OaktownBear said:
There is a reason they are called mobile phones. They are mobile. Believe it or not they work at the stadium.
I was trying to interject a little humor. If you are a millennial or are a parent of one, I apologize to you. Of course the millenials are a bright and talented generation as any other, and will no doubt accomplish great things as well. But their early years have been different, and what they are being taught and forced to do is overly influenced by politics and business, IMO. I'll answer your post:
As to mobile phones, you missed my point entirely and have posted a non-sequitur in response. My point was that a football game is a rich experience, a game is played, many plays are exciting, fans leap up and cheer. In between, fans converse, cannons fire, bands march and play music, cheerleaders lead yells, scoreboards change, plays are replayed on a screen, players get hurt while fans watch closely to see if the player will get up and walk again, vendors hawk food and drink, and buyers hand money to you to pass on to the vendor. If you go to a game and are using your phone, there will be a lot of distractions which can interfere with your using that phone. If you want to use a cell phone while having the fewest distractions, using it a game has many more distractions than if you stay home and use your phone while sitting on your couch and the TV off. That was the point.
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Millenials are more hard working than their parents and their grandparents.
This is ridiculous. I have 17 millenials in my family at last count. Only one of them works as hard as her mother, and harder than her father. The rest work less hard. I worked damn hard. My first job at age 9. Two jobs in college. My professional work required 10 hour days, while paid for only 8, and very often I worked 12 hour days or more. At age 45, I was a supervisor, hired young college grads, and I often worked to midnight or later to complete or redo the work my employees did to meet a deadline. At the same time, I had an export-import business on the side, and many nights I got only an hour or two of sleep, if that. My last job as a manager at age 67 was 10 hour days, and after work, I went to my girlfriend's restaurant and worked another 4 hours. And I did not work as hard as my father, who had his own business, including night and weekend meetings with clients. He worked 6 or 7 days a week, and took about 7 two-week vacations in 50 years. And he claimed that his father, my grandfather, worked harder than he did, leading to an early passing.
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They party less, drink less, use drugs less, etc.
As to the partying, in my neighborhood, there is plenty of millennial partying. Don't know about drinking. Maybe less hard liquor. As to the drugs, millenials use plenty of drugs, just different ones. Less cocaine maybe, but a lot more opioids. The generation most addicted to prescription pain-killers is millenials.
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They tend to like to do rather than watch others do.
This is silly. Millenials spend 5 hours a day on their phones. How much of that is doing? Is playing video games doing something? Millenial parents in my neighborhood can't convince their kids to go outside and play. There are basketball hoops up all over the place, but no one ever uses them. They use their phones.
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They study harder.
I doubt it. They study more, starting in the first grade by carrying a backpack full of books. I expect a lot more back pain in later life for them. Those backpacks are not framed Kelty packs, designed to let the hips carry the load. Millenials do not study smarter. It is what you study and how you study that counts. Studying your homework with your parents does not lead to better results. And if these millenials spend 5 hours on their phones and another 4 hours on their planned extracurricular activities, I'd say the hours they actually study is less than the hours we put in studying alone with a book.
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The world today also requires that they grow up much earlier......
Would you say that providing "safe spaces" as many campuses do for students so sensitive that they can not stand to listen to speech they do not agree with helps them "grow up much earlier?" When they graduate from college and begin to participate on the adult political scene, and most of them are easily manipulated into acting hysterically, have they grown up? I have a cousin studying at Cal now, and he hasn't seen any safe spaces. Probably not, because at Cal, Antifa and other fascists will run speakers off while the Administration has a blind eye, or the Administration will just refuse to pay for security to protect those speakers and disinvite them. Ironic that the generation that gave us FSM is now running things, and now some other speech is not allowed at Cal.
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........working their asses off to get into colleges that were much easier for their parents to get into
I agree that college was easier to get into in my day. But not easy, nevertheless. I worked damn hard to get in. The additional requirements outside of school are what makes it hard now, and they do little to better prepare the student any better for the world ahead.
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......and preparing for a job market that requires more and more education.
Year by year, education prepares students less and less for the job market. For example, many high school kids can not write or read cursive, as it is no longer taught. Don't the teachers realize that the college graduate's supervisors may be 50 or 60 years old and they may at some point give an employee a hand written note? The academic world is more isolated from the business world than ever before, IMO. When I graduated in 1965, no one would hire me. Most companies were already struggling with having to train every graduate how to work. I had to go to LA to get a job where defense contractors were hiring any warm body who had an engineering sheepskin. I got the job by mail, and never had an interview. Many years later, I finally used something I had learned at Cal in my work. Much of it was interesting, but irrelevant.
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As for phone usage, pretty much any generation that grew up with computer technology uses phones a ton, and that is anyone about mid fifties or younger. 98% of 18-24 year olds have smart phones. 97% of 25-34 year olds. 96% of 35-44 year olds. 89% of 45-54 year olds. 80% of 55-64 year olds.
So what? Just because many do something, like lemmings running into the sea, does that mean the rest of us should do it? Cigarette smoking was extremely popular and promoted in the 1930s through the 1950s at least. Now it is ostracized as a bad thing to do. Can you understand my main point that cell phone usage is addictive? It may in fact be harmful, with radiation damage, or with blue light damage to the retina. I feel that it has forced more multi-tasking, which leads to more stress, and more of a general nervousness among the population, beginning with trying to be as fast as your computer or your cell phone, faster with your speech and your thinking, and less thinking things out, or thinking deeply. Electronic communication used to be by phone, then email, and now, the sound-bite or the tweet rules the day.
I'll add these points: Most millenials don't get their first job until they reach college. I had my first at age 9 in a bowling alley. Millenials are the least self-reliant in history, with parents picking them up after school, and driving them to all their activities, and often assisting with homework. While at Cal, I had a friend at Cal who did not work during the semesters. He did not have to. He came from the Valley, and grew up working 14 hour days in the fields, spraying crops, and made enough money during summers in high school and college to pay for his education, living expenses, and buy a good car, when very few of us could afford any one of those things. When he got his first job after Cal, he was bored with it, and never got tired in it, because it was only 8 hours.
Second, I think most millenials can't cook. They don't know how to prepare a meal. They just go to a restaurant and eat, or order take out or fast food. (This is in jeopardy, because many small restaurants are closing. Their employees are quitting and now driving Uber or Lyft, much easier work and better hours than a restaurant.) I personally know about 30 millenials, and I only know of five who can cook, and one of those is a sushi chef.
Lastly, the lack of self-reliance and has led to more and more graduates moving back home to live with their parents. I read where some parents recently sued their 40-year old son to get him to move out of their house. A friend's son recently moved out of his parents' house at age 35, because his girlfriend became pregnant. I guess these millennials will grow up one day, and I hope it is not too late for them. What a waste of some years for some very bright and promising talent.