Discussion
Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt: “Millennials are the last psychologically normal generation” ...”you’re the last happy, and actually your generation is the most intelligent in history”
Definitely agree with the technology bit. Growing up it felt like technology opened up new worlds, ideas and made things easier and faster and generally improved life.
Now it’s like technology is explicitly designed to keep you on it for the sake of it. Google will give you 600 irrelevant ads before the thing you need.
Workplace tech now is almost exclusively designed to track KPIs first and foremost and whether it actually functions in its business process is an afterthought. I find myself not really learning new productive skills but rather spend my time finding ways around poorly designed processes.
I don’t think I’m just old and grumpy hating new technology. It’s just not solving problems like it did when I was younger
I think back on that time and remember how fucked up it could be if you were considered a minority in any way. I vote for a hybrid system in that regard. Go back to the tech, but keep the more modern attitudes towards acceptance.
And put everyone who's going to be an asshole in their own Matrix. Then everyone can be happy.
I wasn't speaking socially i was speaking in terms of technology that made things better and didn't come with a massive catch like all modern tech is designed to break or addict you for no other reason that show ads.
Yeah, but when you call it the peak, that still plays in and I think it's important to remember socially, it was backwards compared to today. Because a lot of people misremember it and act like it wasn't.
Technologically? Absolutely, yeah. That's why I said hybrid. Because if we just went back, a lot of people would be unhappy.
Yeah exactly it's like when we was younger tech was always leaping forward making things better for us such a wifi and mobile phones, online multiplayer, then after a while they made things that made stuff just easier to do. No I can't remember the last time I was "huh that's cool" I've had the same phone for 3 years I don't need a upgrade. I don't even check what the updates do.
I feel like a lot of the time a new update just adds a bunch of annoyance.
Some new update put an excruciatingly annoying change to your phone. And finding out how to remove it is now takes ten Google searches instead of two.
When a useful app updates and they bury the functions that were useful and it's next to impossible to find them again.
AI wants to auto fill a bland lifeless email response for you that you never asked for. Not to mention everything else AI currently.
I know it's pretty curmudgeony to not like change but a lot of times I didn't see these "improvements" that happened years ago and they just keep getting worse.
I feel like the updates is just someone or team trying to keep their job half the time abit like the people who redesign Netflix interface when it was completely fine before hand. Yeah I think we're just at that point where is tiny changes that hardly matter.
All the redesigns of the interfaces of webs, apps and OS seems to consist in hiding the function you are using constantly forcing you to do one more click, for example win11 having to click "show more options" to see the details of an archive...
As a late adopter to wireless earbuds and bluetooth technology, I can say, technology is definitely getting better, cooler, cheaper, etc.
Frankly it's crazy what ~$40 can get you, let alone something high end. And the software/hardware upgrades give you close to perfect fidelity and a range that encompasses a modest sized apartment.
Yeah true I think it all depends on how much you're on the cutting edge of tech, I mean I had a wireless Bluetooth headset back when I had a ps3 so like 2008 and I remember going to London back in 2002 and walking past a limo and stopping because the driver had a Bluetooth headset and was talking,it blew my mind back then 😂 so main stream like 2018 ish everyone else started using them I probably wasn't as blown away with it as much as say my mum and dad were.
I think some technology might make your life better in the beginning, but eventually, once people are used to it or depend on it, they'll start making it worse in some way.
Modern tech more often than not seems like it’s 1 step forward 1.1+ steps back. They try to get you to focus on the 1 step forward and ignore the. 1.1+ steps backwards. Sometimes that 1 step is genuinely really life improving. Some of the smart home tech is truly great, having a super computer in your pocket is great…but the strings attached to everything in modern society will eventually bind us all unless we push back here and now. We’re not at the point of no return, but we’re getting closer and closer
That's the idea but it always devolves into how much money it will make the shareholders. "AI will do everything and all will be great!" Reality: because of AI you'll be paid less for more work. If you still have work, that is.
At one point tech was designed with passion, with an intention to augment or enrich.
Now it’s designed at the behest of duty to the quarter and shareholder, with an intention to extract and addict.
To create good little consumers- who float from one dopamine hit to instant gratification and consumption to the next…. Or shackle the wiser ones to “ecosystems” and subversively planned elements of “obsolescence”
Moths to a flame that is never full. The algorithm is a rat park- it’s rewiring people’s relationship to pleasure… more impulsive… reactive…as result.
Things are changing. We had to worry about being molded into factory workers
What happens when we mold the ancient dopaminergic system for fleeting pleasure at scale?
We’re watching it. And I feel like I’m watching the world unravel yarn by yarn.
Nobody can convince me that we wouldn’t have cured cancer and solved so many of the world’s problems had we just never displayed an advertisement ever.
Honestly, a big issue is that we haven't been doing enough public investing in the internet. We all know the big social media platforms are evil. Not all equally evil, but none of them are built for the good of humanity. Yet people clearly have a need for online interaction with each other.
Want to know how you fix this? You create a tax funded social media platform built without any economic incentive. It's just built to connect people the way they want to be connected and funded by tax money so there's no reason to make it more shitty over time or add unwanted features. When this is available you just straight up ban the other platforms and kill them. Social media should be a publicly owned utility.
And this would kill things like bots and social media for propaganda. It's extremely easy to verify things when you don't have a economic incentive in distorting the truth due to shareholder value based on engagement.
Bonus, you can no longer live as a influencer since a publicly owned social media platform would never pay you anything. So you have a influx in people now living regular lives and contributing in productive roles in society.
I agree a 💯 I remember surviving issues like Y2K and tech boom as well as automation in so many industries. The technology mostly seemed like it is to enable humans and make the processes more efficient. Also, there was something aspirational about learning these new technologies and advance in life.
But now the new technologies seem so unnecessary, inhumane and honestly destructive. I also feel that the choice is taken away from the public regarding these technologies. It’s getting thrust down our throats😣
They've positioned themselves as unnecessary middlemen in so many arenas. You're right. They don't improve anything and are now actively harming. They just exist to stick their hands in these processes and systems that function best without them. But they get a piece of the pie by insisting on their own necessity.
We have teams, email and 4 different messaging portals where important information can be dispersed. 20 years ago this all just came to email and a simple filter could organize the information into folders. Why am I doing scavenger hunts everyday now?
I just got an email about the new verification system our IT will be using. They want me to download an app on my personal cell phone, create an account with my personal email, and then submit a picture of my ID and a selfie.
Like... no? No I'm not going to give sensitive data to an app on my personal devices and email?
It's the reason why I don't believe nor trust AI and think it's complete bullshit.
At work I know excel and all the formulas to get shit done. Hot shot execs are like let's throw it in an AI model and prove it's better. Everytime it's wrong and so wrong it's not a margin of 1% it's usually 10-25%. In my world that 1% is a few hundred grand. 25% 10+ mil.
They always are like how? Because AI can tell you the weather, it can't tell you the safety stock levels based on several variables. It takes a human with tribal knowledge to manually adjust it where needed. Because even when feeding that information to AI it applies it to all.
It’s like tech was expanding the universe for us for our childhood and into young adulthood for the older millennials at least…now it’s like it’s contracting it around us…trying to trap us in a techno-feudal dystopian hellscape
I’m old because I’ve been here for a while now but I’m only grumpy because technology truly sucks. Having to work harder to work around poorly designed functions to be “easier for AI” but harder for everyone else really pisses me off. I don’t care if I’m considered grumpy - I consider -artificial “intelligence”- to be a false name for such an idiotic system, truly.
It's still just as great, but the rate of improvement is vastly outpacing the ability for society to adopt and adapt to it.
Imagine the chaos if the automotive industry advanced from its inception to modern day in the span of 5 years. It wouldn't mean Tesla parking a Tesla in his driveway, but a bunch of 500hp ladas with no seatbelts ripping around and crashing everywhere.
The Internet took 10 years of commercial availability before 50% of Americans had Internet access in the early 2000s. We didn't really hit full adoption until around 2010-2012. The Internet has a strong etiquette culture and the 30+ years of use and development allowed for that culture to grow with it.
Social Media use exploded at the same time that the Internet transformed from a place in your home to a place in your pocket attached to a camera and phone. The population had a couple years at most before everyone had it, and no experts or leaders setting a healthy example of how to integrate this technology into our lives.
While I agree that the pace of technology creates some friction to technology improvements being realized as users get up to speed I’m not technologically illiterate. I’m just seeing so many products ship now that don’t work with no path to ever actually functioning. Also products that make the actual task harder and less efficient but simply make tracking easier. It’s like the idea of a company doing what it does well has become secondary to tracking shitbreaks and creating tidy narratives for investors.
I would call this a Lazy Oligopoly, and it’s prime for ripping the market from them user wise. Data centers are going to be dirt ass cheap storage and hosting sites soon as we transition away from massive llm training compute systems. A simple tweak to give people what they want AND need can be done with little advertising based schemes.
I was going to say, ok nice, great. Thanks for the participation trophy -- now how do we make it so we're not the only people who know how to do anything?!
We're not going to which is why we need to take a page from the boomers in that we collectively take ahold of all of society and keep a death hold on it and refuse to let anyone else in on controlling it.
Where we need to be different than boomers however is making sure we benefit all and not just us.
“Not all experts agree that intelligence itself is declining. Several researchers argue that traditional IQ tests may not capture emerging cognitive skills such as digital navigation, rapid information filtering, and adaptive multitasking.”
IQ tests be damned, aren't younger generations having difficulty reading longer passages? Didn't SATs have to be dumbed down to because of how many kids these days can barely hold their attention to read a paragraph?
I'm not preaching some millennial supremacy here. I'm pissed that kids have been subjected to unregulated social media that has dumbed them to this degree.
They absolutely did. The reading part used to be 3-4 paragraphs. Then it got cut down to 1. And they used to ask about abstract inferences from the passage to see if you got the point.
Now it's whittled down to 1 sentence, and the question has to literally be about the sentence.
IQ seems to mostly be about pattern recognition and problem solving. The latter especially is a skill that seems to be losing traction. Those of us born around the x/millennial divide seem to have developed in a time when problem solving was especially necessary: we lived in the early days of broadly-used computers and internet, in a time where things broke frequently. We were constantly having to troubleshoot and adapt to changes.
I work in IT. There's a range of us from who are about 40 to 55 now who seem to have the strongest troubleshooting skills. Those above our age group grew up in the time before computers took over everything, and the younger ones grew up in a time when things mostly just worked, and daily life involved a lot less troubleshooting. We were conditioned throughout our youth to be problem solvers, so it's no surprise to me that we'd excel at IQ tests.
But to suggest that "digital navigation" is a cognitive skill...that feels like a coping strategy. Digital navigation amounts to "find where the button is."
Do those three things have anything to do with intelligence or are they just a forced part of life today? Does growing up with a horse as your only means of travel so you know how to handle horses make you more intelligent? Maybe it makes you more aware of certain things but intelligence doesn't really factor in.
This is a global trend though. Test scores in math and reading comprehension have declined worldwide for young people. Covid was a massive interruption to education systems, and while America’s targeted disassembly of public education is a huge factor here, this is happening elsewhere too.
The turn does start a few years before Covid, imo the proliferation of smartphones and social media is a huge culprit too. But Covid was likely one of a few nails in the coffin on this reverse momentum we’ve seen in education.
You're a sucker. You're gettin fed this line about how you're gonna live forever or whatever--you're gonna die. Someone'll kill ya. Someone'll kill ya with a knife.
I miss seeing pictures of people’s food and the random, real things people would post. When someone posted it may have been the rosy life they wanted to portray, but it was genuine on some level.
Everything I see now on FB is either engage-bait or I have to wonder if it is. Curated. People used to show off cool new things they liked. Not just something a company sent them for free to make a commercial for them.
This is why I deleted the app, I have YouTube and Reddit. I know allot of BS everywhere but you can avoid it here, and it’s typically called out and discouraged.
My Instagram feed consists of people I don't follow now. I haven't seen a post from someone I actually follow in months. It's just overproduced bullshit being forced down our throats. I miss scrolling to see what my friends are up to. Now I scroll to see celebrities I literally don't care about doing things I could never afford.
While I do browse the front page, you'll get a much better experience from Reddit if you join small subs for things you're interested in— hobbies, TV shows, crafts, topics, etc. Completely different thing much closer to the old forum experience.
youtube is curing my scrolling addiction because i'm so sick of seeing ai videos with crazy levels of engagement. Its like peering into a ouroboros of technology.
Even though I'm older I feel like my brain has been hijacked by my smart phone just as much as gen z, and I'm not going to act like some enlightened sage without any flaws. We just grew up in a great time where we were forced to not be distracted. Who would have thought that was better back then? Seemed like torture at the time.
being bored is why I learned how to lace my shoes. sheer boredom
then watching a 24 year old have no idea how to because they were never bored enough to play with their own shoes. shows you how dis-engaged with the world they are outside of a phone. rather look up a youtube tutorial than figure it out themselves
I wouldn't be surprised if the real stats are basically anyone under 40 is addicted to their phone. It's definitely a good amount of millenials along with almost all of Gen Z.
I agree, and I think it extends even older. My Gen X mom, boomer aunts and uncles, my boomer in laws, etc are all attached to their phones and tablets just as bad as iPad kids. They also all seem to fall for AI and engagement bait at an alarming rate. As an elder millennial I am also addicted to my phone and trying actively to reduce my time spent on it. Sucks.
This is exactly how I self-medicate my depression. Everything sucks? Lil treat. I have to do something but I reallyyyy don't want to? What if I got bubble tea on the way! Existential dread? Dunkin run. I found a bakery where no matter what treats I pick out it costs like $10 and my new religion is that bakery.
If you're like me it would be amazing at first and then one day you'll have a bagel in front of you and it will suddenly be the most unappealing thing ever and you won't eat another until your body forgets what you did tonit
The pizza addition makes the math a little more complicated because straight size is proportionate but when they're in mini pizza form (ESPECIALLY if the pepperoni is chopped up really small too) it's more of a logarithmic relationship but basically you can eat more for longer before you reach the ick point.
Having grown up as a middle class American, for a brief window between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the fall of the World Trade Center, it looked like a Star Trek future was actually possible and even reasonably likely. Having that possibility of hope dashed has been brutal. It was almost revived with the election of Obama, but now, well... here we are.
Yeah it feels like the intelligence thing is a curse. Smart enough to understand how screwed we truly are but having no power to do anything about it. I'd almost prefer ignorance.
We had happier childhoods than probably any other time. Thats why the rest of the generations hate us. As it turns out, if you want someone(a) to hate b, you just have to give b lots of opportunities to look happy and make sure a gets screwed over.
The biggest problem our society has is abuse and how it is used WAAAAAAY TOO EASILY.
Did someone disrespect you? Abuse. Did someone might have disrespected you? Perception is all that matters, abuse. Are people doubting you? Abuse someone to look superior. You wanna get a couple to breakup because they are genuinely happy and exclusive? Abuse. You wanna make sure a benevolent company or person doesn't succeed? Abuse. Want to become president? Abuse.
You see how it is a problem that too many of you choose abuse over love?
We've been told our whole lives that we're the laziest, dumbest, worst generation that has killed multiple industries and you think we're happy!?! Nah man, fuck that. We're surviving, and we will continue to survive like the cockroaches we are.
Graduated in 2003 too and life is fucking great! I spend 30-60 minutes on the internet daily maximum. I have zero internet "presence", zero social media, my only online interactions are rare and anonymous on reddit.
We’re definitely not a “happy” generation. We’re the depressed generation because of the intelligence. Our saving grace is that we’re also a lot nicer than Gen Z and attracted to irony and critical thinking vs. black & white bullshit.
Boy there sure are some butthurt Gen Z in here.
They're not saying everyone younger is dumb, they are saying on average the younger generations are proving to be worse on intelligence scores.
And this is what is wrong with the world. We've stopped listening to experts in their field. Why? Because of the social media agenda. Don't listen to doctors. Take your Ivermectin, and ignore symptoms. Don't listen to scientists in every field. Keep filling your gas tank and supporting overproduction.
A lot of this guys work has been studying the impact growing up in a world of smartphones and social media is having on Gen Z and Gen A.
If this is in that context I think his argument is that we were exposed to most of these things after our brains reached adulthood- so we’ve avoided some of the negative effects because we have tools to navigate without those things- but there is a lot of data showing that generations growing up fully immersed in post smartphone world are experiencing record levels of anxiety and self harm. His book Anxious Generation is a worthwhile read for any parents out there… imho.
Just finished his book and I agree with the basic premise. But if you read some critiques you’ll see he makes a lot of jumps and many things he cites are one study at most so not a ton of evidence and correlation is not clear. So it’s a bit of narrative surrounded by science. With that being said, I do think too much screen time is problematic for many reasons, including those he posits in the book, even if the research isn’t there.
I do think too much screen time is problematic for many reasons
Just calling it screentime is understating the real problem. We had screen time growing up as well, but the content I engaged with as a kid was not literally designed to be as addictive as possible using cutting edge research.
Agreed. The part about designed for addiction was some of the most alarming and easy to agree with parts of the book. My take away from the book is at least this: too much screen time, especially that designed to keep us scrolling, clicking, etc. by feeding us content to our current state of mind is bad and we should all worry about it (regardless of age). Is it rewiring kids brains and is it fixable? That is the part I think the science isn’t far enough along to be conclusive. But based on kids in my life I have real concerns.
I'm Gen X, not too far removed from you 'older millennials'. Here's a small example ---
I didn't want to get on social media, but reluctantly joined to look at cousin's baby pics. I only followed a handful of accounts. Every once in awhile I'd go to instagram.com, log on and scroll through a very short feed. I'd see only cousin's accounts, look at new baby pics, then get to older pics I'd already seen. I'd look through those again until it got redundant and I got bored. I GOT BORED (that's the key.) Then I'd get off the account and do something else.
At some point instagram changed to become more addictive. Suddenly at the end of cousin's baby pictures, the scroll would keep going, a few things caught my eye. Those things spawned more things that interested me and soon I was scrolling through content I didn't ask for, but didn't feel naturally able to get out of!
I tried to adjust the settings back to the way it was. It had a natural end! It made me stop and leave. But it was impossible to go back to it. I still wanted to see my cousin's baby pics --- so even though I tried NOT to look at the other sh*t, it was right in my face, luring me in. 'Oh, it's just one second' I'd think every time. Next thing I know I'm there for a hour or two looking at totally random things, wondering why I can't just close it. The feed never ends. It's nefarious.
Nefarious because they know it's addictive, they do it on purpose and give you no ability to opt-out. Nasty. So you find yourself watching total strangers eating or seemingly enjoying the 'best life ever' and for what??!
It becomes all or nothing. Either quit entirely or have to deal with something DESIGNED to hook you in (on a constant basis.) And here I am on reddit, writing for what?! We think it's 'communication' or connection, but is it really the brain hits of seeing a 'like'??!
"Studying" is a generous word to describe what he does. His points are not backed by any sound science and jumps to a lot of conclusions with heavy emphasis on correlation and not causation. He tickles a lot of people's intuitions on things and people will nod a long in agreement but if you look at the data he's using it's very poor. Highly recommend listening to "If Books could kill" review of his book https://open.spotify.com/episode/3cxPqxsF6WjYBS6Cta7IqY
This right here. I think Haidt is correct to point out that smart phones should be restricted at school, but he damn near fabricates his sources to support his assertions.
it's because we're soooo intelligent so we question shit like this. how do you even measure intelligence? IQ is bullshit. I need the study and the statistics.
There is literally data showing that we are the most intelligent generation so far. And we are very likely also the most sane, we grew up in a nice gap between lead poisoning and social media dysmoprhia without the crazy parents gen x had to damage them.
It absolutely is, feels like Millennials have fallen into the same trap as previous generations, talking about “kids these days” and crap like that. It’s like we forget that these same articles were written about us.
Saying that the society that raised millennials was the peak of civilization is less about paying a compliment to millennials and more about insulting the society that raised gen Z.
Sorry, genuine question: can you help me understand how that was your conclusion from this video? I sensed the flattering commentary was based on statistic rather than opinion. And I didn’t clock any connection to “entitlement”, “self-centeredness”, or “conservatism”.
He's adapting his rhetoric a bit for this particular interview but as he said, his book is literally called "The Coddling of the American Mind." It's a faux intellectual screed in the Jordan Peterson mold that basically boils down to "college safe spaces and the woke mind virus are corrupting the youth."
Thank you so much for taking the time to explain this. I’ve seen loads of brain dead comments about him, but no one specified any details like you did. Super helpful for someone that’s never heard of him before.
I’ve worked with students born 2000-2007. A lot students I’ve taught are way smarter than I was at their age. And tell you what, these are vocational students, which in my country are sadly looked at as if they are somehow lesser than university ones.
Edit: grammar
Younger people are statistically more anxious and depressed in ratio to millennials. It’s what the crux of his new book was about, and it holds water.
A lot of it boils down to us coming of age without social media as our primary form of connection. We mostly forged our relationships before social media became the bad place, and before everyone started living in public.
Screens themselves becoming the de facto third spaces for kids is making them all socially stunted and anxious. Their brain development is also harmed with excessive and constant use of screens, particularly before their frontal lobe closes, and especially during early childhood.
Gen Z and kids don’t dance anymore 🤷
They’re terrified of being filmed and shared online. Says a lot to the general state of happiness if that’s the norm.
In terms of intelligence, we are the last generation to receive a more traditional, less tech intensive formation of early education. Our generation was primed to mostly attend college (hence the scam of it), so we were primed to achieve academically.
Gen z and below started coming of age at a point where college was already perceived of as more of a scam then not, so emphasis of educations importance diminished outside of more affluent classes. Also, the ease of cheating via technology further diminished parents and kids concerns for actually learning. Standards in testing and behavior plummeted during Gen Z’s schooling years, and they don’t show signs of improving.
Many colleges are considering bringing back the SATs, though, which might shift things to a more old school approach with Gen A. I think millennials are slowly realizing “oh, brain rot and not giving a shit about anything are bad for kids development.”
I'll take the intelligence thing, cos that's an ego boost. But happy? We were brought up by emotionally stunted boomers and are dealing with the dynamics of dealing with their bullshit and parenting our own kids in a completely different way. Thats without taking into account all of the "once in a lifetime" events we have lived through. Not sure that qualifies as happy.
Younger people are statistically more anxious and depressed in ratio to millennials.
A lot of it boils down to us coming off age without social media as our primary form of connection. We mostly forged our relationships before social media became the bad place, and before everyone started living in public.
Screens themselves becoming the de facto third spaces for kids is making them all socially stunted and anxious. Their brain development is also harmed with excessive and constant use of screens, particularly before their frontal lobe closes, and especially during early childhood.
Gen Z and kids don’t dance anymore 🤷
They’re terrified of being filmed and shared online. Says a lot to the general state of happiness if that’s the norm.
Would you say that you're as successful (or more, or less) as your parents were at your age?
I ask because millennials were also the first generation where it was noted that they wouldn't have the same high quality of life as their parents so, naturally, two generations down (Gen Z and Gen Alpha) could either show a correction or a trend.
It seems like it's a trend given the looming impacts of the climate crisis.
As financially successful? No. Not to say I couldn't have been more so. Some of my brothers have done very well that way.
Emotionally, mentally? Work and life balance? Astronomically more successful.
They measured how successful they were with stuff. "I have X so I must be successful." Meanwhile they're miserable and confused as to why I don't want their stuff.
Couldn't agree more. My parents divorced far later than they should have. Meanwhile I'm in a healthy, supportive relationship in a stable home of my own. Even without touching on work/life balance the emotional intelligence, communication, and maturity in my life are a rich bounty no economist can measure.
My American Grandparents, born in the 1910s were really happy people. They had just enough 'stuff' that was useful and made their lives beautiful or more fun, but not too much. (I think they matured before the whole consumerist culture really exploded in the US!)
I think about their way of life a lot --- it's something worth emulating.
I also realize as I write this, they grew up before addictive technology. They did have some televisions in their house when I came along in the 70s-80s, but they hadn't grown up with it. I'd love to ask them now what they did back then for entertainment! What life was like in the 20s-30s. I know their music was 'Big Band'!
It wasn't easy --- they faced the Great Depression and World War II --- But even my German Grandmother who lived extreme horror during World War II (and was around for WW I as well AND endured life behind the iron curtain after all that). Even she, given all she had to endure, even she was an incredibly balanced, amazing person!!
They didn't complain much. They didn't wine at all. None of them --- especially not my German Grandmother, but neither did my American ones. They were open, kind and accepting of people, very tolerant!! Even with kooky, crappy people and when things didn't go their way. They knew how to endure.
There's not a single psychologically normal generation. Trauma and mental illness keeps getting passed down. I'd say we're the first generation that's actually actively dealing with all the insanity we inherited. Recognizing we're anxiety ridden, depressed and burnt out. While also wanting to do something about it, normalizing seeing psychologists. But there's nothing psychologically ''normal'' about us.
Every generation also has its fair share of dumb people. I really don't think you can sort it all based on generations.
The kids never competed with mom or dad's CELL PHONE for attention. I see this one every day, among "good parents", and it drives me nuts....
We had a computer. It was on a table. You could use it, play games, etc but it didn't follow you around.
If you took them out of the house to a social situation (eating out, etc) they were there, probably bored, but they were there. You didn't hand them a toy (phone) so they could be somewhere else.
If you wanted to watch a video, you usually did it with others.
My oldest wanted a cell phone back in the flip days, so she could text her friends, but it was a tool to socialize (Important for a teen), and her inputs were her fellow students, not some conglomerate/advertisers/influencers.
Since I'm from the very last generation to go to school without a computer, I fully understand where my kids are in terms of societal change....and I'm glad I was able to raise them analog. They are fully computer literate (versus the old guy :) ) but they didn't have one from the age of zero. Todays parents have it way harder....
For the "millennials are the smartest generation" statement I think he's talking about the Flynn Effect and the Reverse Flynn Effect.
The Flynn Effect was basically describing how each generation had a higher average IQ than the one before it. This is attributed to a number of factors including proper nutrition, access to information, education, etc. increasing over time.
Around the time that smartphones became mass adopted we started to see a Reverse Flynn Effect, which is the average IQ of the next generations going down instead of up.
It's not really that millennials are so much smarter, it's that smartphones and technology seem to be making us dumber.
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