sweetkels10: How would you compare the teenagers of today to the teenagers of the 1970’s?
With more advanced technology now a days, the lifestyles of teenagers today are much different than the lifestyle of teenagers in the 1970’s. Could you help compare teens of theses two generations?
Answers and Views:
Answer by Savoir Faire½ Eggroll Jenkins ™
Teenagers of today are more experienced and more rebellious.
We got away with a whole lot mere. There weren’t as many pervs running around, so our parents didn’t keep such a close eye on us. We didn’t have all the information kids have available today but me managed. Had some crazy parties, and vrey few people died or did anything TOO stupid. Most are still alive and may be deciding if you get a home loan or not.Answer by Destroyer of Dumbasses
We are smarter. We are better lookin. We don’t have their stupid hangups.Answer by cheruvima
A few thoughts:
1) Teens of the 70’s experimented primarily with marijuana and speed or downers. Some tried acid. Now kids try ecstasy, crystal meth, crack or heroin.
2) 70’s: parents could probably overhear all phone conversations. Now: email, texting and cell phones provide a lot more privacy to teens.
3) 70’s: no private generational lingo unintelligible to adults. Now, not a lot of parents know what rotflol means.
4) 70’s: most teens had the expectation of going to college or at least getting a decent life with a factory job. Now, no. There’s a lot more uncertainty about college, no jobs for people who don’t go to college and just a lot of uncertainty about the future.
5) 70’s: teens continued rebelling against the establishment and the Viet Nam war. Now, the establishment is so mixed up and failing so miserably that nobody knows what to do about it and I’m sure teens don’t even know what or whom to rebel against…except maybe the wars we’re in..but there’s a lot of ambiguity even about those. There’s no clear rallying point.
6) Teens of the 70’s could buy into the notion that if you work hard and save your money, you can have the American dream of owning your own property or business and one day retiring early to the life you really want. Now, not so much.
7) Teens of the 70’s despite their rebellion had enough decency not to trash talk to their parents or in public. Now not so much. The quality of civility or the level of decency has declined drastically. The level of public rudeness and profanity has sky rocketed…
8) Teens of the 70’s seemed to realize that they had to work for most of what they’d have in life. Now not so much. Teens of today seem to expect things to come easy to them…except jobs, educations and careers…
Just a few thoughts.
Answer by Tyler P1970’s- Normal, hard working, actually cared about school and their future, less drama.
Today’s- Weed, alcohol, sex, no respect to their parents, stopped going to church, school is a joke, popularity contest.
Answer by ryanchildren today think that almost everything should be handed to them like they deserve it or something they don’t really think about there futures, you see a lot more suicides for ridiculous reasons they have a lot less responsibilities and almost all of them don’t want to work to get money they come to mom and dad for that, kids now days i think have a bad work ethic and just don’t care
back then nothing was really handed out they had to work for what they wanted and that’s just how it was most kids back then were more grown up (adult like) for there age as now days its the opposite, kids thought a pencil and paper was a necesseity, as for now its a calculator or computer another thing you didnt really have social services or the government saying you couldn’t discipline our child the way you want, and kids could only work so many hours or just letting people give up and just live off of welfare, i think part of the reason this world is going to hell, because of the newer generation of how we are bringing up our children to just not care and to make them think everything in life is perfect
Answer by Witchycheruvima really gave an excellent answer to this.
I was a teen in the 70’s.
We were taught that we needed to save our money and then buy things–at the very least, earn money and then spend it. Today, teens seem to be taught to charge things and then to pay it off sometime in the future.
Being a teen back then in a single parent home was shameful. The majority of us had full time mothers and divorces happened but they were still somewhat rare. Today it is quite common to live in a single parent home. It is uncommon for a teen to live with his/her biological, married parents with a mother who doesn’t work outside of the home.
Many of our parents smoked in our homes. In the 60’s and early 70’s, 40% of adults smoked. The vast majority smoked inside. Still, few children had asthma. Today only 20% of adults smoke and most of those go outside. Childhood asthma cases are skyrocketing. It doesn’t make sense.
In the mid 70’s magazines told us we were going to have a mini ice age because the earth was cooling. Now teens are told that the earth is warming.
We grew up in a world where there were no laws about wearing seat belts, helmets or having a legal age to buy tobacco. The legal age to buy alcohol was 18. Teens today have laws.
Most of the teens that I knew expected to go on their own when they turned 18. We couldn’t wait to be on our own. Most of us moved into tiny little apartments with little to no furniture. We didn’t have the money for things like a phone and sometimes didn’t even have a TV at first. It didn’t matter because we were free. We were on our own. Today, teens don’t seem to look forward to moving out and being independent. It’s common to hear of 25 year olds still living with their parents. In fact, many 18 year olds don’t even want to be seen as adults.
A lot of teens in the 70’s had a “live and let live” attitude. It was seen as a bad thing to be judgmental. It was more of a “do your own thing” and we didn’t try to push our beliefs on others. I really wish that teens still had that open-minded attitude. Today, it seems that teens want laws against everything that they don’t like. Laws against fast food. Laws against having more than two children. Laws against wearing fur. Laws about what kind of car we should drive.
But there are many things that are still basically the same. Our parents didn’t like our music or the way we wore our hair. Our parents didn’t understand us and we thought that we knew more than they did. We experimented with alcohol, tobacco, drugs and sex. There were cliques in school and we didn’t like our teachers (although we may have had a crush on one). Homework took too long and we didn’t see how we’d ever use the stuff they made us learn. We thought our parents were too strict or unfair. We wanted to look older than what we were.
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