# Why do kids have it harder today? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 17, 2006, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-kids-have-it-harder-today/357121 "2006-05-17T16:42:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2006, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-kids-have-it-harder-today/357121/41 "2006-05-24T21:08:14Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Depends what you mean by “doomed”. Forgetting annecdotal cases like the Bill Gates etc of the world, there is a strong correlation between financial success and the prestige of the college you go to. Yes, you can earn a comfortible living and most people probably do. But as I mentioned above, a lot of parents think their kids should be doing better than just a 9-5 job. True, though I wonder how much of that correlation is due to socio-economic status (the children of rich people are more likely to go to prestigious colleges, and your parents’ socio-economic status is a powerful predictor of yours) and personality (some initiative and self-discipline are required to do well enough in school and be in extracurricular activities so you could get into a prestigious college, and those characteristics probably correlate strongly with financial success), rather than anything about the college itself. I wonder if anyone has done studies on the effects of prestigious colleges independent of differences in socio-economic status. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2006, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-kids-have-it-harder-today/357121/42 "2006-05-24T21:17:40Z")
> [@solkoe](#): > > When I was young we didn’t have video games. These are prime time wasters that teach absolutely no skills (except for possible SIM games). If any parents are reading this and have children with Xboxes etc. please limit their time on them. Get them outside playing games where they are learning social and problem solving skills. Why do non-video games teach problem solving skills, while video games don’t? Problem solving is a key feature in many kinds of video games. Online games could teach social skills, too. They don’t teach _physical_ skills (other than Dance Dance Revolution or similar), but they do teach skills. I think one of the most important skills I learned from video games was: Don’t Fear The Computer. My parents are computerphobes (they didn’t have a computer at home for email until I was in college, in the late 90s). I had zero exposure to computers at home growing up, and not much more at school- occasional word processing for class assignments, and that was about it. But I played Nintendo, and liked it. When I got a PC when I was in college, I played games on that, and liked that. That and email were the main enjoyable interactions I had with the computer (there were no message boards and not much Web surfing at the time). But it was enough to convince me that computers were not scary or dangerous (as my parents still think they are), and now I work in IT. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2006, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-kids-have-it-harder-today/357121/43 "2006-05-26T21:38:22Z")
> [@Anne Neville](#): > > True, though I wonder how much of that correlation is due to socio-economic status (the children of rich people are more likely to go to prestigious colleges, and your parents’ socio-economic status is a powerful predictor of yours) and personality (some initiative and self-discipline are required to do well enough in school and be in extracurricular activities so you could get into a prestigious college, and those characteristics probably correlate strongly with financial success), rather than anything about the college itself. I wonder if anyone has done studies on the effects of prestigious colleges independent of differences in socio-economic status. A lot of it is probably due to the American expectation that one’s children should strive to do better than their parents. > [@Anne Neville](#): > > Why do non-video games teach problem solving skills, while video games don’t? Problem solving is a key feature in many kinds of video games. Online games could teach social skills, too. They don’t teach physical skills (other than Dance Dance Revolution or similar), but they do teach skills. The issue with computer games isn’t that they don’t teach any skills. The issue is that they are isolating. They just make you think you are interacting with other people. Do a quick google search for “internet” and “depression” or “isolation”. On the other hand, the internet is a great tool for staying connected to people. Growing up, we didn’t have the ability to send out an evite to 20 friends saying “what’s going on tonight?”. There was no IM, email or [MySpace.com](http://MySpace.com). If someone moved out of town, you pretty much never saw them again. ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2006, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-kids-have-it-harder-today/357121/44 "2006-05-27T15:21:13Z")
Does that mean that the internet is what you make it? If someone is going to be depressed, the Internets and technology could very well bring that out in a different format. Conversely, if they’re social butterflies, then they’re more MySpace-y (which I destst). ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2006, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-kids-have-it-harder-today/357121/45 "2006-05-27T16:22:17Z")
Anne Neville writes: \> I wonder if anyone has done studies on the effects of prestigious colleges \> independent of differences in socio-economic status. Here’s one interesting statistic, although it’s about a slightly different subject: Someone looked at a random sample of students who applied to and attended some prestigious colleges and a similar sample of students who applied to and weren’t accepted at the same prestigious colleges. They looked at how well they did later in life. They found that the two groups did almost equally well in their careers and socio-economic status. It appears that nearly everyone who applies to prestigious colleges is very intelligent and highly motivated. The ones who are accepted aren’t really that much better. If you’re smart enough and ambitious enough to want to go to a prestigious college, you’ll probably do well even if you don’t get into one of the absolutely top colleges. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2006, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-kids-have-it-harder-today/357121/46 "2006-05-27T19:00:32Z")
> [@FisherQueen](#): > > As a kid, I’d play outside all day, all summer, virtually unsupervised. My friends and I would walk to the neighborhood pool and hang out there all day… My only scheduled activity was one piano lesson per week, in other words, you were, like me, _bored_ most of the day! > [@](#): > > I got exercise and fresh air, and lots of imaginative play. in other words, you were, once again, _bored_. -so you played cowboys and indians, etc…is that more educational than showing your parents how to re-install Windows XP? (damn, that 12 yr old kid loves to remind me how dumb I am!) > [@](#): > > I fear they’ll grow up to be less able to think, innovate, and solve problems. ask a kid today to do something with photoshop.Could you have done that at his age? > [@](#): > > But I’m sure it’ll all work out okay. The human race has thrived this long, and it’ll keep going, I reckon. You’re right about that! ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2006, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-kids-have-it-harder-today/357121/47 "2006-05-28T08:53:34Z")
> [@Pochacco](#): > > When I was a kid and a teen in the 1970’s we were for the most part ignored by the rest of society. I had lots of friends who were “latch-key kids” and after school we pretty much just ran wild in the neighborhood… Are you aware that this is even more true today? There are more children than ever living in single-parent homes, or in homes where both parents are working full time. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2006, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-kids-have-it-harder-today/357121/48 "2006-05-28T09:00:04Z")
> [@Anne Neville](#): > > Supposedly it’s harder for you to get into college than it was for me (born 1975). The total number of college graduates in the United States rose to 40,621,000 in 2003, an increase of 40 percent in the decade between 1993 and 2003. [Cite](http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf06304/). ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2006, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-kids-have-it-harder-today/357121/49 "2006-05-28T14:58:40Z")
> [@Least Original User Name Ever](#): > > Your typos have no place in **Great Debates**. I should just reach over and poke your stomach. There. I just did it. If _your_ children were at risk from predatators, you’d feel differerently. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2006, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-kids-have-it-harder-today/357121/50 "2006-05-31T01:54:47Z")
> [@Pochacco](#): > > When I was a kid and a teen in the 1970’s we were for the most part ignored by the rest of society. I had lots of friends who were “latch-key kids” and after school we pretty much just ran wild in the neighborhood. If you had half a brain you could coast through school hardly cracking a book. Lots of freedom and lots of opportunities to totally wreck your life. So true. There were very few television shows catering to teenagers, except for the sappy “ABC After-School Movie” and a couple of sitcoms - which were really meant for adults. For kids, there was Saturday mornings on the network stations, an hour or so of programming in the late afternoon, and that’s it. Cartoons on television were either reruns of 1940s and 1950s-vintage Warner Brothers toons, or bad superhero stories. Fashion? Teen fashion was indistinguishable from what would have been popular for adults younger than their mid-30s. The start of the break with adult fashion seemed to be the early 1980s, but in my neck of the woods no girls dressed like Madonna, Cyndi Lauper or Pat Benatar. No Hollister, Abercrombie and Fitch, or any of the tens of chains catering to young shoppers - I think Merry Go Round was it. Chess King catered to guidos from the teens to 30s, and Airport to the swingin’/disco twentysomething crowd. There was Gap and Jeans West, but they catered mainly to adults too. The vast majority of mall stores in the 1970s and 1980s were old-school shoe stores and conservative women’s clothing stores. There was also the standard Radio Shack and Spencer’s. Shopping as a kid outside of a mall was difficult for a kid of the 1970s. Many stores displayed signs reading “NO MORE THAN TWO STUDENTS AT A TIME” or “ALL CHILDREN UDNER 18 MUST BE ACCOMPANIED BY THEIR PARENTS”. I very seldom see such signs anymore. Music? Unlike today, there seemed to be far less distinction between teen music and adult music - or at least what people in their 20s and 30s listened to. Bands like Boston, Fleetwood Mac, Supertramp, Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, and so on would draw from a wide age group when they were in concert. Even New Wave acts of the 1980s - their videos were aired on MTV, but it wasn’t considered teenybopper music like the modern equivalent. Concerts with a teen audience - maybe Kiss in the 1970s, Madonna in the 1980s. MTV really was geared towards adults in their 20s; it wasn’t a teen/college lifestyle channel like today. I have a difficult time deciding what’s better, though - it’s the freedom kids enjoyed in the 1980s, but being essentially non-people, versus today’s overprotection and doting helicopter parents, but being treated as members of society. Very few consumer products were marketed towards teens; their buying power wasn’t recognized. There might have been a few half-hearted attempts, a few instances of “awesome!” dropped into the occasional pitch, but that’s it. Today, everything is X-TREEEEEEM!!!1!one!!eleven!!OMG!!! Just like today, though, breakfast cereal and junk food was marketed towards younger kids. A couple of days ago, I was at Target. I took note of something that never crossed my mind before - the toy section. It was huge; maybe seven or eight aisles. When I was a kid in the 1970s, the toy section at KMart was just one aisle. Maybe two around Christmas. ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2006, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-kids-have-it-harder-today/357121/51 "2006-05-31T01:57:36Z")
> [@Beware of Doug](#): > > If _your_ children were at risk from predatators, you’d feel differerently. Well, I _am_ his kid. And his stomach _was_ promptly poked after typing that statement out. Yeah, **gonzomax** is my real birth dad. At least he was there, he says. Oh yeah, and I don’t know if I’m at too strong of a risk from predators these days. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2006, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-kids-have-it-harder-today/357121/52 "2006-05-31T17:20:44Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > The issue with computer games isn’t that they don’t teach any skills. But I’m saying they do teach skills. They’re not the same skills you might learn from other games, but they are skills, nonetheless. > [@](#): > > The issue is that they are isolating. They just make you think you are interacting with other people. Do a quick google search for “internet” and “depression” or “isolation”. And we don’t know that the people who are isolated playing computer games wouldn’t have been isolated reading a book or watching TV in a previous generation. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-kids-have-it-harder-today/357121.md?page=2)