Philip
Larkin’s 1971 poem paints a bit of a dreary picture of parenting. But,
sadly, there is some truth in it. The period of Destructive Abundance in
which we are currently living is due in large part to the good
intentions of our parents and their parents before them.
The
Greatest Generation, raised during the Great Depression and wartime
rationing, wanted to ensure that their children did not suffer or miss
out on their youth as they did. This is good. This is what all parents
want — for their children to avoid their hardships and prosper. And so
that’s how the Boomers were raised — to believe that they shouldn’t have
to go without. Which, as a philosophy, is perfectly fine and
reasonable. But given the size of the generation and the abundance of
resources that surrounded them, the philosophy got a little distorted.
When you consider the rising wealth and affluence of their childhood,
combined (for good reasons) with a cynicism toward government in the
1970s, followed by the boom years of the 1980s and 1990s, it’s easy to
see how the Boomers earned their reputation as the Me Generation. Me
before We.
Putting the protection of ideas and wealth before the
sharing of them is now standard. A New Jersey-based accountant told me
that he sees a clear difference between his older clients and his
younger ones. “My older clients want to work within the confines of the
tax code to do what is fair,” he explained. “They are willing to simply
pay the tax they owe. The next generation spends lots of time looking to
exploit every loophole and nuance in the tax code to reduce their
responsibility to as little as possible.”
When
the Boomers started having children of their own, they raised their
children to be skeptical of those in charge. “Don’t let people get
things from you if they aren’t willing to compensate you for it,” goes
the thinking. “Don’t let anything stand in the way of what you want.”
Again, all reasonable philosophies if the circumstances today were the
same as the 1960s and 1970s. But they aren’t. And so a few good ideas
got a little twisted for the Boomers’ kids.
Generations X and Y
were taught to believe they could get whatever they want. Gen X, growing
up before the Internet, interpreted that lesson as putting your head
down and getting to work. An overlooked and forgotten generation, Gen
Xers didn’t really rebel against anything or stand for much in their
youth. Sure there was the Cold War, but it was the nicer, gentler
version of the Cold War that existed in the 1960s and 1970s. Gen Xers
didn’t grow up practicing drills at school in case of nuclear attack.
Growing up in the 1980s was a good life. The 1990s and the new
millennium saw even more boom years. Dot-com. E-commerce. E-mail.
E-dating. Free overnight shipping. No waiting. Get it now!
Generation
Y is said to have a sense of entitlement. Many employers complain of
the demands their entry-level employees often make. But I, as one
observer, do not believe it is a sense of entitlement. This generation
wants to work hard and is willing to work hard. What we perceive as
entitlement is, in fact, impatience. An impatience driven by two things:
First is a gross misunderstanding that things like success, money or
happiness come instantly. Even though our messages and books arrive the
same day we want them, our careers and fulfillment do not.
The
second element is more unsettling. It is a result of a horrible short
circuit to their internal reward systems. These Gen Yers have grown up
in a world in which huge scale is normal, money is valued over service
and technology is used to manage relationships. The economic systems in
which they have grown up, ones that prioritize numbers over people, are
blindly accepted, as if that’s the way it has always been. If steps are
not taken to overcome or mitigate the quantity of abstractions in their
lives, in time they may be the biggest losers of their parents’ excess.
And while Gen Yers may be more affected by this short-circuiting because
they grew up only in this world, the fact is that none of us are
immune.
The Distracted Generation
Imagine
you are sitting on a plane flying at 35,000 feet and 525 miles per hour
from New York to Seattle. It’s a calm flight. There’s no turbulence.
It’s a clear day and the captain predicts that the whole flight will be a
smooth one. Both the captain and the copilot are seasoned pilots with
many, many years of experience, and the aircraft is equipped with the
most modern avionics and warning systems. As required by the FAA, both
pilots fly the airline’s simulator a few times a year to practice
dealing with various emergencies. A hundred miles away, in a dark room
in a building with no windows, sits an air traffic controller with ten
years of experience looking down a scope monitoring all the air traffic
in his assigned sector. Your flight is currently in his sector. Now
imagine that the controller has his cell phone next to him. He is not
allowed to make calls while he is on duty, but he can send and receive
text messages or access his e-mail. Imagine that he can relay
coordinates to a flight, check his messages, relay coordinates to
another flight, check his phone again. Seems fair, right?
As plain
as the nose is on my face, I am confident that the vast majority of us
would not be very comfortable with this scenario. We would prefer that
that air traffic controller check his e-mail or send his text messages
during his breaks. I think we would all feel much better if access to
the Internet and a personal cell phone were completely forbidden (which
they are). Only because our lives are at stake do we see this example as
stark. So if we take the life and death part away, why would we think
that we can do our work, check our phones, write a paragraph, send a
text, write another paragraph, send another text, without the same
damage to our ability to concentrate? Generation Y thinks that, because
they have grown up with all these technologies, they are better at
multitasking. I would venture to argue they are not better at
multitasking. What they are better at is being distracted.
According
to a study at Northwestern University, the number of children and young
people diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
shot up 66 percent between 2000 and 2010. Why the sudden and huge spike
in a frontal lobe dysfunction over the course of a decade? The Centers
for Disease Control defines those with ADHD as often having “trouble
paying attention, controlling impulsive behaviors (may act without
thinking about what the result will be), or being overly active.” I
would submit that this huge spike is not simply because more people have
ADHD than previous generations, though this could be true. Nor is it
due to an increase in the number of parents having their children
tested, though this could also be true. Though there are, of course,
many genuine cases of ADHD, the sudden spike may be the result of
something as simple as misdiagnosis. What I believe is likely happening,
however, is that more young people are developing an addiction to
distraction. An entire generation has become addicted to the
dopamine-producing effects of text messages, e-mails and other online
activities.
We know that sometimes our wires can get crossed and
the wrong behaviors can be incentivized. Someone who finds the dopamine-
and serotonin-releasing effects of alcohol as a teenager can become
conditioned to look to alcohol to suppress emotional pain instead of
learning to look to people for support. This can show up later in life
as alcoholism. In this same way, the dopamine-releasing effects of the
bing, buzz or flash of a cell phone feel good and create the desire and
drive to repeat the behavior that produces that feeling. Even if we are
in the middle of something, it feels good to check our phones
immediately instead of waiting fifteen minutes to complete our original
task. Once addicted, the craving is insatiable. When the phone dings
while we are driving, we
must look immediately to see who just
sent us a text. When we are trying to get some work done, and our phones
vibrate across the desk, we break concentration and
have to
look. If Boomers get their dopamine from goals oriented around “more”
and “bigger,” then Gen Y is getting their dopamine from anything that
satisfies “faster” or “now.” Cigarettes are out. Social media is in.
It’s the drug of the twenty-first century. (At least people who smoke
stand outside together.)
Like alcoholism or drug addiction, this
new disease is making our youngest generation impatient at best, and, at
worst, feel lonelier and more isolated than the generations before.
Where alcohol replaced trusting relationships as a coping mechanism for
teenagers who grew up to be alcoholics, so too are the positive
affirmations we get from social media and the virtual relationships we
maintain replacing real trusting relationships as coping mechanisms.
A
side effect could be a generation that struggles to find happiness and
fulfillment even more than the generations that preceded them. Though
there is a desire to do good, their acculturated impatience means that
few will commit time or effort to one thing long enough to see the
effect of service — the thing we know gives a sense of fulfillment. In
doing research for this book, I kept meeting amazing, wonderful, smart,
driven and optimistic Gen Yers who were either disillusioned with their
entry-level jobs or quitting to find a new job that will “allow me to
make an impact in the world,” discounting the time and energy that is
required to do it.
It’s like they are standing at the foot of a
mountain looking at the effect they want to have or success they want to
feel at the peak. There is nothing wrong with looking for a faster way
to scale the mountain. If they want to take a helicopter or invent a
climbing machine that gets them up there quicker, more power to them.
What they seem to fail to notice, however, is the mountain.
This
“see it and get it” generation has an awareness of where they are
standing and they know where they want to get to; what they can’t seem
to understand is the journey, the very time-consuming journey. They seem
flummoxed when told that things take time. They are happy to give lots
of short bursts of energy and effort to things, but commitment and grit
come harder. Giving a lot of one’s self to a small number of things
seems to have been replaced by giving a little bit of one’s self to a
large number of things. This tendency is exemplified by the way many Gen
Yers respond to various social causes. They rallied to share the Kony
video with their friends. Many posted pictures of themselves in hoodies
to support Trayvon Martin. They texted donations to tsunami relief
organizations. There is an intense excitement to do good, to help, to
support. Yet after the dopamine hit is felt, it’s on to the next.
Without giving any significant amount of time or energy, a generation
comfortable with abstraction has confused real commitment with symbolic
gestures.
One brand that offers young, fashionable do-gooders the
opportunity to do good without actually doing anything is 1:Face.
Customers can buy a watch in the color that represents the cause of
their choice, for example, white to stamp out hunger or pink to stamp
out breast cancer. According to the 1:Face Web site, an unspecified
portion of profits go to related charities. The problem is, ask the
watch wearer what good they’re doing and they will likely tell you they
are helping “to raise awareness.” That’s the Gen Y catchall. There is so
much talk about awareness or “driving the conversation” that we’ve
failed to notice that talk doesn’t solve problems; the investment of
time and energy by real human beings does. Justifying such campaigns by
saying they put pressure on others to do things only supports my
argument that we seem less inclined to offer our own time and energy to
do what needs to be done, insisting, rather, that others do it for us.
It also reveals a limitation of the Internet. An amazing vehicle for
spreading information, the Web is great for making people aware of the
plight of others, but it is quite limited in its ability to alleviate
that plight. The plight of others is not a technology problem; it’s a
human one. And only humans can solve human problems.
As money
replaced the expense of time and energy, now brands that offer people
the chance to do good by not actually doing anything replace service.
Neither fulfills the human need to do real, hard work for the benefit of
others. Neither fulfills the sacrifice requirements for serotonin or
oxytocin. The dopamine drive for instant gratification, at best, means
we, as individuals, keep “giving” to various causes without ever feeling
any sense of belonging or lasting fulfillment. At worst, however,
feelings of loneliness and isolation can lead to dangerous antisocial
behavior.
The Dire Scenario
Disappointed
and disillusioned, Baby Boomers are killing themselves in greater
numbers than ever before. According to a 2013 study by the Centers for
Disease Control, suicide rates among Baby Boomers rose nearly 30 percent
during the past decade, making suicide one of the leading causes of
death in that age group, behind only cancer and heart disease. The
biggest jump in suicides was among men in their fifties — this age group
experienced a whopping 50 percent increase. With the increase of
suicides among Boomers, more people now die of suicide than from car
accidents.
Unless we do something, my fear is that it is going to
get worse. The problem is that in twenty to thirty years, when our
youngest generation grows up and takes charge of government and
business, its members will have grown up using Facebook, prescription
drugs or online support groups as their primary coping mechanisms rather
than relying on real support groups: biological bonds of friendship and
loving relationships. I predict we will see a rise in depression,
prescription drug abuse, suicide and other anti-social behaviors.
In
1960, the number of notable school shootings was one. In the 1980s
there were 27. The 1990s saw 58 school shootings, and from 2000 until
2012 there were 102 school shootings. This may seem crazy, but that’s an
increase of more than 10,000 percent in just over fifty years. More
than 70 percent of the shooters in all the shootings since 2000 were
born after 1980, and a disturbingly high number were around the age of
fourteen or fifteen. Though some had diagnosed mental disorders, all
felt lonely, outcast and disassociated from their schools, communities
or families. In almost every case, these young murderers were either
victims of bullying themselves or felt ostracized because of their
social awkwardness or history of family troubles.
Sick gazelles
are pushed to the edge of the herd, pushed out of the Circle of Safety,
so the lions might eat the weaker ones instead of the stronger ones. Our
primitive mammal brain leads us to the same conclusion. When we feel
like we are outside a Circle of Safety, with no sense of belonging and
no sense that others love and care for us, we feel out of control,
abandoned and left for dead. And when we feel that isolated, we become
desperate.
Virtual relationships can’t help solve this real
problem. In fact, they could be making the situation worse. People who
spend excessive time on Facebook frequently become depressed as they
compare the perception of their lives with their perception of the lives
of others. A 2013 study by social psychologists at the University of
Michigan tracked the Facebook use of eighty-two young adults over a
two-week period. At the start of the study they rated how satisfied they
were with their lives. The researchers then checked in with the
subjects every two hours, five times a day, to see how they were feeling
about themselves and also how much time they were spending on Facebook.
The more time they spent on Facebook since the last check-in, the worse
they felt. And at the end of the two weeks, the subjects who had spent
the most time overall on Facebook reported less satisfaction with their
lives. “Rather than enhancing well-being, …” the study concluded,
“interacting with Facebook may predict the opposite result for young
adults — it may undermine it.”
So that’s where we stand. The Me
Generation, addicted to performance, dismantled the controls that
protect us from corporate abuses and stock market crashes. A Distracted
Generation, living in a world of abstraction, thinks it has ADHD but
more likely has a dopamine-fueled addiction to social media and cell
phones. It would seem we have reached the abyss. So what are we to do?
The good news is, we are our own best hope.
Reprinted from “Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t”
by Simon Sinek with permission of Portfolio, a member of Penguin Group
(USA) LLC, A Penguin Random House Co. Copyright (c) SinekPartners LLC,
2014
Lena Dunham and Laurie Simmons in "Tiny Furniture" (Credit: Submarine Entertainment)
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