the kids are not ok honey
over the summer of this year we got a batch of interns at my company who are between the ages of 18 to 22, here are some things i witnessed as an elder zoomer:
- reviewed some of their reports & memos; they either had piss poor syntax & grammar or obviously used ai
- some common career aspirations i heard were bitcoin/crypto investor or social media influencer
- nearly half of them were visibly overweight, which was not the case even a few years ago (these are upper middle to upper class students from elite private schools and top tier public unis)
- very little in the way of creative hobbies, reading, or team sports, lots of them mentioned just scrolling through shorts & tiktoks in their free time or at best lifting weights
- a generally bad understanding of basic history, while casually talking some of them had no idea what the nuremberg trials or apartheid were about
- a reliance on technology while also being technically illiterate, tons of them didn’t know how to look up a book in a library or create an excel spreadsheet
- socially stunted, tons of them have trouble carrying a conversation or making eye contact… some can’t function on a basic social level without meds
to be sure i recognize this is mostly not their fault, they are products of a sick society plagued by malaise & stagnation that was further exacerbated by the pandemic… not to mention their shitty parents for raising them on touchscreens instead of taking them out for a bike ride or smth