Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Eighteen is the new fourteen

But putting down my phone is futile

Independence isn’t an obvious good for kids born between 1995–2012.
Independence isn’t an obvious good for kids born between 1995–2012.

A while back, I sent my collegiate son a text with the following quote from a letter by F. Scott Fitzgerald to his collegiate daughter: “Once one is caught up in the material world, not one person in ten thousand finds the time… to form what, for lack of a better phrase, I might call the wise and tragic sense of life. By this I mean the thing that lies behind all great careers… the sense that life is essentially a cheat and its conditions are those of defeat, and that the redeeming things are not ‘happiness and pleasure’ but the deeper satisfactions that come out of struggle.”

The fatherly fear behind that text: replace “material world,” with “social media world,” and the odds get even worse. That’s why I read iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy — and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood — And What That Means for the Rest of Us, by SDSU professor of psychology Dr. Jean M. Twenge.

Sponsored
Sponsored

Through both data analysis and interviews, Twenge demonstrates that, “for good or ill, iGen teens are not in a hurry to grow up.” With regard to multiple landmark behaviors, “eighteen-year-olds now look like 14-year-olds once did.” And how are they spending their extended childhoods? On their smartphones.

I asked Twenge what makes an adult, and why it’s worth it to become one. “That’s a pretty hard question to answer,” she allowed. “Personally, I think being an adult is fun because you get to be independent and do what you like, at least to an extent. That’s sometimes lost in the conversation about idealizing childhood: in a lot of ways, it’s not really fun to be a kid. You have people telling you what to do all day long. I hated that particular aspect of being a child.”

But if independence isn’t an obvious good for kids born between 1995–2012 — and my impression from iGen is that it’s not — a parent, ahem, could be asked, “Why would I ever want to be a grownup? Especially if I’m satisfied with (or at least occupied by) the pleasures afforded by the internet — especially social media?” What to say?

“Put simply,” replied Twenge, “because you can’t live with your parents forever. Or maybe you can, but it’s not necessarily the best way to enjoy the pleasures of life.”

Convincing iGen of that may take some doing, but Twenge sees reason for hope. “I kind of expected iGeners to take it completely for granted that we live in the age of smartphones, and that’s just the way it is. But there were many who saw the definite downside of our current way of living. That was surprising; they hadn’t known any other world, and yet they still saw the drawbacks. After the book came out, I got a few emails from young people, and the one that stuck in my memory most was a young man who said, ‘I really want to talk to my friends at lunch. But they’re all on their phones, so I can’t. Even though I’m putting my phone down, it’s a futile enterprise.’”

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

India Hawthorne is common in coastal gardens, Citrus trees are in full bloom

The vernal equinox is on March 19
Next Article

A poem for March by Joseph O’Brien

“March’s Lovely Asymptotes”
Independence isn’t an obvious good for kids born between 1995–2012.
Independence isn’t an obvious good for kids born between 1995–2012.

A while back, I sent my collegiate son a text with the following quote from a letter by F. Scott Fitzgerald to his collegiate daughter: “Once one is caught up in the material world, not one person in ten thousand finds the time… to form what, for lack of a better phrase, I might call the wise and tragic sense of life. By this I mean the thing that lies behind all great careers… the sense that life is essentially a cheat and its conditions are those of defeat, and that the redeeming things are not ‘happiness and pleasure’ but the deeper satisfactions that come out of struggle.”

The fatherly fear behind that text: replace “material world,” with “social media world,” and the odds get even worse. That’s why I read iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy — and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood — And What That Means for the Rest of Us, by SDSU professor of psychology Dr. Jean M. Twenge.

Sponsored
Sponsored

Through both data analysis and interviews, Twenge demonstrates that, “for good or ill, iGen teens are not in a hurry to grow up.” With regard to multiple landmark behaviors, “eighteen-year-olds now look like 14-year-olds once did.” And how are they spending their extended childhoods? On their smartphones.

I asked Twenge what makes an adult, and why it’s worth it to become one. “That’s a pretty hard question to answer,” she allowed. “Personally, I think being an adult is fun because you get to be independent and do what you like, at least to an extent. That’s sometimes lost in the conversation about idealizing childhood: in a lot of ways, it’s not really fun to be a kid. You have people telling you what to do all day long. I hated that particular aspect of being a child.”

But if independence isn’t an obvious good for kids born between 1995–2012 — and my impression from iGen is that it’s not — a parent, ahem, could be asked, “Why would I ever want to be a grownup? Especially if I’m satisfied with (or at least occupied by) the pleasures afforded by the internet — especially social media?” What to say?

“Put simply,” replied Twenge, “because you can’t live with your parents forever. Or maybe you can, but it’s not necessarily the best way to enjoy the pleasures of life.”

Convincing iGen of that may take some doing, but Twenge sees reason for hope. “I kind of expected iGeners to take it completely for granted that we live in the age of smartphones, and that’s just the way it is. But there were many who saw the definite downside of our current way of living. That was surprising; they hadn’t known any other world, and yet they still saw the drawbacks. After the book came out, I got a few emails from young people, and the one that stuck in my memory most was a young man who said, ‘I really want to talk to my friends at lunch. But they’re all on their phones, so I can’t. Even though I’m putting my phone down, it’s a futile enterprise.’”

Comments
Sponsored
Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Tyler Farr, Blue Water Film Festival, Mustache Bash

Events March 21-March 23, 2024
Next Article

Looking back at race relations in Coronado

A former football player recalls the good and the bad
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.