Teen: “I can’t stay here all day. What about my friends!?”
Parent: “Are you kidding? This is serious!”
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1298630
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1298630
I’ll take “Trump Misinformation” for $1,000, Alex…
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Simple answer: Most think they’ll live forever and never get deathly sick. The concept of death is still relatively outside their immediate experience for most young people.
Besides, invincibility is a hallmark of being a teenager and young adult.
Amazing how quickly some older adults forget what that was like when they were that age.
I guess the key is to find that one thing that reminds them that they are not immune yet still have a way to maintain their sense of empowerment all the while distancing themselves like the rest of us. Good Luck with that. I’m so glad my son has finally, finally, grown past that stage in his life…but it seemed like it took forever to get there.
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Somehow I don’t think any teens are listening to Trump.
“They’re very much primed toward reward and primed toward immediate gratification,” Busman said.
…and their dumber than shit.
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Let’s just say they’re inexperienced in life’s travails. Those that experience death and disease at an earlier age, perhaps with a loved one, will clearly have more sensitivity to what can happen, but a lot of kids don’t know what that’s like and cannot imagine anything like that happening to them. Its not by virtue of being dumb. Its because a lot of them have nothing as a reference point.
Oh, and also peer pressure. That’s a biggie too.
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I was in the Peace Corps from 1982 to 1984. I would have been 24-25 years old. I managed to contract malaria and, I am told, came much closer to dying than I realized, in part because of a treatment misdiagnoses at the in-country hospital related to the chloroquine resistant falciparum-type malaria. Intervention by the Peace Corps nurse to get me the proper meds had me back at my job. It also changed my perspective on this mortal coil.
If my daughter (21) is any example (she’s home with us and behaving responsibly), she gets ALL of her information off the internet and most of it from listening to pod-casts produced by people her age. Most of what she tells me is approximately correct, but some of it, especially the part about young people being “safe” is pretty marginal and very self-centered. The part about killing your grandmother is not a universally held concern, yet.
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Why It’s So Difficult To Get Young People To Take COVID-19 Seriously
Er … because they’re young?
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Maybe it’s because old people have lied to them about everything else.
They’re also crap at grammar.
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For better or worse, our kids’ grandmother just came to stay with us. And we’ve had the discussion about how both parents are in high-risk groups. But neither kid is particularly social, so we’re keeping our fingers crossed. It’s only been a few days, and they both still have schoolwork to do online.
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When I was that age I was certain that I would live a long time. That was 40-some years ago - so I guess I was right(?) I had a few close calls along the way (motorcycle accidents, heart attack) but survived relatively intact. I even picked up some extra parts along the way.
Now I’m just as certain that my time will run out.
I prefer my 20-something outlook.
Sigh.
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Clearly too many people here don’t remember being young, bulletproof and horny…
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There’s a reason they’re Bernie’s base.
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“Death is a distant rumor to the young.” – Andy Rooney
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For 40 years we have been preaching personal freedom instead of personal responsibility .Nobody told this generation that they have a responsibility to look out for their parents and grandparents.
“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” and “love thy neighbor as thy self” are teachings at the heart of virtually every religion and every moral philosophy. They are teachings we have failed to teach this generation. Instead we have taught them greed is good and each of them is a master of the universe free to do whatever he or she feels without thought or fear of consequence.
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“we”.
I think it’s even worse than that. All of the winner-take all “reality” and competition shows have taught people that the only way to survive is to shed the “losers” and be out for yourself. If there are historians, I think they will tag all of that media as both a symptom and a cause.
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Life is a zero sum game. That’s what they learn from social media, reality shows and popular entertainment.
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Sadly, this. I’ve had multiple late night sessions with my conservative brother, who absolutely insisted that you cannot have an exchange in which both sides benefit equally. At the core of his philosophy is the bedrock belief that each and every interaction has to have a “winner” and a “loser”.
And look at where that has brought to today… 
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The other thing is that when they think about flu in comparison, they don’t even think about the 0.1% mortality that’s the population average, they think about the roughly 0.01% or less that the young-adult average.
Yes, you’ll want people to stay out of coffee houses, etc. But seems a bit wrong-headed not to let kids go to parks or play soccer - it’s not a contact sport.