Yesterday yahoo ran an article entitled "Generation Y Not Driven to Drive." To sum it up, they put it down to laziness, high auto costs, and, believe it or not, technology.
Of course. If you're going to write an article about young people, you have to relate it to cell phones. To say they don't go hand in hand would involve revising our definitions of either technology or youth.
This paragraph bugs me particularly:
"That moment of realizing that you're a grown-up - for my generation, that was when you got your driver's license or car," said Tony Dudzik, a senior policy analyst of the Frontier Group, a California-based think tank that has studied this phenomenon. "For young people now, that moment comes when you get your first cellphone."
Cell phone is two words, not one, and it's not some rite of passage. Well, maybe it is for those of you who got your phone at twelve instead of fifteen. My "first" phone is my only phone, and it's a hand-me-down from my older brother.
As for driving, it does annoy me when adults ask-and it's always adults-"Are you excited to get your license?" Partly because I get "excited" questions a lot. "Are you excited for high school? Are you excited to turn sixteen? Are you excited to go to college?"
I rarely ever get 'excited' about things in advance, including holidays. I'll acknowledge the days getting closer, but I don't feel anything special for them. The only things I can remember being excited for in the past six months are the weekend, the end of the school day, the Hunger Games movie, and summer.
When I hear "driving", I don't imagine myself cruising down some highway in a personal car I can somehow afford on my own, hair blowing in the wind. I think of the forty hours of practice driving I have to do, and the summer driver's ed classes I haven't even signed up for yet. I have to take them over summer to fit in the classes I like, which means I have a deadline of sorts. It's very unlikely that I'll be able to get my license the day I turn sixteen, like most people envision. I don't know anybody who's gotten their license so soon.
Then there's the texting while driving stereotype. The only people I've ever seen doing it are adults. But then again, that's probably by default because most of my friends aren't even driving.
But either way, stereotypes, however popular, don't always apply.
Of course. If you're going to write an article about young people, you have to relate it to cell phones. To say they don't go hand in hand would involve revising our definitions of either technology or youth.
This paragraph bugs me particularly:
"That moment of realizing that you're a grown-up - for my generation, that was when you got your driver's license or car," said Tony Dudzik, a senior policy analyst of the Frontier Group, a California-based think tank that has studied this phenomenon. "For young people now, that moment comes when you get your first cellphone."
Cell phone is two words, not one, and it's not some rite of passage. Well, maybe it is for those of you who got your phone at twelve instead of fifteen. My "first" phone is my only phone, and it's a hand-me-down from my older brother.
As for driving, it does annoy me when adults ask-and it's always adults-"Are you excited to get your license?" Partly because I get "excited" questions a lot. "Are you excited for high school? Are you excited to turn sixteen? Are you excited to go to college?"
I rarely ever get 'excited' about things in advance, including holidays. I'll acknowledge the days getting closer, but I don't feel anything special for them. The only things I can remember being excited for in the past six months are the weekend, the end of the school day, the Hunger Games movie, and summer.
When I hear "driving", I don't imagine myself cruising down some highway in a personal car I can somehow afford on my own, hair blowing in the wind. I think of the forty hours of practice driving I have to do, and the summer driver's ed classes I haven't even signed up for yet. I have to take them over summer to fit in the classes I like, which means I have a deadline of sorts. It's very unlikely that I'll be able to get my license the day I turn sixteen, like most people envision. I don't know anybody who's gotten their license so soon.
Then there's the texting while driving stereotype. The only people I've ever seen doing it are adults. But then again, that's probably by default because most of my friends aren't even driving.
But either way, stereotypes, however popular, don't always apply.
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