Boston Globe Eliminating everyday annoyances may be creating the most risk-averse generation in history by Kat Rosenfield. Considered a worthwhile read by Christopher Owens. 

Twenty years after the D.A.R.E. program failed to scare straight the middle schoolers of the 1990s, it seems that Gen Z has accomplished of its own accord what decades of earnest government messaging could not. A 25-year study has found that risky behaviors, including underage drinking, smoking, and drug use, have sharply declined among teenagers today.

Some have positioned this as an encouraging development, another sign of the emergence of a new, improved “generation sensible” to correct for the destructive excesses of the twerking, White Claw-swilling millennials who came before them. But scratch the surface of this new Zoomer temperance movement, and one notices that it’s not just substances from which they’re abstaining. Today’s teens are less sexually active than any generation before them. They also drive less — just 25 percent of 16-year-olds in 2020 had a license, as compared with 50 percent in 1983 — and work less, with the share of teens participating in the labor force having declined 17 percentage points since 2000.

In short, teens are doing way less of what used to be the activities that bridged the gap between them and adulthood and autonomy.

Continue reading @ Boston Globe.

The Illusion Of A Frictionless Existence

Boston Globe Eliminating everyday annoyances may be creating the most risk-averse generation in history by Kat Rosenfield. Considered a worthwhile read by Christopher Owens. 

Twenty years after the D.A.R.E. program failed to scare straight the middle schoolers of the 1990s, it seems that Gen Z has accomplished of its own accord what decades of earnest government messaging could not. A 25-year study has found that risky behaviors, including underage drinking, smoking, and drug use, have sharply declined among teenagers today.

Some have positioned this as an encouraging development, another sign of the emergence of a new, improved “generation sensible” to correct for the destructive excesses of the twerking, White Claw-swilling millennials who came before them. But scratch the surface of this new Zoomer temperance movement, and one notices that it’s not just substances from which they’re abstaining. Today’s teens are less sexually active than any generation before them. They also drive less — just 25 percent of 16-year-olds in 2020 had a license, as compared with 50 percent in 1983 — and work less, with the share of teens participating in the labor force having declined 17 percentage points since 2000.

In short, teens are doing way less of what used to be the activities that bridged the gap between them and adulthood and autonomy.

Continue reading @ Boston Globe.

3 comments:

  1. The flipside to intelligent people not having large families due to concerns about the planet and cost of living is that stupid people keep on fucking and breeding more stupid people.

    ReplyDelete