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Kids Today

I'm gonna take a punt and suggest that might not have stuck. "pthumbsup:

Heh, at work whatever the boss asks me to do I interrupt him with 'Yes! I always do as men tell me.'

Gets a laugh every time. ;)
 
We discussed the acid attacks here. This shouldn't be made into a political footbal, just accept that a mistake was made and change the law back, swiftly.

The Government ignored expert advice and made changes in 2015 that made it easier to buy dangerous acids that have been used in a spate of attacks in recent weeks, The Independent can reveal.

Changes made in the Deregulation Act 2015 scrapped an obligation on sellers of dangerous substances, including acids, to be registered with their local council. The move was opposed by medical experts, who warned that it could make it easier for criminals to get their hands on highly toxic substances, and by the Government’s own advisory board on the regulation of hazardous chemicals.

Ministers boasted at the time about “cutting red tape” but are now under mounting pressure from MPs and campaigners to re-tighten laws to make it harder for people to get their hands on highly concentrated acids. It comes after dozens of people were injured in a spate of acid attacks, with London being particularly affected by the incidents. ...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...act-conservatives-poisons-board-a7856041.html
 
Squiggly eyebrows are the latest fashion trend for young ladies. Watch out for them near you soon:

Squiggly-Brows-MAIN.jpg
 
Get a squiggly mouth effect and you can look like a discomfited character in The Beano.
 
I'm waiting for chocolate buttons eyebrows like Maya off of Space: 1999. We're eighteen years too late, but there's still time.
 
Here's another social media syndrome coming soon to your town: Screaming Like Goku I have no idea what Dragonball Z is but anyway..

events are popping up all over Facebook titled “Scream Like Goku”, encouraging people to gather at different areas around the country to - you keeping up? - scream like the legendary super Saiyan Goku from Dragonball Z.

If you don't know what a Goku scream sounds like, imagine doing an aggressive impression of a motorcycle accelerating.

Now imagine a dozen people doing that at once while standing on a circle.
 
What annoys me about videos and articles like this is the assumption that kids today are somehow stupid for not being familiar with whatever archaeic piece of tat they're presented with. Why should a child born in 2007 know what a cassette is for? Would we have expected a 10 year old in 1977 to know what a wax phonograph cylinder was for? What does any of this prove?
 
Would we have expected a 10 year old in 1977 to know what a wax phonograph cylinder was for?

Frankly yes! Images of old technology were to be found everywhere in popular culture of the day. Kids also grew up in homes with much more legacy technology to hand. If their own parents did not have a wind-up gramophone, their grandparents probably did.

It's not the stupidity of children which is in question so much as the way their experience is filtered. Unless a book, film, toy or experience is explicitly aimed at their incompletely-formed pleasure-centres, it simply does not exist and they have no curiosity about it. :atom:
 
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What annoys me about videos and articles like this is the assumption that kids today are somehow stupid for not being familiar with whatever archaeic piece of tat they're presented with. Why should a child born in 2007 know what a cassette is for? Would we have expected a 10 year old in 1977 to know what a wax phonograph cylinder was for? What does any of this prove?
The 'tape' and 'record' symbology is all around them. Also, haven't they got access to old films and the Internet now? Don't their parents have a few of these items lying around?
 
One of the girls at work goes in for this eyeliner art trend. I hadn't realised it was actually "a thing".
 
Frankly yes! Images of old technology were to be found everywhere in popular culture of the day. Kids also grew up in homes with much more legacy technology to hand. If their own parents did not have a wind-up gramophone, their grandparents probably did.

It's not the stupidity of children which is in question so much as the way their experience is filtered. Unless a book, film, toy or experience is explicitly aimed at their incompletely-formed pleasure-centres, it simply does not exist and they have no curiosity about it. :atom:

I've experienced a bit of this in recent years, primarily in my previous work in schoolbook publishing. As an editor, I was told by publishers that "kids don't know what a 'barber' is [wtf?] so we can't use that word" or "kids don't want to see pictures of old stuff". It was maddening. I know that my young relatives are indeed interested in the past, and I certainly was when I was young (and still am). That said, I've actually had seemingly intelligent young adults say things to me like, "Why should I know about World War II. I wasn't born then" (as if *I* had been born then. Cheeeeesh!)
 
It's not the stupidity of children which is in question so much as the way their experience is filtered. Unless a book, film, toy or experience is explicitly aimed at their incompletely-formed pleasure-centres, it simply does not exist and they have no curiosity about it.

Nail on head, nutshell, etc.

But it's how this mindset is acquired that is important. My daughter knew how to turn on my smartphone and make it play her favourite videos at a very young age, but last night when I was patiently tuning a short-wave radio she was very interested in what each of the buttons did, why the numbers kept changing and what the long aerial was. Clearly the mission is to nurture and expand this natural curiosity.

The rule at Yith Towers is pretty much: TV, computer, phone only when supervised; she is never left unattended with one, so screen time is regulated. There's a point at which parents make a conscious decision to take the path of least resistance and allow phones to replace interaction with the other people in the room (or often the other room). What's weird is that you go to a dinner party or whatever and you find a roomful of kids, each with his own device, not interacting with one another at all (the fact is compounded by the fact that Miss Yith is the youngest of the children in our family and circle of friends and this malady gets worse with age). Well, that's not tolerated for long: I'll pluck her out and suggest a walk to the shop or some other diversion--I'd rather be a Nazi than father to a zombie. I used to complain about how my own over-active father would drag us the length and breadth of the country on family trips and have us go on country walks to poke around churches, old houses and castles, but, now I'm mature enough to appreciate the wider picture, I realise that such a childhood was a gift

Beyond technology, as poozler illustrates, it isn't only children becoming increasingly incurious--adults, too, are sinking into their own cluster of compartments, and society is fragmenting as a result. There have always been opaque barriers of class, wealth and education that stifled mutual understanding, but at the same as these traditional fissures are deepening, new ones are appearing: politics, of course, but also housing, faith, health, experience of crime; it's not so much 'Two Nations' as it is dozens of nations that know not one another. Part of this process is a greater sequestration in the present; not only are people less interested in the past, but they seem not to dream of possible futures with such vividness. There are visionaries dragging us forward, but it's in spite of a more general myopia.
 
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Nail on head, nutshell, etc.

But it's how this mindset is acquired that is important. My daughter knew how to turn on my smartphone and make it play her favourite videos at a very young age, but last night when I was patiently tuning a short-wave radio she was very interested in what each of the buttons did, why the numbers kept changing and what the long aerial was. Clearly the mission is to nurture and expand this natural curiosity.

The rule at Yith Towers is pretty much: TV, computer, phone only when supervised; she is never left unattended with one, so screen time is regulated. There's a point at which parents make a conscious decision to take the path of least resistance and allow phones to replace interaction with the other people in the room (or often the other room). What's weird is that you go to a dinner party or whatever and you find a roomful of kids, each with his own device, not interacting with one another at all (the fact is compounded by the fact that Miss Yith is the youngest of the children in our family and circle of friends and this malady gets worse with age).

I think that's right, although as a tech obsessive I always feel slightly hypocritical saying that children's screen time should be limited when I spent so much time online etc myself! I'll also be honest and say that a friend's daughter being allowed to play on her Nintendo DS while she went for lunch with all the adults did lead to a more relaxed and enjoyable time for all.

We also had much of the same hysteria about television, before that the cinema and before that cheap paperbacks. This latest moral panic might end up looking rather the same from a few decades on.

*Shrugs*

Beyond technology, as poozler illustrates, it isn't only children becoming increasingly incurious--adults, too, are sinking into their own cluster of compartments and society is fragmenting as a result. There have always been opaque barriers of class, wealth and education that stifled mutual understanding, but at the same as these traditional fissures are deepening new ones are appearing: politics, of course, but also housing, faith, health, experience of crime; it's not so much 'Two Nations' as it is dozens of nations that know not one another. Part of this process is a greater sequestration in the present; not only are people less interested in the past, but they seem not to dream of possible futures with such vividity. There are visionaries dragging us forward, but it's in spite of a more general myopia.

This is definitely true. People are increasingly withdrawing into smaller and smaller groups and are increasingly intolerant or simply not understanding of those outside of them. Politics is the obvious one - I was taken by an author's Twitter thread yesterday when she described being unable to "forgive" Brexit voters and was met with approval from people who said they would now not speak to long term friends over the issue. I'm sorry, but if you ditch a friend on the basis of their vote in an election or referendum then you fail at being a human being. (Incidentally, I was dropped by a couple of long tern acquaintances over the issue as well). Then you have divisions on the basis of education; the sort of job you do; the sort of house you live in; etc etc. It's not healthy.

One noticeable effect of this fragmentation (which isn't entirely down to the internet) is the absence of shared national moments. When I was growing up everyone listed to Radio One - my generation and my parents' alike. We all watched the same TV programmes at night and then discussed them at school/work. There's nothing like that now - with the possible exception of large sporting events and news stories. The only things I can think of that have come close in recent years would be the London Olympics and the Diamond Jubilee.
 
This is just the old "Society is going to the dogs, it wasn't like this when I was a lad!" trope which people have been bleating out continuously since Aristotle was a boy. Kids aren't getting stupider or less curious, as anyone who has ever spent more than five minutes with your average 4 year old will be able to attest to.
 
This is just the old "Society is going to the dogs, it wasn't like this when I was a lad!" trope which people have been bleating out continuously since Aristotle was a boy. Kids aren't getting stupider or less curious, as anyone who has ever spent more than five minutes with your average 4 year old will be able to attest to.

Two contested points:

1) It isn't four-year-olds that are the problem--it's the older children, teenagers and adults they become.
2) As I opined above: it isn't children becoming less curious so much as large swathes of society becoming less curious.

All opinion--drawn from dozens of strands, but opinion all the same.
 
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Somebody told me the other day that his 16 year old daughter didn't know how to tell the time using a clock with hands. He then went on to qualify that statement further, by saying "well she CAN tell the time using a clock, but has to stand and study it first". I was horrified!!!!! Mobile phones have a lot to answer for!
 
. Politics is the obvious one - I was taken by an author's Twitter thread yesterday when she described being unable to "forgive" Brexit voters and was met with approval from people who said they would now not speak to long term friends over the issue. I'm sorry, but if you ditch a friend on the basis of their vote in an election or referendum then you fail at being a human being. (Incidentally, I was dropped by a couple of long tern acquaintances over the issue as well).
.
Yep me too. I didn't vote the "right way" in the referendum and was held personally responsible for the outcome. Almost had a family break up over it. Ridiculous.
 
Somebody told me the other day that his 16 year old daughter didn't know how to tell the time using a clock with hands. He then went on to qualify that statement further, by saying "well she CAN tell the time using a clock, but has to stand and study it first". I was horrified!!!!! Mobile phones have a lot to answer for!
I must confess that, having used digital timepieces for so long, I now have to stop and stare at a traditional clock to make any sense of it. Appalling, I know.
 
:pop:....... I did wonder why they're bothering overhauling Big Ben. In 20 years time nobody will know what it's for!!
 
Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.
 
Somebody told me the other day that his 16 year old daughter didn't know how to tell the time using a clock with hands. He then went on to qualify that statement further, by saying "well she CAN tell the time using a clock, but has to stand and study it first". I was horrified!!!!! Mobile phones have a lot to answer for!

Yeah, this inability to read analog clocks is pretty widespread among kids today. :)
 
I assume they don't wear watches then. Funny thing is that most watches still have hands on. There are more of them around than digital ones. Who are they selling them to? Folk over 45?
 
I assume they don't wear watches then. Funny thing is that most watches still have hands on. There are more of them around than digital ones. Who are they selling them to? Folk over 45?
I almost never wear a watch now, and I'm over 45...'a bit'. I only posses one watch, a rather nice Seiko I bought about 16 years ago when somebody paid me a lot of commission. We had hours of fun winding up the MD by talking about how much I'd paid for it, we talked about £600, which really bothered him as he liked to have the most expensive stuff, but it was a LOT less than that, I can tell you. Anyone who thinks I might pay £600 for a mere watch doesn't know me very well...

It has hands but is 'auto winding', if you leave it sat still for a day, it stops the hands to conserve energy and when you pick it up whizzes them around to the right time, which always amuses me. With clocks on the phone, the car, the PC and so on, I just don't need it, so stopped wearing it. The phone goes in a stand at night and the clock face displayed is set to analogue...
 
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