Survey Finds Teens Bored

They have iPods, the internet, and 150 channels of cable TV in their rooms. There are 12 screens at the multiplex at the mall, and they have more free time than they will ever have again in their lives. Yet a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll suggests that a large majority of the 12- to 24-year-olds are bored with their options in entertainment. And a huge minority “labor” under the misapprehension that they don’t have enough choices. The problem really lies elsewhere; there’s too much crap out there that isn’t entertaining.

The temptation to claim kids today are spoiled is huge, mostly because a great many are. There is also an inability on the part of many people (regardless of their age) to entertain themselves. The need for external stimulation often is the result of a lack of internal activity, that is, thinking, planning, implementing ideas.

The Los Angeles Times runs a long piece on this today. At one stage it reads, “It doesn’t seem like there's anything good,” says Emma Standring-Trueblood, a 16-year-old who is soon to start her junior year at Oak Park High School near Agoura Hills [California]. “I’d say a good episode of ‘The West Wing’ is better than most of the stuff that gets out there.” It is difficult to assess a person’s entire character from a single quotation, but the young lady may well be the most insightful person quoted in the paper. Good movies, TV and radio are more entertaining than bad movies, TV and radio. The kids of today may have more choices quantitatively, but qualitatively, they are in a wasteland vaster than anything Newton Minnow ever imagined.

Another dimension that the survey revealed was an emphasis on multi-tasking, which is another way to say “not concentrating.” Professor Gloria Mark, UC Irvine, studies the effects on computers on people, and she worries that “a pattern of constant interruption” is preventing these soon-to-be world leaders from learning to focus. The survey, though, notes that these kids have to do something during the commercials. That is a blessing – it means they aren’t paying attention to the advertising.

“I feel bored like all the time, ‘cause there is like nothing to do,” the Times story quotes Shannon Carlson, 13, of Warren, Ohio. Well, one could like volunteer at a hospital, or like get a job, or like write a novel, or like learn Italian, or like accept the fact that life isn’t ways a roller coaster ride. Sometimes, one has to wait to get on – a lesson each generation has to learn the hard way.

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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