Consumed by consumables

Joel Stein, Time Magazine

As we compare our generation to our predecessors, an interesting phenomenon to observe would be the growing tendency of materialism amongst teens. With capitalism booming, it's safe to say that we can access goods quicker and with more selection than ever. Interestingly, Jean Twenge a professor of psychology at San Diego State University had this to say: "Compared to previous generations, recent high school graduates are more likely to want lots of money and nice things, but less likely to say they're willing to work hard to earn them." In the current social environment we live in, advertisements plague the surfaces of almost anything that is visible. If companies in 2014 get a chance to market to us, they will. Rich Vancil a VP at IDC even states this: "We know for certain that increases in marketing budgets follow increases in revenues. It is not the other way around."

Phone ban

Capitalism has encouraged individuality, as do a lot of the products we've grown to praise. At live concerts, we'd rather view the performance through tiny HD screens as we record with our phones to post proof to our facebook walls rather than immerse ourselves into the art with our own two eyes. I watched footage of Woodstock and compared the crowd ambiance to what I've experienced at shows. In 1969, the kids in the crowd had to be fully focused to enjoy the concert, with no technological distractions. But nowadays, if there's any dead-time during a performance, kids automatically turn to their smartphones as an impulse to provoke a level of mental stimulation that researchers say can be addictive. Now I don't want to generalize, but Patti Smith, in her book Just Kids, seems to describe the generational thinking of her peers as more community-orientated, more creation-heavy young adults that survive primarily off art and company rather than consumables and social status. Today's generation, is definitely more dependent on accessories and, according to Adam Gazzaley, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Francisco, it's affecting our brains. " The nonstop interactivity is one of the most significant shifts ever in the human environment." This nonstop interactivity is creating a level of dependance within our generation that Patti Smith's peer group wasn't exposed to. It's amazing to imagine what her daily routine was, when we take into consideration that ours as computer users means visiting 40 sites per 24 hours. This high level of consumption and interaction is rapidly defining our generation as distracted, needy, reputation-seeking individuals and it'll be interesting to see if we've hit our peak, or if somewhere down the line, consumables will fully engulf us.

Generation Me: Postponing Adulthood

Today's youth are stressed and isolated in a hyper-connected, no-negativity culture. Cohesiveness towards a generational identity can be difficult to find right now when much of today's youth cultures still live in the shadow of the dramatic changes undertaken by 1960's youth... And this lack of identity seems to be having a devastating effect on the value of marriage among young people today.  

Population Reference Bureau 

Finding a lifelong partner could probably be described as the foundation of any human society. The reasons and methods have always varied among different cultures but one common trend can be found across them all, youth have always been very enthusiastic about it. Whether simply discounted as raging hormones or maybe instead an admirable pursuit of true love, hooking-up has always been a major pillar of youth culture.  Traditional marriage has had many facets, there are many reasons why couples decide to marry, but the history of the institution was rooted in the very pragmatic aspirations of families joining their sons and daughters together for mutual benefit to the families as a whole, mostly for financial benefit. This may seem old fashion but it was not long ago that some southern bell would wait attentively on her front porch for a cultured gentleman to offer his hand in marriage, with her parent’s reply often being “How big's your pocket-book?".

Fast forward only 50 years to the advent of youth culture in the 1960's and love became the dominate factor for these young couples. They were disillusioned with the idea that others may profit from their love, so much so that any sort of formalities were severed from love. These new bohemian rules meant nothing had to be pinned down, planned and negotiated, peace and love were all that the youth of that age claimed to have wanted. Although in retrospect, a prenup may have been a good idea.

DemocraticUnderground

Being laissez-faire about the whole issue of marriage continued with the following generations of youth culture, but the pendulum swung from true love to raging hormones. Of course with Gen-X being a little more jaded, they gave up the peace & love mantra but kept the sex. Once again the institution of marriage was made even less of a priority by Gen-X when compared to the pursuit of self empowerment through personal growth like higher education, personal physical fitness and higher levels of wealth. These are all hallmarks of the Gen-X'ers and their YUPPIE life-style.

Gordon Gekko

Today's youth, Gen-Y, are now mostly just entering their adult years. But for the front end of the generation, those born in the early 80's, the marriage trends don't look very good, as they are taking longer than ever to say "I do".  In many ways youth of today are in lockstep with the values of 1960's youth culture because they can't escape it. As Baby-Boomers from the 60's still live on and dominate the culture, not to mention Gen-X who are just hitting their stride, Millennial might be finding it difficult to come into their own.  Gen-Y may eventually return to more traditional values, reinterpreted in their own ways, but will have to contend with not being the center of attention like those generations who preceded them. Although they might have some trouble getting over themselves after living at home for so long. 

  George Carlin - Part of the "Silent-Generation"

Media for breakfast?

 What is the first thing you do when you wake up? Majority of people, mostly talking about youths, check their phone before doing anything in the morning.

•  81% of youth under 25 sleep with their phone next to them on the bed.
• 74% reach for their smartphones immediately after waking up.

Even if I wasn’t alive in the 60’s, I think we can all say that they didn’t walk up checking their notifications on Facebook or checking their emails. Technology has grown enormously in the passed couple years. In my opinion, the advanced technology of our days is hypnotizing many youths and manipulating their minds with the media.

Brainwashed by the media http://www.oberholtzer-creative.com/visualculture/2008/12/12-posters-by-luba

Don't get me wrong, surfing the internet can be extremely amusing sometimes, but do people know the limits? It can be so time-consuming, and even dangerous when not used properly. From my personal experience (with friends, coworkers, classmates), seeing what they do on their phones, the majority of the time, is not very productive either.

Yes the internet has its pros as well! I mean you can look up pretty much anything and find all the information you need! From looking up new recipes to working on a school project, the internet has everything you need to know and more. 

Brainwashing? Yes, the media and technological companies are basically feeding us new stuff to get hooked on. Talking about a new app, or gossiping about pictures on instagram has become some of the biggest conversation subjects! Are these priorities? hmm..well I guess if your goal in life is to biggest international social media user of the year!!

It's also sad, because the rise in the internet is causing some companies to run out of business! Making is so easy to find FREE movies or TV shows online, who rents movies anymore? There used to be a Videotron movie rental place near my house that went out of business a couple of years ago. It devastated me because it became a little ritual with my family! Walk down the street to rent a movie and get some popcorn, and now? We all snuggle up and watch movies on a laptop? ...yes of course we don't have to literally do that, but you see the point I'm trying to make.

Also, have you noticed how people have become more antisocial? The 'young' generation get so distracted by their phones, that sometines it becomes difficult actually have a decent conversation! 

With all this being said! Technology has a huge influence on this generation! The 60's, in my opinion, seems like a time where people had different priorities! Not how many likes you get for a picture, or having to carry your charger around just incase your most valuable objects won't die! 

http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?sid=50660450-fbe0-40d9-b2bf-e9886d054bdc%40sessionmgr4005&vid=0&hid=4102&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=aph&AN=98920916

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/education/20wired.html?_r=0

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/weekinreview/29graduates.html

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-moment-youth/201211/generation-tech-the-good-bad-and-scary

http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/social-media-affecting-teens-concepts-of-friendship-intimacy-1.2543158

Materialists?!!!! Us???

The rising materialism amongst young people is effectively resulting in lack of idealism. This isn't a very giving generation (rediff.com)

A study on youth spending showed that youths account for $36 billion in annual sales and this number balloons to $290 billion when their indirect influence on spending is included. The spending was considered over a wide range of goods and services from electronics to vacations. Youths have become more and more materialistic. The Goldberg et al study showed several significant indicators. This is because youths tend to watch commercials more, save little, buy more and expect more money and gifts from their guardians and parents for birthdays and Christmas. And all this for doing very little or nothing at all! During his reign as Pontiff, Pope Benedict XVI took pains to advise youths in many countries around the world on the dangers of losing moral direction and seeking worldly pleasures. According to the Thesaurus, gluttony comes from the Latin gluttire meaning to gulp down or swallow, means over indulgence and over consumption of food, drink or wealth items to the point of extravagance or waste. Materialism is the interest in and desire for money and possessions rather than spiritual or ethical value. The call by Pope Benedict was not the first time a pontiff highlighted the waywardness of youth. In 1975, Pope Paul VI had made a similar appeal. This is due to the pop culture which sweeps all along the way. Sales of cell phones have sky rocketed over the last few years.

 http://fredbroom.blogspot.ca/

The youth of today are a product of many generations in the past. The further back one goes, one can see a lot of hard working people. This was caused by the boom following the Great War. This was so because people had to rebuild; there was a great movement also of people fleeing devastated Europe to America and, having experienced the ravages of war, were willing to put everything in making a better life. The people who lived in America before the war saw the opportunity to make money for themselves as Europe and Asia had been ravaged. It was the only place with factories standing intact. Work was quickly rewarded. And, therefore, they worked.

This resulted in that generation having a different outlook on their children, and began giving their children more things to make up for their long hours of work which kept them from interacting with their children. This has been passed on from generation to generation, and the advances in technology have only helped to worsen the situation. Instead of participating in an activity with a child, parents will introduce this child to electronic gadgets, not because they do not want to play with it, but because they work hard and have no extra time.

21st Century whiners: FML

Technology and music are developed and enhanced throughout decades. From garage rock tones to drum and bass drops, the evolution of cellular devices and social media creations have permitted youth to push the boundries of social living. But have they been blessed, or are they cursed by this materialistic mainstream?

Let's go back to the 60's, where psychadelic rock ruled, the British invasion in the U.S and the vietnam war, where Peace and love was the slogan defining the era. Raised by the Great generation, they've adopted a new outlook in life. You didn't need much to live & be happy. It wasn't about the money, it was about doing what makes you happy. But not all youth had identified themselves as hippies, or flower children. Most were just in the mix, experimenting going against the grain of the values they were taught. Others were activists, fighting  the war on racial discrimination & notably, the vietnam war. It was a time for change, to stand for what they felt & saw right.

Student Andy Blunden burning his national service registration card

So how does our generation, the Millenium, fit into all this? Let's face it, we've succumbed to technology, & we crashed hard! Everywhere you go: Downtown, by the water, every bus stop is filled with people on their cellphones looking like the start of a zombie apocalypse. I've seen what appeared to be friends walking side by side, and both of them aren't even discussing! At that point, there's no reason to see anyone ever if you're just stuck on your phone browsing Facebook, or txting other people. A few years back, when i first started Dawson college back in 2011, I've gone to the student fee protests and guess how i knew about them; yup Facebook. It's not a bad thing since i took part in something i believed in, but still: Social media killed my life?  

The evolution of destruction

As part of this gen, I've asked about 10 of my peers what they thought about the youth today. If we were indeed too dependant on our devices and social media interactions to give a damn about the rest of the world. Within all that, i've asked how often they'd use social media on average per week, & if they could distance themselves & break away from the social media chains. At least 80% of that group of friends said they use their cellphone to get updates from friends they were meeting up. Which is like calling just with a longer response time. Amongst that 80%, 25% said they could live without social media for the benefit of their health. Although it would be difficult to break the bonds of social habit, they would be satisfied & more proactive in their daily lives. I agree to full extent, & I wish I could just quit Facebook and go out every night a different place. Explore parts i've never walked before, then again, i'm too prone to going on the computer and check facebook every two minutes to see what's up. 

Fight Club quote about life throuhout time

All we want is money to get things we want to please ourselves and look good right. Do we want to work for it: Absolutely not. So what's the point of wanting all those nice things if you don't want to work for the money? So many things in the world, but we don't want the struggle to earn the money to acquire them. I'm sure if they would let go of social media and put down their cellphones, they could probably use their brains to think, go everywhere to get a job to get the things they "want". 

I hope the next generation doesn't turn out like us, or worse than us. 

Handing off Their Happiness: Happiness in Youth from the 1960s to Now

Happiness is something that youth seems to have always sought after, but most people have extremely different views on what exactly it is. According to the Meriam-Webster dictionary, happiness is defined as “a state of well-being or contentment”. What is immediately noticeable when one tries to evaluate the meaning of this definition is that it really depends on what an individual or group considers well-being and contentment. This is where we can pose our question: do youth today have different attitudes towards happiness and its definition than in the 1960s?

To begin, according to Ruth Styles’ DailyMail article, polls have shown that a majority of both youth and adults believe that life nowadays is more difficult than it was forty years ago. The study took a sample of 4000 people spanning two generations also found that the specific issues affecting the current youth have to do with the economic climate. Things such as greater job security, pensions and job pressure as well as the absence of so much debt creation are mentioned as possible causes. These issues, which are placed at the forefront of many youths’ goals have caused a lot of young peoples’ ambitions to be much more individualistic, according to Dr Catherine Hakim.

The data presented in the DailyMail article give us a great indication of what may be “well-being” or “contentment” for much of today’s youth. With society’s emphasis on personal success, happiness for the generation represented in the study would be defined as having to do with ones’ level of job security and salary.

Youth struggling to find employment. Credit to Paul Sakuma.

Next, let’s try to gain an understanding of what happiness was for youth in the 1960s. An article written by Carolyn Gregoire for The Huffington Post presents a hippy-youth’s key points for cultivating happiness and they are as follows: meditate, get back to nature, read books, bring music into your life, tune into your spiritual side, take a holistic approach to health, go on a retreat, and eat dinner with your family. There is also a definition of the word “hippy” provided, which presents a hippy as “person who rejects the mores of established society, advocates of nonviolent ethic, and often uses psychedelic drugs or marijuana”. The article ends by quoting a passage from Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning due to its significance from 1962, which reads: “everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”. All in all, the article shows a much more spiritual and less economic perspective on happiness. Of course, not all youth from the 1960s were hippies, and certainly not every hippy believed in the same things, but this gives us a good idea for what their overall attitude was. It’s clear that to much of the youth, there was a heavy weight put on exploration and finding one’s way by separating from societal norms.

Definition of "hippy". Credit to Tony Alter

This is where the interesting split occurs. As was just mentioned, it seems that for much of the youth in the 1960s, happiness was something found by separating from social norms, with well-being and contentment being achieved from within. However, nowadays, many young people associate happiness with conformation into social norms; being accepted into a job and blending into the system, therefore finding their well-being and contentment externally, held in the hands of their dictators. This stark and perhaps scary contrast begs the question, what happened to that free spirit of the hippy era?

generation of education

There has been a drastic change in the value of education since boomers were young adults. Beginning in the 1970’s we see a steady increase in the number of young people who obtained a college degree and a corresponding decline in the number of people who dropped out of school without even a high school education. This is particularly true in the case of women where the change is most pronounced. For example the number of women who dropped out of high school in the seventies was thirty-four percent whereas by 2010, the number had dropped down to eleven percent. Similarly, there was an increase of almost 250% in the number of women graduating college by 2010. In 1970 11% of women had college degrees and in 2010 the number rose to 36%.

Figure 1

The change in the economic role of women is important, because in the seventies men were the primary breadwinners, and now both men and women must work for a family to survive. This means that women, in order to support a family, and a certain standard of living, must get a more education. The seventies introduced human rights, gender equality, and a lot of other good stuff. This improvement in equality lead to more and more woman becoming more competitive as they strove to become equals and to be able to compete for some of the better jobs in the labour force. For example in 1970, 3.5 million woman enrolled in college as compared with 12 million in 2010. This huge increase of almost 350% totally eclipses the growth of male enrollement for the same period. In comparison from the 1970’s to 2010, male college enrolement increased only from five million to nine million, which is an increase of less than 100% for men. Women now dominate the college arena while men lag behind. In fact, the National Center for Education Statistics project that by 2019 there will be three women for every two men enrolled in a college.

Figure 2

Looking Good

A fairly recent study over there in the UK demonstrates that more than a half (56%) of young women between 15 and 22 years old are being bullied because of their appearance.

An old Algerian saying goes: “Good and Bad are everywhere”. This is useful here, because I strongly want to avoid any kind of generalization. Instead, I will talk about the majority, the more widespread view, idea or action surrounding my topic, which is, you guessed it, looks.

In the late sixties, the social activist Jerry Rubin talked to the press about the obsession around looks for the Americans. Well, this obsession didn't know any kind of decline. In fact, it became a judgmental and bullying factor; it got even higher, to the point where young people consider suicide.

Jerry Rubin

John Lennon

Media

Materialism by the media

When Jerry Rubin made his speech, it was mainly focused on hygiene, as he was constantly referring to “underarm deodorant” and “bad breath”. But the problem in our generation is not hygiene, as it is more of a given, and clean is always beautiful (I hope this is not generalizing); it is more about the fashion, the genetics, the style and even the way of walking.

Also for the youth in the sixties appearances were important. For example, long hair for men had a certain connotations, as it wasn't conventional. So the trend was labeling a long-haired young man with music listeners, government hating, drugs knowing, etc. In addition, the conservative parents of the youth of that generation where worried about the looks of their children, as they thought that it has some ideologies behind.

A common point between the two generations is the struggle to accept differences. This way of thinking has always a reference to which every external is compared.

And how can we talk about physical appearance without talking about the media? Right off the bat, I’d like to clear something: media is nothing without the people worshiping it. It is easy to blame the media on its own, but the problem is in its followers too. So please, conspiracy theories and stuff… thank you.

Well, for a fact, media evolved as people evolved. In the sixties and now, the media sent and is still sending a single message, which is considered being the best it can be, in every aspect of the life, and especially looks. Magazines, fashion (I hate fashion by the way), music, movies… These are all pointing towards an absolute “must-be” or “must have”, and this affects people, in any generation. Youth in particular.

Summing up, I’d say that in the sixties, hippies where judged on their looks, and swept aside by society, same as some groups of people now (homeless, hipsters, ill, poor, immigrants …). The impact of these judgments about looks can lead to depression and suicide in some cases.

A single reference is bad, because references may not be reachable by everybody, implying that some will ‘fail’, and therefore will be spotted and marginalized and ridiculed in advanced cases. I want to say that everyone has his/her own tastes, and must have her/his own style: diversity is a huge treasure. 

Understanding Materialism Among Youth

Understanding Materialism Among Youth


Youth in generation Y are more materialistic than the past generation. The coming-of-age process of our generation compared to the Baby Boomers is very different."Compared to previous generations, recent high school graduates are more likely to want lots of money and nice things, but less likely to say they're willing to work hard to earn them," said study co-author Jean Twenge, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University and author of the book Generation Me, in a press release.

As we all know, technology has had its peek in the late 80s to the early 90s. Several studies have shown that family communication about consumption and advertising would increase young people's defenses against advertising, and mitigate advertising-induced materialism.

• 69% of teens have their own computer: which means that they have access to the social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and more. 
• 73% of teens are on a social network 

I hate when my mom calls me a lazy bum. She sees me on my bed either talking on my phone, playing video games and even surfing the net and she tells me " what do you want to do with your life"? She always has something to say about her youth days and compares it to mine. She says that kids in my generation, including me, are nothing but careless non-working people.

The study raises a major question, but can't fully answer it -- Why are attitudes shifting this way? Relying on prior research and theories, the researchers offer up two hypotheses.

1. Children raised during periods of broader societal instability (i.e., when unemployement is high) as well as disconnection (when more parents are separated from each other), are more likely to espouse materialistic values, particularly if they experienced either during mid-childhood and early adolescence.

2. Exposure to advertising also seems to play a role, according to the researchers, particularly when children were tweens or in their early teen years.

I can't wait to see what the next generation is going to look like. I expect a ton of surprises.