Why the Young Generation is Having a Hard Time with Life

These are just my own observations as someone in the young generation as to why my generation is having such a hard time with life.

Our attention span is extremely short, comparable to a squirrel with ADD drinking a Monster energy drink. I think the reason behind this is because of the internet and the growing and expanding technology, such as smartphones. We literally have access to anything at our fingertips; don't know something, "Google it". You can find out pretty much anything you want to know within a couple seconds, and this is really hurting us (myself included).

Because of our short attention span, we have trouble focusing on one thing and following through with it. We'll start out on doing something that we think is really cool or want to do something that we think is really cool but then realize "Wow, this isn't as easy as everyone else makes it seem. Well, time to move onto the next thing." And this is just an unending loop, moving from one thing to another because it's too hard or takes too long to learn.

From my personal experience, making electronic music. The pros and most everyone that I've seen, make the music with extreme ease and it sounds beautiful. When I try to do it, it sounds like crap. But I've only started making music and the pros have been doing it for years and years, so why should I be discouraged when mine sounds like crap? It's because of the short attention span I was talking about. When I sit down to start making a new track, I (for some reason) think I should be able to make a Top 10 hit track in a day. When the reality is, most pros take weeks sometimes months to make a good track. There's no immediate result which makes it very discouraging.

Secondly, we are expected to act like adults when we're in high school but we're still treated like children. This is a huge problem, because it is a big conflict of interest as well as an unending and spiraling downward loop. This isn't only a problem with school but also with the popular TV shows.

Kids see other kids their age going on adventures, being super spy's, etc... which makes the kids think "Oh, they're my age and they're doing that, so why can't I?" Obviously this is unrealistic because the CIA does not hire 7 year olds. Another genre of TV shows that do this are shows like iCarly, Victorious, etc... it's giving kids an unrealistic view of how the "real world" works. The parents in most of these shows are very laid back and pretty much let the kids do whatever they want, this is to make the show more interesting.

But kids don't realize this and they think that when they get that old, they'll be able to do all that stuff too. Going back to the age expectations and how you get treated. I just turned 17 and have my first real job. I've found that getting your first job is extremely difficult. It's another unending cycle: I didn't have job experience which was why I was trying to get a job but I wasn't getting any jobs because I didn't have any job experience.

Lastly, going back to the TV shows and expectations of the youth. Until you're 18, you really can't do much and really don't have much freedom. You're restricted by the law and your parents. So with kids way under 18 doing stuff like traveling around the world on their own, being in a world famous boy band, etc... the youth expects that what they see on TV is real. And they think that they can do all that stuff at their age. And this is NOT the case at all! I know my parents are much stricter than most but even then, from what my friends tell me, their parents are just as restrictive about what they can and can't do.

The problem is that what kids are seeing on TV are like the 1%, so to speak, of the world. Where what the kids on TV are doing, maybe 1% of real kids can actually do that stuff. There aren't any shows of average kids living an average life, because that would be boring. Again, we're giving kids unrealistic expectations and setting them up for failure.

We're giving the youth of today and tomorrow unrealistic expectations to live up to while still treating them like children. If we want them to act like adults and get jobs, then we need to treat them that way. As for the TV shows, well I don't see that changing anytime soon because those are popular shows and that genre will most likely be popular for a long time to come. I also don't see people treating the youth more like adults anytime soon but will still give them high expectations to live up to. So while nothing will be done to prevent this, we need to realize this and when the youth is having a hard time be able to step in and do something to help them.

I hope this made sense, I just really needed to get this out there.