My teenage neighbors are perfect examples. One of them is 19 and her mom asks my wife to drive her to her community college classes when she can't. This girl has no car and has no friends with cars. The other is a high school senior, almost 18 and this girl, pretty and seemingly well-adjusted, does nothing without her parents. Never does she have a friend that picks her to go places.
I've never seen anything like this.
When I was a teen, we all had cars and we were never home.
To be fair, I think part of the problem is the crappy economy and the fact there are no entry level jobs or part-time and summer jobs for teenagers. Costs are too high. For example, we used to have summer intern jobs for college students and even some high schoolers, but that all disappeared long ago.
Guys got it easy today hell all i had was the sears catalog and national geographic
They’re exposed to sexuality at a younger age but the relatively solitary existence they lead due to living their lives largely online via social media, has led to the persistence of childlike behavior well into early adulthood. I see it with my own 14 year old niece, she’ll lie in bed all day with her stupid phone and ignore her family, even when my mom and I are visiting. My mom is in her early 80’s and she’s her only grandchild, she lives to make her granddaughter happy and to try and make pleasant memories and memorable experiences for her, but the reaction more often than not is, yep, whatever, it makes me angry to see it. I try to get her outside and away from the thing as much as possible with some limited success, but she goes right back to it. She has problems with depression and I can see why laying in bed all day. Get out, get some sun, do something, do anything, don’t just lay there in bed I’ve told her. It doesn’t sink in.