this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2025
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Boy, I don't remember where I got this information from... I think it was probably a radio show or podcast... maybe Radio Lab?
But the "kids these days" idea is extremely common throughout recorded history. Like there are records from ancient Greece where people are complaining that kids don't show the respect that they used to, and pining for the old days when people used to act better.
And you find the same sentiment over and over whenever in history you look, wherever people kept personal records.
Reminds me of this quote by George Orwell:
"Every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it."
What's strange is, I'm 42, and I don't have that idea at all. I have it in reverse. I see stories on the news about how some kids in high school are protesting new laws, or banding together to get the whole school to do something wholesome for the disabled kid at prom, or hosting events to bring awareness from their town that gun violence has no place in schools, or the one story where a 12 year old solved some science thing that actual scientists were stumped on.
I see all that. They're trying to make the world a better place. They're dealing with a world that quite honestly is far darker and scarier than I grew up with. The world has shoved them into this mess and said "deal with it". And they are.
But then I look at boomers, and think "These assholes had everything handed to them growing up, took everything for themselves as adults, and now bitch and moan that there's nothing left to take now that they're elderly."
The kids are alright. Fuck the boomers though.
But if you look at the baby boomers when they were young, they were protesting things like the Vietnam War and marching against the government.
Perhaps it's not at all inconsistent. Although my politics are based on morality and I've gotten much more left wing as I get older, maybe a lot of people are just selfish assholes who make decisions with almost no information, and will support whatever politician promises them more money. When they're young, it manifests as progressive, and when they're old and have money, it manifests as conservative.
I want to make sure to emphasize that I think it's obvious that conservatives today back policies that make their constituents poorer, especially with regard to healthcare. But if you're uneducated and don't know anything, politicians can just say the words "lower taxes", and greedy dumb fucks will flock to them.
I know. And I get it. And I'm old and wise enough to know I don't know anything about anything.
Also, I know I'm as wistful of my youthful times as my great grandfather probably was, but the world today vs the 80s/early 90s... The Internet thing is an epoch shift. It's crazy that our grandparents grew up without planes in the sky and we're expected to navigate cable news, yes, I get that.
But to go from.. the world.. to.. the world plus the globally interconnected virtual world.. is fucking nuts. I had lots of screens. I wrote code on a CRT in 88 and fucked with my share of bunny ears or played Civ 1 for entire school breaks. It's not just screens. The library of Alexandria x a million in our pockets, everyone everywhere all the times accessible to one another, constant surveillance from walking down the block to our most private digital thought, all of it capitalized and personalized to perfection to encourage obsession and consumption and spending.
I have one of the rare boomer parents, that for however crazy she is, she's flat out said, "I understand it's impossible to get a mortgage and get started these days. I don't understand how kids go to college and start careers." Vs "but we did more with less. Fuck off."
These are actually different times. Things were less anxious and bombarding and all consuming.
Just about every change in communication technologies has caused social and political turmoil
One possible explanation is that, new forms of communication often don't have as much social regulations (intrinsic or extrinsic), which cause the proliferation of socially unacceptable ideas and conspiracy theory
There are a couple of YouTube videos by Hank Green that go into this topic
That's not to say that i don't feel the "doomscroll depression", or that things will 100% get better. Just that there's a historical trend, and we happen to be in the dip of the largest communications tech change in history
It's different because it's 24/7, and global. But it's the same pattern
Could’ve been the Pessimists Archive (later renamed Build For Tomorrow, and now apparently Human Progress? Idk man): https://humanprogress.org/pessimists-archive-podcast-ep-18-kids-these-days
Too lazy to hear people leisurely talking, but in my experience, a proportion of people are lazy, narcissistic, and disrespectful regardless of age. Kids make that more obvious because they’re supposed to obey their parents until they emancipate, but kids want the best of both worlds: protection AND independence.
I've never listened to either of those, but anyone who goes out and tries to verify other people's comments or posts and finds links is a hero. Thanks.
That quote makes its rounds around the Internet because it's so persistent an idea, and I bet the one that radio station was quoting was this one, which isn't actually so ancient.
But even better the truth is that people have been complaining about the past and youth for a very long time.
that was my ancient literature class in college