“They Cannot Use A Computer”: 30 People Share Their Observations About Gen A

The thing that scares me the most about this new generation is that they are so reliant on technology. They are growing up in a world where they can't imagine life without the internet or their phones, and I think that's really dangerous. These kids are going to be adults soon and they're going to be completely unprepared for the real world if they can't function without a screen in front of them.

The sexism of some young men. It seems like they also don’t question sources and fall easily for propaganda pushed through social media.

Cheating their way through school. These are future doctors or nurses.

That they will have a much lower quality of life than previous generations. Too many people and not enough fresh water.

I mentioned it elsewhere in response to how tariffs might impact my work:

But I’m a biochemist and I often oversee the hiring process at a biotech company I’m at…. I HAVE NOT HAD AN AMERICAN WITH A GOOD COMPETITIVE RESUME SHOW UP IN MY INBOX FOR A WHILE. Even for your garden variety RA roles, almost nothing…

so when I hear from teachers that “the kids are getting worse,” I DREAD what it’s gonna be like for Americans trying to break into tech constantly having to compete with nations that have their academic s**t together (China, South Korea, lots of EU countries, etc).

Their sadness. Young people seem so sad - and a bit depressed too. Sad people tend not to move things forward - they just try to survive. We took all the reasons they had for optimism, hovered over their every move, and now they seem to feel resigned and sad :|.

Losing touch with the real world due to excessive screen time.

Still having to work at terrible jobs and feel miserable.

No respect for the authority - kids today don’t pay any respect to elderly and not even their parents. They will grow up careless of other people, no empathy for anybody, just looking after themselves. There are exceptions of course, but majority of kids today are like this.

Teacher here... the issues that worry me:

* Cell phone addiction. Teenagers in class: head down. Teenagers at the bus stop: head down. Walking across the street, riding a bike, walking: head down. It makes me sad.
* Inability to focus: brain rot, meme culture, short form content equates to everyone having the attention span of a goldfish.
* Complete lack of any understanding of finances, lack of any aspiration, no interest in developing job skills that can help them in the future. This generation is going to be shocked when they find out how hard their parents work and how much it costs to live in their home town.
* Complete lack of any knowledge or understanding of the forces that brought us to our current political environment that they are about to stroll into as voting age adults in a few years. The state of things will be taken for granted, resigned to fascism or openly embracing it. The will to enact change for the better is gone, seen as futile. It saddens me to my core.

This isn't all the young people I see but I would say it's over 50% at least. There are many that give me great hope. The bright, intelligent, creative and deep feeling students I have will be the only forces holding back the ugly in the future. I hope that the value of empathy, self reliance and intelligence gains a resurgence among the youth. It makes me happy to see young people discovering older technology. I hope they someday realize the value in rejecting the need to be connected to the internet every single second of every single day of their entire lives. There is SO much more to enjoy in the world than your cell phone. I understand for many teens it is the only escape in their lives, I hope they can escape the grip of technology as well somehow.