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@Mona

Did you just change the topic!?

This generation of teenagers are very exposed and corrupted by the media and advertisments in various ways such as cable TV, internet, etc.

I both agree and disagree with your baseline premise! I became a teenager (13) the year Star Wars came out. The year before, Saturday Night Fever came out and the “disco” craze had started. Recreational drug use was a big thing back then (at least here in the US), not just with teenagers but with their *parents* too. There was a lot of social upheaval at the time as well, ranging from the feminist movement and the sexual revolution (which hit teens before it hit adults it seems lol) to advocacy of socialism and other leftist ideologies that haven’t been seen in America since. The PC was invented the year during my junior year in High School. MTV had their first broadcast at about the same time, and that’s also when people started getting cable television instead of the roof antennas to pick up local stations that was all anyone had before that. There was a LOT going on when I was a teenager. And I probably don’t need to tell you what people were predicting for my “MTV generation”, right? The thing of it is, the parents of today’s teens are mostly about my age.

I do agree with you that the world has become a much more “sophisticated” place for most people, but I also believe that kids naturally adapt to their environment. I don’t think teenagers are necessarily more sophisticated (or more at risk) just because the environment they grow up in is. In a lot of ways today’s kids in the US seem much more sheltered than they were in the past. I rarely see kids out playing here where I live. I rarely see kids outside without their parents, at all. That’s worrisome, because being out and about with my friends was a big part of my childhood, and I hate to think today’s youth is missing out on that.

Will they grow up to be very demanding and hard to satisfy if we don’t do anything about it now, or is there a way to limit the exposure, and teach them that life can be lived and enjoyed by simple means?

Hmmm… simple means… such as? My father started me in Tae Kwon Do when I was 5, and I spent 2 evenings a week at the dojo, plus the whole of Saturday afternoon in sparring class. I did that for 9 years. I started league football (American style) when I was 11, and continued with it throughout high school. I also ran track in the Spring, and Cross Country in the fall. Are these simple means? Because *none* of my friends were into sports at all. I was in the nerd classes with all the nerd kids and most my friends used to just go home from school and read, watch TV, whatever. Today’s nerd kids have computers and the internet, but it seems to me there isn’t a whole lot of difference!

Iranian youth has recently been “exposed and corrupted” by the internet to the extent that they want democracy instead of theocratic dictatorship.

So maybe all these “modern pressures” are actually powers for good.

@Craig
I disagree that teens today aren’t as sophisticated as those a generation ago. There are entire make-up lines targeted at pre and young teens, in the UK the average age at which a child gets a mobile phone (so unsupervised contact with friends) is 8 and you will be hard pressed to find a teen who will just take whatever clothes their parents buy them without asking for something more fitted/designer/fashionable. It’s an age group that has a lot more spending power than previous generations of teenagers did and the media definitely influences how they want to spend it. From everything through skimpy clothes to wanting the newest gadgets, I believe they’re the generation showing the largest gap between parental standards and their own standards, so where do you think these differing opinions are coming from if not from the media? However I think it’s entirely within a parent’s power to stop their child being so demanding. I don’t think it comes to limiting exposure as you can’t hide them from all the billboards/bus sides/shop windows in the world. I feel the key is in letting them earn money through housework rather than getting pocket money for free so they know the value of money (a cliche, but true) and provide lots for them to do in the meanwhile so they don’t feel like their lives are empty as they save for their ipod or whatever. Lessons like money can’t buy style will go a lot further than giving in to “I want!”s and they should have confidence in their own personalities/abilities/talents than rely on having the latest thingamabob to save them from ’social suicide’.

@Nithya

You raise some good points, but I’m still unconvinced!

There are entire make-up lines targeted at pre and young teens

The only reason that didn’t happen when I was a kid is because wearing makeup was verboten for anyone under 30! However, women (and teenage girls) didn’t wear bras back then which is… not equivalent, perhaps… but still, combined with the other risque behaviors of teens back then, it’s pretty “sophisticated”. In a way.

…in the UK the average age at which a child gets a mobile phone (so unsupervised contact with friends) is 8

Yes, that’s a big change. Most my friends had phones(landlines) in their bedrooms, but parents listening in was an issue. Parents listening at the door was an issue, too. So, I’ll cede this one.

But on the plus side, there were no iPods back then. The Walkman wasn’t even invented until I was in my 20s. We all had stereos in or bedrooms, and boom boxes we carried around with us. At least parents don’t have to put up with that, anymore.

…and you will be hard pressed to find a teen who will just take whatever clothes their parents buy them without asking for something more fitted/designer/fashionable.

I think I have you beat here! You probably have no idea how fashion-conscious people were in the late 1970s, but I doubt today’s youth are anywhere near that obsessed with being cool. I actually refused to leave the house a couple of times because I didn’t have a clean pair of Jordache jeans to wear… and I’m a guy. Imagine what girls were like?

It’s an age group that has a lot more spending power than previous generations of teenagers did and the media definitely influences how they want to spend it.

I guess that one depends on where you live and what kind of family you grow up in. My mother was roughly as successful as I am at the same age (and she is also a programmer) but she was divorced with two kids. I’m divorced with no kids. So I guess I come out ahead on that, although since I have no kids to throw money at it isn’t relevant anyway, eh?

I will never be as successful as my father has been, and I don’t intend to try. He was a pretty high-powered executive at some big companies when I was growing up. That’s not for me. I guess in my family, it isn’t true that the kids are more successful than their parents. To this day my Grandparents on my mother’s side have more money than everyone else in the family put together, and they’ve been retired for 30 years.

From everything through skimpy clothes to wanting the newest gadgets, I believe they’re the generation showing the largest gap between parental standards and their own standards

Well, I don’t want to go overboard with trying to describe what the late 1970s and early 1980s were like, but I don’t see young girls – or adult women, for that matter – wearing clothes that are anywhere near as “skimpy” as what women wore as a matter of routine when I was young. I’m willing to bet that today’s youth are far more socially conservative than my generation was.

…so where do you think these differing opinions are coming from if not from the media?

My generation was raised by hippies. And that’s where our social influences came from. Not from “the establishment”

However, movies played a big role. That’s why I mentioned Saturday Night Fever. You can’t possibly understand what impact that movie had on American culture unless you were around in the US back then. It basically *created* disco.

Lessons like money can’t buy style will go a lot further than giving in to “I want!”s and they should have confidence in their own personalities/abilities/talents than rely on having the latest thingamabob to save them from ’social suicide’.

Bleh. Kids don’t get acne anymore. Acne has been made extinct. That used to be the great equalizer, because even the coolest and the toughest kids got a big ass zit on their nose every once in a while. But, I think this pressure to fit in is something every generation of teenagers has to deal with, equally. If only it was as simple as having the right toys and the right clothes. It wasn’t when I was young, and I’m sure it isn’t now

@ Mona…nice game, I’m not commenting 2 win, though, so I didn’t read all the comments. Personally, I’d rather have parents switch off the television altogether and get children into books to stimulate their thinking

Teens can be taught to avoid the corrupting factors in life and then it’s up to them , right? So the responsibility lies with parents mainly, but we hope to have help along the way from whomever else is involved with these kids.( that includes the media, people with websites, etc.)