Is this another wayward-young think piece?
Is social media taking over?
Think pieces on the wayward young are perennial. So much so, in fact, that opening an opinion piece on the wayward young by acknowledging this fact has become something of a bromide itself. In a few generations’ time – who knows? Maybe acknowledging the frequent acknowledgement of the wayward-young think piece’s perennial status will itself seem passé, trite or something writers only do to buck up their word counts.
In this case, however, the snowballing of the acknowledgement’s triteness over time actually serves rather well as metaphor and demonstration of the proper course of the wayward young.
As each generation comes up, the dust on the cultural artefacts of their predecessors starts to get up their noses. Ire is drawn.
Why are we all pretending premarital sex is a certain one-way ticket to damnation? Why can’t women vote? Why can’t anyone without land vote? Why can’t we dance the Charleston? And most of all, oh most of all, why oh why does every think piece on the wayward young begin with the same acknowledgement? It’s just stupid.
They say. They demand. They protest. And they age. So goes the way of things. We become aware of the clunky, ossified traditions of our parents and replace them with shiny new ones. Warning: lustre may fade and handling may tend towards clunkification. This is all entirely normal and no cause for concern at all.
However, we must add a caveat to our caveat that, yes, we're aware that acknowledging the perennial nature of the wayward young think piece is nearly always preceded by some kind of special-case argument / but-this-time-it-really-is-the-end type rhetoric. However, we do believe that what we have here is a special case and that if we don’t wake up and smell the decaf, it really will be the end.
And that’s because we're not railing at the disrespectful, wayward and irreverent young; we’re railing precisely at their abandonment of this essential role.
Now, there are lots of ways into this topic, if you don’t already know. They’re generation snowflake, the ever-offended and the types of people who buy no-touch meat. That last should really send a shiver down your spine. It really should.
Just as well, and perhaps more darkly, they’re bronies, incels and trolls. What unites these groups is an essential non-agency. There’s something kick-up-the-backside-inspiringly passive about them. Their excesses are of abnegation. They are those who dare to do not.
Now, at this point, some objectivity is called for, lest we appear in the vein of the disaffected old codger throwing a kind of home-brew of buzzwords and resentments at the wall in an effort to see what sticks.
There is solid data to back this up
In an un-gentle and deeply sad piece for the Atlantic, social scientist Jean Tenge exhibits graph after graph indicating the abrupt decline of any behaviour you’d think of calling a healthy precipitator to youthful acts of rebellion.
We’re talking spending time with friends, getting a part-time job, learning to drive, having sex, drinking – all of these things have dropped off a cliff. Just so, and unsurprisingly, at the same time, these behaviours are going the way of the dodo, rates of suicide, anxiety, self-harm and suicidal ideation are way up.
So what exactly is going on with these kids?
The interviewee of the piece is all too recognizable to anyone who’s spent a lot of time around young people. There’s something plaintiff in her tone – a recognition that what she’s going through is a fallen, anaemic kind of adolescence. Yet at the same time, she’s blithe – docile even. It’s as if, although she recognises the paucity of her experience, its alternative is just a little too alien to be aimed at, hence the tone of resignation; of acceptance.
That alien reality is of course what any pre-millennial/gen-Xer would call, simply, reality: life sans digital interface, unplugged and 3-dimensional.
Now, we need to backtrack a little, because while Tenge’s work shows strong correlations between these eschatological graphs and smartphone usage, there are many more pieces to this puzzle.
Technology isn't the only factor
Sure, there is something a little like a reverse Dorian Grey about the immaculate images we post on social media. And we all find ourselves texting when we could call and sending an emoji when we could write a sentence – which is all bad news. But placing everything at the feet of technology isn’t fair. In The Coddling of the American Mind, psychologist Jonathan Haidt points to the decade-spanning trends in education policy, cultural norms and social values that have synchronised to produce the situation we’re in now.
Broadly speaking, Haidt points to the rise of victimhood culture, the dependence on authority figures and the exchange of confrontation for avoidance in dealing with difficult topics or experiences. This all coheres to form a psychological quicksand from which it is difficult to free oneself. So, we might think about the emergence of virtual worlds and this generation’s inability to cope with the real world as being the perfect storm. But before we get to the denouement, it’s important that the Devil is given his due. There are some elements of life that have benefited greatly from going digital. Let’s start with the small ones.
Getting takeaway food has become exponentially better as a result of technology. Show us the man who is mourning the loss of that 30-odd-second phone call in which you used to place your order and we will show you the loneliest person on Earth. No more collecting land-fill-fodder through the letterbox in the form of the same takeaway menus – every single week. No more traipsing through the phonebook every time you fancy something other than the same Chinese you’ve been eating for the past five years. And best of all, surely, is the compression of all of these chores into something so manageable it can be completed by drunken you at 3am in less than five minutes. It’s a win-win.
More contentious is the digitisation of dating. Where once we had to cock our heads and divine the subtle undercurrents of attraction with whatever instruments are those of love – there are now apps. And that’s not a bad thing. The way we look at it, those with a silver tongue and natural charm have lost a little of their edge. But the awkward and sad among us – who, let’s face it, are the 99% – have benefited. Online dating is the utilitarian solution. One might even say that sites like Badoo, which promote platonic meetups as well as those more carnally intended, are part of the solution to this epidemic of loneliness. And of course, there are those conveniences which would be unimaginable without a smartphone: digital-only banking, Uber and all the rest. No one can say it’s all bad.
What this means for this particular wayward-young think piece
But let’s return to the topic at hand. My contention is that the young of today have given up their young-of-today responsibilities. And we believe that this makes this wayward young think piece a meta wayward young think piece. We are, in effect, writing to register our distress that we remain un-distressed. Our culprit is the two-headed beast of passivity. At the end of one serpentine neck is a smartphone, at the other, is all the evil represented by pre-sliced avocado chunks.
But every wayward-young think piece ends on an instructive note. The general idea, as far as can be told, seems to be that as the wayward youth are busy ripping up the catechisms of yesteryear, one shrill voice manages to make itself heard. No, not that page, it says: keep that.
It is, in fact, the knowledge of the wayward-young think piece’s perennial status which makes its author’s position one of pre-accepted defeat. His or her own ire is perfunctory; the author knows they can’t stand in the way of progress. That final whisper is what the piece is all about, delivered from the zeitgeist’s deathbed: give the vote to all but not to children, dance the Charleston if you must, but keep Gangnam Style from the national dance curriculum.
But, as we’ve said, this is a meta wayward-young think piece. So our concern is with the utility of the parting word, from one generation to the next, in general, rather than with any particular truth-seed-containing platitude. And it must be said that if the young of today will not be wayward of their own volition, they must be chased into experimental territory by their elders. Rather than shrilly protest the desecration of our fine traditions, we must decry their won’t-be desecrators’ inaction.
The particulars of this are best left to someone else. It’ll take a concerted effort from those who still remember being romantically rebuffed at the water fountain or falling out of a tree. We must reverse the coddling of young people’s minds via active worrying, provocation and conflict-seeking. Phones should be put in safes, or, better yet, bins.
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