I came from a family of nine kids where alcohol was involved.
But my parents were there.
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So the data says is that the age cohort most likely to be functionally blind is also the one that watches more news than they read. Does that surprise anyone?
Look, my boomer parents raised me.
… and TV
… and Atari …
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what is really funny is that older generations have been commenting on younger generations defects and deficiencies for around 4000 years. younger generations have been claiming to have “raised themselves” for most of that time. reading back through history has made me regard those tropes more as background noise than as true signifiers of reality. each generation has its strengths and weaknesses as well as exceptional individuals.
i hadn’t planned on commenting on this but the interplay between you and melz made it irresistible.
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I love how the ending Boomer year keeps creeping forward. As far as I’m concerned (note: American perspective), if you were too young to vote in 1980, you don’t qualify as a Boomer. That also applies to all the cool things that the Boomers got being closed off or ruined before you could enjoy them (for instance, pre-21 drinking age being raised back to 21, or the “free love” era giving way to the HIV era).
Growing up when I did was like being the guy who was late to the party, only to find the keg drained dry, most everyone else gone or passed out, the host demanding help cleaning up, and the cops on the way to break up what was left of the festivities. And yet, as much as it sucked, it’s only worse now for the younger generation.
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Zeno’s generation gap? 
I haven’t watched TV in almost 16 years. I cancelled my last cable subscription shortly after I realized I hadn’t turned it on once during the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and had gotten all my news about it from the internet or friends and colleagues. Have never missed it.
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We were the ones who invented grunge and “meh”. If the boomers and the millenials want to battle and throw shade at each other, what do we care? We have more important things to do. Or to not do. Meh, whatever. We’re busy preparing to run a country.
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Yeah and likewise:
“Millennials are news-illiterate couch vegetables stuck in front of their damn phones”
“Gen-X are news-illiterate couch vegetables stuck in front of their home-brewing equipment, but it’s okay that they’re news-illiterate because they are only doing it ironically.”
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Actually I think we (GenX) may be passed over for this, much as like the Silent Generation was. There wasn’t ever a Silent Generation US President – it went straight from the GI Generation (JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr) to Boomers (Clinton, Bush Jr, Obama, Trump) – both the Silent Generation and GenX were the result of “baby busts”.
That being said, given that the most prominent GenX politician at the moment seems to be Paul Ryan, being skipped over may not be so bad.
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I think there is a healthy helping of young adults (late teens and early 20s) in there too. The guy who left BU was an incoming Freshman, I think. They think they are oh so clever, subversive, and totally punk rocks.
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Not surprising. They were equally blind to the struggles of Gen X and had nothing too kind to say about us (as well as our grandparents).
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Yes, but if we act like they are real, then they are real. Just because something is a social construct, doesn’t mean it can’t have real social and cultural power.
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Well, my argument for paying attention to it is not that it’s “right”, but that it has worked it’s way into our public consciousness and people (many, not all) accept that it’s right.
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People still do that? I thought that went out the door in the early aughts?
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Agreed. Worth fighting the divide and conquer tactics, but for truth we can’t totally ignore it.
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I believe that children are our future.
We’re screwed.
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These numbers are conditioned on people who are interested in the news at all. Here’s how Pew breaks that down:
So if you multiply (fraction who follow news most or all of the time) by (fraction who get the news by reading) you get .27*.42 for 18-29 year-olds, .77*27 for 65+ year-olds. So, it is still the case that a larger fraction of oldsters read the news than do young’uns.
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At the moment, the Millenials are busy saving America.
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You would think that was the case but she keeps forwarding them to me. She’s 80 so I guess she hasn’t gotten the memo.
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Millennials are killing fascism!
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