Ain't No Cure...

Seriously. Hopeless. That's how I feel about the current 16-26 year old generation sometimes. Perhaps working in higher education has jaded me. I'd not be surprised if folks said the same thing about me and my generation a decade ago when we all started leaving the nests. I was probably way too smart for my own good, and, left to my own devices, probably would have screwed up somewhere along the way. I was one of the lucky ones, though. But that's another entry for another evening...

Seems like young people (younger than I am, i should specify) have this strange sense of entitlement. Or at least, that's what some are saying. That may certainly be true, but I think I have a different perspective. I don't think the typical college freshman isn't willing to work hard for her education. I just think she's a victim of the Information Age. That's right, I'm pulling out the lefty "victim" nomenclature. Sue me.

Think about it - the graduating high school class of 2010, since their collective adolescence, has never known a world without Internet, instant messaging, Google, most have been on Facebook for longer than they've been driving. They've never known a world without The Simpsons, cell phones, digital music downloads. Even traditional electronic mail is "old school" to them.

The point is, basically, two words - Instant Connectivity. Or, rather, Instant Gratification. They've always had anything or anyone they've ever wanted or needed AT ANY MOMENT at the literal click of a button (or even just by saying a name with voice recognition technology). Working, for them, is quite different from what it meant for me. In college, if I needed references for a paper, I went to the library. Today, students still go to the library, but it's all online. The tools we're developing to make our lives easier is making the next wave of college students increasingly more isolated and dependent on technology. What comes across as entitlement is actually just plain ol' ignorance. They don't know how to communicate with adults without mom or dad doing it for them. If they can't google (or bing or whatever) the resources they need for some academic endeavor, then they're lost. If a party isn't advertised on Facebook, then no one's going to know about it. I shudder to think how some of the social gatherings we had in my not-very-distant-at-all college days could have turned out if Facebook had been involved. The house on 286 would not have survived the Spring of 2002.

Perhaps I'm just jaded. In my line of work, the students I deal with more often than not are the ones that need special attention. The ones who "get it," the ones who don't fall victim to the pandemic of Instant Gratification, they don't really need to spend much time in my office. So maybe that's it. Like I said, people probably said the same kinds of things about my generation. And I look at me, and more so, some of my closest friends, and I think we've definitely got our acts together. Anyway, it was just time to rant. The Dog Days are here early and the end feels hopelessly far away.