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Quit it with the teen trashing (in honour of teens who like using technology)

by Tabatha Southey

At first I was only mildly bothered by an editorial cartoon that appeared in this paper on Monday. The cartoon showed four loutish, slovenly adolescents, three of whom were saying "Whadda you wanna do?" or "I dunno, whadda you wanna do?" and then there was a final teenager saying, "Something sedentary and electronic."

But then it occurred to me that somewhere in Canada, some parent was no doubt starting some poor child's March Break off by showing that child that cartoon. Or perhaps laughing, ostentatiously, over breakfast, just waiting for their innocent child to say, "Hey, what's so funny?" So that they could pounce.

Probably some extra-vigilant parent was even waking his or her child up, early, to show them the cartoon. No doubt some passive-aggressive mother was taping it to the fridge, where it will stay, demoralizing a child, until it turns yellow. And that makes me sad.

I don't know why we're so cruel to adolescents. I can't imagine so harsh a caricature (they're ugly, slouching, sloppy and overweight) going unremarked were it depicting any other demographic – say, slouching, sloppy, overweight, grownup people, who likely have a lobby group. But if there's one thing we're still allowed to hate, it's teenagers.

Never mind that statistics show that today's teenagers smoke less marijuana, get pregnant less and go on to higher education more than the previous generation. We still hate them.

Once a symbol of hope, we now reference our youth only as something to be feared (the government's new crime bill is a good example) and if we can't hate them for dropping out, we'll hate them for using cell phones – as if we didn't spend hours on the phone ourselves, back when telephones were plugged into the wall, which truly did make us sedentary.

And as if generations previous to us did not hang around waiting for the mail to come. One never hears a mother in a Victorian novel complain that their child is "addicted to the second post," but a child on the Internet is always portrayed as a problem. I hear parents express remorse that their children are making friends on Facebook, which is the modern version of the old-fashion letter of introduction and "at home day" combined. Do they think their own teen years were any better spent, writing fan letters to the Bay City Rollers?

We hate children for playing video games, instead of board games, which were frequently far less challenging – unless you play the cool ones, like Carcassonne, which my children learned about from reading board game reviews online, where they often find their books. We hate teenagers for texting, even though a recent British study showed that – not surprisingly, as learning any second language increases one's awareness of one's first language – children who text more have increased confidence in their writing skills and write more in other mediums.

We mock grade school children for researching their projects on Wikepedia and for using Google images to illustrate them. Whereas we, I recall, when assigned a project on say, New Zealand, used to get most of our pictures and information from the local travel agent.

We also used to call in requests to the radio station and then wait at home, sedentary, in case the DJ played our song. Because we didn't have iTunes. We collected Wacky Cards – Mountain Goo, Minute Lice, Alpoo – instead of reading good satire at The Onion.

And so I salute you, sedentary youth of Canada. You will inherit the earth. I wrote this column for you, as a March Break craft. You'll some need scissors and tape.

I want you to cut this column out and then tape it over that editorial cartoon, if your mother, or father, has passive aggressively put it up on the fridge. Or if someone has, outrageously, taped that cartoon to the screen of your beloved laptop, I want you to tape this column securely to the windshield of his or her car.

Teenagers, fight for your right to play World of Warcraft, or whatever other inventive game intrigues you, because those games are an art form and frequently more witty and literate then whatever increasingly correct and improving book you're being forced to read in school. And mostly, kids, continue to explore online in whatever odd direction your mind takes you. Go and find your people. Because you're not ugly, and you're in the right.

Tabatha Southey

Source

Posted in: Commentary on March 22, 2010 @ 12:55 AM

Tags: Cool, Internet, Psychology, Society, Youth Rights

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