What Teens Really Think

[MountainLaurel]

Results of a study of DC-area teenagers. Some fascinating data here:

Teens today.

They're a generation in a hurry, hurtling headlong to adulthood but not yet shed of youthful innocence or naivete. They're mixed up -- and the girls in particular are stressed out. They view the future through cracked rose-colored glasses, anxious about the direction of the country and the world. Most predict another terrorist attack as big or bigger than September 11 sometime in their lives. One in four expects a nuclear war.

At the same time, teenagers in the Washington area are brimming with youthful optimism and self-confidence about their own futures in the dangerous world they will inherit, according to a survey of high-school age teens and their parents conducted by The Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University.

Sometimes their confidence borders on delusional: The vast majority say it's likely they will be rich. Sometimes it is poignant: Most are convinced they will be married to the same person till death do them part. But more often their expectations are sensibly realistic: Most expect that just about everything, from a new house to a college education, will cost more when they are their parents' age.

Their world is good. Area high schoolers agree that it's a great time to be a kid. Looking forward, they believe the country's best years lie ahead. Big majorities predict the world will be more racially and sexually tolerant and accepting when they are in charge, a place where people will be more free than they are now to live and love as they wish. Few teens -- black or white, male or female -- see their race or gender as a roadblock to success. Many expect to have a richer, fuller, better life than their parents, a prospect particularly vivid for area teens who are first-generation Americans.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/18/AR2005101801698.html

[babylonsister]

1. Some of us could benefit from that youthful optimism. nt

[sasha031]

2. they believe in the myth

I did too when I was young the Horatio Alger Myth, fear of nuclear war, I find it amazing to be so optimistic when they believe the world could disintegrate.

Some of the advantages of having a young mind.

[Village Idiot]

3. They're TEENS, for Gosh's sake!

Who gives a flying FUCK what they believe? For the most part, they are IDIOTS, who KNOW NOTHING about how the country is run, or what it takes to pay the bills, let alone how to be rich and successful.

Have you ever talked to teenagers? It's an evergy-taxing exercise in FUTILITY.

Perhaps not ALL teens are as bad as I may portray them, but if my nephews (17,19, 21) are examples of today's teens, I am going to have to start saving more money and buying more guns.

[porphyrian]

4. Apparently corporations do.

They're who most products are marketed to nowadays. This study will better help companies take money from them.

[Giant Robot]

5. Actually I think I have seen this report before

I think it was written about teens when I was growing up in the '80's, the teens in the '90's, etc. The same things keep being said about teens no matter what generation. Although 9/11 did change the questions being asked, and maybe some answers too. But the beat goes on.

[MountainLaurel]

8. That's a different study

This seems to be a new survey, just of teens in the Washington, D.C., area.

[Selatius]

6. Put them on a battlefield and see what happens to their optimism.

That'll sap optimisim out of any of them...assuming they're not coming back in a fucking coffin. I lost my optimism years ago roughly at the time the towers fell. I'm in college currently, and there are people my age and younger bleeding and dying for no cause at all.

[newportdadde]

7. They wont retire as early or as well as their parents.

Thats one thing I'm pretty sure of. My generation, around 30 and those younger then us will never pull it off. 2/3 of my fathers graduationg highschool class have retired he is 57, most retired at 55 or younger from union jobs 18 + 35 years = 53. Those times are gone and will never come back.

For our generation I dont see how that is possible especially once you take into account medical costs we will ever get to retire in our 50s.