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    aravistarkheenaKara Brown
    7/03/14 5:13pm

    Well, I teach at a large, public university in the lower Midwest—as far from Harvard as you can get—and I can tell you that the impression is certainly more true than it is false, the author's infantile snark aside.

    Much of this can be blamed on social media, which has taken over social interaction between individuals, in this age group, to the extent to which they have almost completely forgotten how to interact and speak to one another, *in person*.

    I will walk into a classroom, five minutes before class begins, and find 90 students sitting in the dark, not saying a word to one another, because they are all texting on their phones. Rather than speak to someone sitting right next to you, you choose to speak to someone who isn't even there.

    *Very* different from what one would have found, in a classroom, when I was in college from 1986-1990, and not for the better.

    Beyond this, even when students deign to speak to each other, they do so looking down at their phones, on which they are simultaneously reading and texting, while supposedly talking to you.


    One of the results, I am seeing is that people in this age group are increasingly unable to interpret non-verbal communication. They've grown so unused to being in each others' presence that they no longer know how to interpret looks, gestures, etc. Even worse, because so much of their communication is typed, they have lost the ability to interpret inflections in voices.


    Awkward communication. Constant misunderstanding. Inattention. All of these add up to a deterioration in social life that is demonstrable and easy to see, if one is just willing to look...and to be honest.

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      Myxomatosis aravistarkheena
      7/03/14 5:25pm

      I so love it when "adults" complain about how kids these days don't have any social skills and just hang out on their smartphones all day long.

      Communication changes. Doesn't mean its not happening. Also, yes. Millennials still know how to read body language and form sentences and understand inflection.

      Are you writing the premise for a sci-fi novel, or actually trying to describe something you see? If the latter, I think they hyperbole needs to get toned down about 30 notches.

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      Bucket-O-Nothingaravistarkheena
      7/03/14 5:58pm

      I don't see what's wrong with talking to people via smart phones instead of people beside you in class before class starts. I'd much rather talk with a friend or two via text than make painful small talk with someone I barely know or do not want to know. If I have to talk to someone while class is in session or at work, I will, but outside of that time I much prefer no talking since I loathe small talk, am an introvert, and have social anxiety.

      Friends in person > friends online/text > silence > talking to someone I know who shares a similar interest as me > making small, pointless talk with a stranger. Most people in every class I have taken were in the last category.

      I'd also rather take someone my age who doesn't initiate conversation than the hundreds of Gen X or Boomers I've met who trap you in a conversation and ignore all the verbal and non-verbal signs that you want to get the fuck out of there. Poor communication skills aren't just restricted to Millennials.

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    lolita7b3Kara Brown
    7/03/14 5:23pm

    "Hookup culture" is really just an alternate form of dating. You are seeing someone, just not as quick to call someone your sig o. It's kind of silly to treat our willingness to be open about casual sex as some sort of dating downfall. If you and your hookup really like each other, "hookup culture" isn't then going to step in and swat down your budding relationship.

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      Kara Brownlolita7b3
      7/03/14 5:29pm

      Well said.

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      pussygalore134lolita7b3
      7/03/14 5:47pm

      True true. I'm at the older end of millenials and I find that now you hang out, hook up, and if you are still interested hang out and hook up more until you or the other person "fall off" or you become more interested in each other and talk about being exclusive. Then that's when you are in a relationship. The only downside I see now to dating is the amount of options and sexual stimulation people have access to with snapchat, facebook, plenty of fish, ok cupid and instagram. You can being seeing someone for a full month and for no reason known to you he/she will disappear as if they died, or send you a snap chat of them kissing another person. It is both a very fun yet difficult time to be in the dating scene. You have to be at the top of your game as both sexes have access to the most fit and attractive partners and everyone where I live has fake boobs.

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    BroadsidedKara Brown
    7/03/14 4:57pm

    Harvard, the most prestigious university in the world, is not really representative of the greater college-attending and/or millennial population.

    I get what you're saying, but I was under the impression Oxford was the most prestigious university in the world... Just saying.

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      Kara BrownBroadsided
      7/03/14 4:59pm

      Well, probably depends where you are. But in this context, does it really matter?

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      PubdateBroadsided
      7/03/14 5:01pm

      Both specialize in pretentiousness, but Oxford's been pretentious much longer.

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    levinlevinKara Brown
    7/03/14 5:08pm

    You're right, millennials just aren't dating in a way that's recognizable to older adults. This reminds me of my dad asking me if my college boyfriend took me out on dates. (I am a millennial, and this was only a few years ago.) The concept of "dating" was so foreign to people at my school. It seemed formal, anachronistic, and tinged with patriarchal habits. People didn't date, they hung out. They hung out and then started to hook up, or vice versa. The next step was calling the other person your boyfriend or girlfriend, and I knew plenty of people who reached that step — but dating? It's not a college-friendly paradigm for starting relationships, given that at a place like Harvard everyone is on campus hanging out with each other all the time and it feels very odd to only see the guy you're interested in when he picks you up for dinner and then drops you off at your dorm again.

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      sydneybristow47levinlevin
      7/03/14 5:30pm

      Oh man I hated dating. I'm a super old millenial (under 30 is millenial, right?) and I did the dating thing a bit, and it was *awful.* I much preferred semi-drunken hookups, which actually ended up leading to deeper, more interesting relationships for me.

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      lolasockslevinlevin
      7/03/14 5:37pm

      I was asked by my sister in law not too long ago after how many dates my husband and I started being physical (she's doing really traditional dating) and I couldn't answer. Because at that point, our "dates" were us hanging out with a group of friends in someone's dorm room. We lived in the same dorm, so our dates were basically the few times we left campus, which was rarely, because of money and lack of cars. We also saw WAY more of each other than your average "dating" couple by virtue of seeing each other for at least one meal a day, practically living together, etc.

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    ghostofsiriusblackKara Brown
    7/03/14 5:19pm

    HAHAHA. First we get criticized constantly for being lazy, entitled pieces of shit. I kept hearing "When I was 25, I wasn't living at home! I got my ass up and paid off my loans working 2 jobs" and "All millenials care about is getting drunk and sexting!" complaints from baby boomers, even in professional journalism. Now, we're not focusing on personal life enough and we're caring too much about work/success? Well, both opposing critics can't be right.

    Also:

    "The fear around the "hookup culture" also ignores the fact that some hookups do turn into "real" relationships."

    Yes, thank you. I met a guy 5 years ago at a college frat party. We were a little drunk and we hooked up that night. Didn't know each other 'emotionally' or whatever. Now, we are still together and plan on getting married. Just because we aren't doing things in the order this lady prefers, doesn't mean they don't happen. It's not like our generation somehow is less capable of loving (real scientific analysis there, btw). We are on the front lines of this 2nd wave of LGBT activism and we get labeled as loveless beasts and sex fiends (funny, I thought those were the 'free love' people of the 60s and 70s, but OK).

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      sydneybristow47ghostofsiriusblack
      7/03/14 5:31pm

      Seriously- I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be with my husband now unless hookup culture was a thing. Take THAT, pearl-clutchers!

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      Bucket-O-Nothingghostofsiriusblack
      7/03/14 5:43pm

      Millennials just can't win. Focus on your personal life or live with your parent(s) due to financial reasons? You're being extremely lazy and if you applied yourself more you wouldn't have any debt or working only part-time jobs. Focus on school or work while not spending large amounts of time or money on grandiose gestures of dating? You're emotionally stunted and need to stop and smell the roses.

      Point out how things are different now in so many ways from 20, 30, or even 40 years ago? You don't know what you're talking about since you're "just a naive kid" and should just shut up and listen to Boomers shit-talk your entire generation while they set up even more hurdles you have to go through to achieve a fraction of what they got at the same age.

      The only consolation I take is that us Millenials will be around long enough to know if Boomers will go down in history as the most self-absorbed generation in recent times and if they do I we can have the final laugh.

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    mannequinKara Brown
    7/03/14 5:03pm

    HA. Really?! The generation with a 50% divorce rate tells us that WE don't know how to love?

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      lawlovermannequin
      7/03/14 5:23pm

      Why won't we commit already????? It worked out for approximately half our parents!!!!

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    vegbrarianKara Brown
    7/03/14 4:58pm

    Oh god fricking Boomers. As the millennials would say, I CAN'T EVEN.

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      Missy Pantsvegbrarian
      7/03/14 5:07pm

      So... off the top of your head, how old is a Boomer, when were they born?

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      vegbrarianMissy Pants
      7/03/14 5:16pm

      People who are presently about 50-70. Like my folks, who were raised by parents who lived through the Great Depression, and therefore subsequently spoiled the fuck out of their Boomer children. Who spoiled the fuck out of their GenY/millenial children.

      The exponential spoiling is reaching critical mass!

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    CeraunographKara Brown
    7/03/14 4:58pm

    If millennials don't know how to love then WHY DO I HAVE TO GO TO SO MANY GOD DAMN WEDDINGS?!?!?

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      whassaCeraunograph
      7/03/14 5:40pm

      Millenials also don't know how to be alone.

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    token_liberalKara Brown
    7/03/14 5:00pm

    You act like no other generation has ever been studied, analyzed, and criticized by previous generations. It happens to us all and you'll be on the other side of it soon enough.

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      Kara Browntoken_liberal
      7/03/14 5:02pm

      ok

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      trialsytacostoken_liberal
      7/03/14 5:59pm

      Nah. There's nothing "natural" about it because we didn't really used to speak of generations. It's more about conservatives wringing hands about young women losing "purity" by sleeping around. Men are expected to chase tail so we aren't the REAL problem with hookups.

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    ThisLadyRightHereKara Brown
    7/03/14 5:46pm

    Even though it might be purely psychological, I love calling it "hanging out." Dating is just so...too much pressure. You'll either have romantic chemistry or you won't. No need to force it by "dating." Just hang out and see what happens, imo.

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      *Malice in Blunderland*ThisLadyRightHere
      7/03/14 5:49pm

      i feel this so hard. DATES just feel like job interviews. I just wanna chill and hang and be cool with someone. Why put the pressure on it?

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