-- Socrates, probably
They would have been correct saying it about the first generation of kids raised on television too.
Yes, maybe there's a bit of complaining from old coots throughout the ages, but that doesn't mean there are never any structural problems ever. Maybe there are real problems today. And maybe there were real problems in Socrates' time too. Merely posting this without any thought is just dismissive nonsense.
Certainly for the situation today, there are huge changes to how kids are raised. Maybe that has zero effect. Or maybe it does. Either way, whatever Socrates did or didn't say has no bearing on it.
Today's kids have smartphones, PCs/Macs, Video Game Consoles, and movie streaming devices and are unsupervised on the Internet. For role models, they have rap stars who sing about sex and drugs. They have no respect for teachers or other adults and don't know how good they have it compared to me and the rest of Generation X. No wonder they are getting ruder.
https://www.chron.com/business/article/Why-didn-t-Steve-Jobs...
Steve Jobs wouldn't let his kids use iPads. He must have known something of the side-effects in kids and iPads. Just try to take the iPad or iPhone away from a kid and see how they react.
Don't get me wrong - I do actually think that kids nowadays are rude. They have no respect for teachers, parents, elders or anyone really. But I'm also 100% sure that my dad used to think the same thing, and his dad before him too.
I don’t know if there are any stats to back this up but anecdotally I know plenty of kids with all kinds of freedoms and gadgets who are extremely respectful, well-mannered, and responsible. They respectfully disagree with their parents on some issues and some of old fashioned parents may consider disagreement as disrespectful. And they might not accept mistreatment from authority figures, but hardly any real misbehavior issues.
Maybe it’s my circle but average gen z kid seems like way more mature than us when we were their age.
Rude kids that I have encountered are mostly from parents who are already rude, entitled, or have macho mentality. Kind of people I rarely hangout with. Many of these kids have more restrictions too, no video games, must play sports, extra tutoring, cannot dress certain ways, etc.
The first iPad was released in Jan 2010, and he died Oct 2011. His kids would have been 19, 15, and 12 or so. Even if the kids had access to it before official release, I doubt Jobs has much data specifically on an iPad’s side effects on kids, especially little kids, considering he didn’t have any.
The best source I could find was this interview, which seems far from an indictment of kids using iPads, but rather a general aversion to his kids using modern computing devices:
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/11/fashion/steve-jobs-apple-...
> “So, your kids must love the iPad?” I asked Mr. Jobs, trying to change the subject. The company’s first tablet was just hitting the shelves. “They haven’t used it,” he told me. “We limit how much technology our kids use at home.”
Can somebody see if they asked the same students (between 9 and 14, an age range where behavior changes quite a bit)?
> The goal of the current work was to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic school shutdowns may have impacted classroom incivility in children and adolescents.
> Study 1 compared prepandemic (Fall 2019) to postpandemic school shutdown (Fall 2022) rates of classroom incivility in a sample of 308 adolescents (49.7% boys; 61.0% White) between the ages of 9 and 14 (M = 12.06; SD = 1.38). Classroom incivility was significantly higher postpandemic shutdowns, while bullying, emotional problems, and friendships remained stable.
> In Study 2, we surveyed 101 primary educators (95% females; 88.1% White). Findings suggested that young students lacked social skills and knowledge of classroom expectations, contributing to increased classroom incivility. Our results highlight the need to monitor ongoing levels of classroom incivility.
> Adolescents in Grades 5–9 at Time 1 and 8–12 at Time 2 completed both self-report and peer nomination questionnaires as part of the larger study. Research assistants visited classrooms to assist in data collection, and all questionnaires were completed on electronic tablets via the online platform Qualtrics. Active parental consent and adolescent assent were required for elementary students (Grades 5–8) while passive consent was used for high school students. In the first wave (November 2019; Grades 5–9), the overall returned consent form rate was 83.78% (including 77.15% positive consent). Students also provided assent to participate; no students who had parental consent chose not to participate. For Wave 2 (November 2022), consent was only collected for the Grade 8s (86.6% returned), and for Grades 9–12, the consent rate was 98% with a participation rate of 87%.
> All measures and procedures received ethical clearance from both the university and school board research ethics boards.
I should also point out that this is from five Ontario schools. Any statements about the behavior of students in other regions would be an extrapolation.
So not the exact same population, but still a comparison of “adolescents in grade 5-9 at time 1 and grade 8-12 at time 2”?
That would compare a pre-puberty to a puberty population, with the unsurprising result of them being less compliant.
But again, I don’t have access to the full text.
Prime example: W-sitting. Lots of "iPad kids" have an unusual sit pose where they splay their legs out. Oftentimes it's because they're sitting on a device so often that their core muscles are underdeveloped.
this is measured "post-pandemic" but especially in North America it's also post-Trump's first term, during economic struggles largely affecting middle and lower classes, at a breaking point in classroom surveillance escalation that's included sealed bags for cell phones and monitored devices, all coupled with declining funding, training, and educational quality for teachers. throw a generation that self-organizes action against every wrong (many real and some mostly perceived) and you get a school environment that is actively hostile the more one tries to enforce order upon it
but also just look at "quiet quitting", slacker culture, civil and labor rights movements, and most of the rest of American history at various inflection points. dismissing student misbehavior as children being inherently bad for some reason means willfully looking past all of the major events and figures around them that are influencing that behavior
Before the pandemic, this would have been considered a disaster for the individual. Now we are supposed to just shrug our shoulders and accept this new totalitarianism.