College Parties, Minus the Beer Binges - WSJ.com
Saw this on the Wall Street Journal today. With my recent post in mind, RE: Portrait of the Millennial, I can't help but think a Gen X'er is writing this article. Even though they quote many millennials, I want to side with Mr. Howe.
The term Binge Drinking has been constructed to define what college students are doing now. Like drinking is new on college campuses. Last week I spoke with an adult and he said "You guys have it so much worse then we did. You can't do anything without it being seen. Now, Facebook captures everything you do. We didn't have to deal with that. We did everything you guys did, even worse, but the whole world didn't have access to it. Obviously, he assumes that there are millions of pictures documenting our partying or just regular life. But, he is completely right. Everything that we do can be talked about, blogged about, tweeted ,or captured and posted on Facebook, blogger, tumblr, or whatever public websites a person may choose.
Therefore, I think that all this nonsense that these newspapers and other media outlets that post this, "Oh my, look at what they're doing now" is just another example of past generations being pessimistic. Feeling the need to heal or correct our wrong doings, just to make themselves feel better.
Check out the link and let me know what ya think.
I completely agree. Drinking on college campuses is not a new fad. If anything is has probably subsided with our generation. Alcohol is now illegal for people under 21 opposed to when our parents went to college and many states had drinking ages of 18. Also Millennials are so busy, we are an active and determined generation. The main new difference is the ability to see the next day what you did the night before. Social networking has allowed us to document memories and share them across the globe. This is a good thing, but can be dangerous when taken out of context. We need to be careful to not allow ourselves to be shed in the wrong light, but people also need to understand that what is happening is not new, it is not more prevalent, it is just more apparent.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment, glad you agree! Now that we have two millennial perspectives, I wonder what professor Stein has to say on the subject...Professor? Are we the Binge Drinking generation that is so different from our predecessors?
ReplyDeleteI wonder if drinking is so heavily focused and critiqued in our generation not only because we have digital proof, like you said, but also because according to Mr. Howe, we also are honest and open to our parents, and are willing to tell "authority" figures what we're up to.
ReplyDeleteIts scary to think that if a photo is posted of you partying online, it is online forever. Basically anyone as the access to take the photo and make it their own and spread it around other websites. I totally agree that we have it much harder than past generations in terms of making sure that we are constantly aware of who is taking a picture of us, what we are doing in that picture, and where it is being posted. I could only imagine what it would be like if people had Facebook during the groovy sixties....things would probably be even more scandalous. Employers...give us a break!
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