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   myrmepropagandist (futurebird@sauropods.win)'s status on Saturday, 14-Dec-2024 10:40:41 JST myrmepropagandist

   Fifth grader 1: I don't think I get that reference.
   Fifth grader 2: I don't think it is a reference. It's just weird.

   I swear they are more sophisticated than I ever was at that age.

   • Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
   • Rich Felker repeated this.
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     Matt McIrvin (mattmcirvin@mathstodon.xyz)'s status on Saturday, 14-Dec-2024 10:40:54 JST Matt McIrvin

     in reply to

     @futurebird I keep hearing cultural critics and educators talking about the young as if they are intellectually stunted in some unprecedented and alarming way (and they always say they know the reason: it's the pandemic closures, it's smartphones, it's social media, it's that they don't read books, it's pop culture)

     and I think, I don't know, maybe they're talking about the ones I haven't met. The kids I've known seem all right.

     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
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     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 14-Dec-2024 10:41:41 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • Matt McIrvin

     @mattmcirvin @futurebird They're just typical asshole olds who want to talk shit about kids. They'll make up whatever counterfactual narrative their peers will buy.

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     Damon L. Wakes (damonwakes@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Saturday, 14-Dec-2024 10:41:58 JST Damon L. Wakes

     in reply to

     • Matt McIrvin

     @mattmcirvin @futurebird Pop culture seems a weird thing for them to blame given that we're about as far from the "Everyone is just consuming whatever the TV beams into their brains" complaints of the past as we could possibly be. Memes might not exactly be high art, but I feel as though there's a kind of literacy expected of kids these days that wasn't expected of people in the past, and that they're probably thinking more about much of what they engage with day-to-day.

     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
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     Space Catitude 🚀 (terryhancock@realsocial.life)'s status on Saturday, 14-Dec-2024 22:40:38 JST Space Catitude 🚀

     in reply to

     • Matt McIrvin

     @mattmcirvin @futurebird

     Elders have been whining about "kids these days" from time immemorial!

     And I don't think it was ever true.

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     myrmepropagandist (futurebird@sauropods.win)'s status on Sunday, 15-Dec-2024 00:57:49 JST myrmepropagandist

     in reply to

     • Rich Felker
     • Matt McIrvin

     @dalias @mattmcirvin

     I'll just say this: When I think of "brain rot from social media" it is NOT a teenager that first comes to mind!

     In fact, the worst cases of "social media brain rot" I've observed have been in those over the age of 40. Making me wonder if us old people are less able to cope with new technology a little.

     But not much.

     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
     Rich Felker repeated this.
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     myrmepropagandist (futurebird@sauropods.win)'s status on Sunday, 15-Dec-2024 00:57:51 JST myrmepropagandist

     in reply to

     • Rich Felker
     • Matt McIrvin

     @dalias @mattmcirvin

     I'm certain some kids are "awful" because some people always are and kids are a subset of people.

     But, I'm just always so skeptical of any notion that young people have gotten "worse" -- but maybe it's a reflective thing... if an adult is distracted, short attention span, rude, etc. the kids around them might be similar? IDK.

     Rich Felker repeated this.
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     Jess👾 (jesstheunstill@infosec.exchange)'s status on Sunday, 15-Dec-2024 02:06:12 JST Jess👾

     in reply to

     • Matt McIrvin

     It's absolutely staggering how the richest people in the world have jumped from single digit billions to hundreds of billions in just the last 20 years or so. Meanwhile median wealth in the US has stayed the same or decreased as most Americans are living in debt and paycheck to paycheck.

     @mattmcirvin @futurebird

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     Matt McIrvin (mattmcirvin@mathstodon.xyz)'s status on Sunday, 15-Dec-2024 02:06:14 JST Matt McIrvin

     in reply to

     • 🐛

     @apophis @futurebird Rich people are WAY RICHER than they were a few decades ago, in comparative terms. A smaller number of them control a much larger portion of the total economic product, and have tremendous power, and being in this position seems to be absolutely toxic to the human brain.

     The situation is more like the late 19th century, the Gilded Age. And the rich people of that time were buck wild.

     Paul Cantrell repeated this.
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     🐛 (apophis@brain.worm.pink)'s status on Sunday, 15-Dec-2024 02:06:15 JST 🐛

     in reply to

     • Matt McIrvin
     @futurebird @mattmcirvin i really do wonder where that cultural shift came from
     
     seems to have happened (in cycles?) in previous civilizations too?
     Paul Cantrell repeated this.
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     myrmepropagandist (futurebird@sauropods.win)'s status on Sunday, 15-Dec-2024 02:06:16 JST myrmepropagandist

     in reply to

     • Matt McIrvin

     @mattmcirvin

     Yeah used to be that it was easier to pretend to admire them, or they put more effort into being "morally impressive" at least on the surface.

     Now they just think the money itself is impressive ... but it's not.

     Go build 200 libraries or something. jeeeez

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     Matt McIrvin (mattmcirvin@mathstodon.xyz)'s status on Sunday, 15-Dec-2024 02:06:17 JST Matt McIrvin

     in reply to

     @futurebird Rich people seem worse than they've been in decades. They were never great but for Christ's sake, they've lost all sense of fake propriety. That's my biggest complaint.

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     myrmepropagandist (futurebird@sauropods.win)'s status on Sunday, 15-Dec-2024 02:06:19 JST myrmepropagandist

     in reply to

     • Matt McIrvin

     @mattmcirvin

     Yeah, the kids seem fine. It's the search engines that make me sound like a cranky old person "In my day these sort of results would have never been first. In my day you could search for things and not get funneled into shopping... or LIED TO obviously by a babbling computer... " *wanders off muttering*

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     liebach (m@helvede.net)'s status on Sunday, 15-Dec-2024 10:07:28 JST liebach

     in reply to

     • Rich Felker
     • Matt McIrvin

     @futurebird @dalias @mattmcirvin Well, the danish prime minister had a "we have to work more, harder, etc. and come down hard en the lazy people who don't work." thing for a while. Then after a long while she admitted it was based on her Instagram feed or something. I lost *so* much respect.

     So yeah, it's the older people.

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     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 15-Dec-2024 10:09:48 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • Matt McIrvin
     • Paul (Tex) Hewson

     @texhewson @futurebird @mattmcirvin I've seen this in younger (middle aged) ppl and mostly they're lying about not getting it on social media, but also, it can spread person to person offline when the rest of their in-person social circles are getting the talking points on social media.

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     Paul (Tex) Hewson (texhewson@datasci.social)'s status on Sunday, 15-Dec-2024 10:09:50 JST Paul (Tex) Hewson

     in reply to

     • Rich Felker
     • Matt McIrvin

     @futurebird @dalias @mattmcirvin I have a few family in their 80s, they insist they are not on any social media (and I think I believe them) but they still seem to pick up all the tropes that are doing the rounds. Maybe things were just as bad before social media, bit we don't have the receipts.

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     Steve (scm@sfba.social)'s status on Sunday, 15-Dec-2024 20:20:50 JST Steve

     in reply to

     • Matt McIrvin
     • Harold S

     @futurebird @oldredsubby @mattmcirvin I used to at least feel like if I couldn’t find something, it wasn’t on the web. Now I can’t find stuff I know is there

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     Harold S (oldredsubby@sfba.social)'s status on Sunday, 15-Dec-2024 20:20:52 JST Harold S

     in reply to

     • Matt McIrvin

     @futurebird @mattmcirvin I am still frustrated with search engines. You need to know what you’re searching for before you start searching.

     I like having no idea what the answer to a problem might be and how to even ask the right questions. Sometimes I eventually figure it out, sometimes there is no answer..

     Rich Felker repeated this.
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     myrmepropagandist (futurebird@sauropods.win)'s status on Sunday, 15-Dec-2024 20:20:52 JST myrmepropagandist

     in reply to

     • Matt McIrvin
     • Harold S

     @oldredsubby @mattmcirvin

     I used to feel like I could always find anything I wanted with search engines. But, in the last five years that has no longer been true.

     Rich Felker repeated this.