Comment by helen___keller | Hacker News Reader

Comment by helen___keller | Hacker News Reader

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> young people were growing up "afraid to ask questions for fear of asking the wrong questions".

This is not a problem young people have, this is a problem old people have.

Young people grew up with social media and are very savvy about segmenting their public persona from their private one. Young people understand intuitively that asking an edgy question on your public persona is an act of edginess in itself.

If you want to know why, the answer is that technology has weaponized the concept of push polling to its extreme (now “concern trolling” and such). As such it’s become difficult to distinguish legitimate discourse from bad-faith concern trolling. Young people understand this easily.

Older people on the other hand I’ve seen struggle with these concepts.

Regarding publishing and self-censorship in literature I can’t comment; most people aren’t publishing literature and I’m among the majority so I have no experience with that.

>Young people grew up with social media and are very savvy about segmenting their public persona from their private one. Young people understand intuitively that asking an edgy question on your public persona is an act of edginess in itself.

While that is true to a certain segment, I'd argue that the young people are actually worse than the older ones. There is a gap of those that experienced the internet before things like facebook/twitter became the face of the web, those i'd argue do fit the mold you're describing, the generation after them however? Their entire lives seem to be on the internet, with no regard for anonymity or oversharing with complete strangers, many dazzled by the idea of getting fame through those interactions and often turning what should be personal relationships with real friends into exclusively virtual interactions, and it compounds when you get older and you're further incentivized to put yourself publicly out there with LinkedIn and such. Of course there is a bit of a hyperbole but the point still stands.

>> "Their entire lives seem to be on the internet, with no regard for anonymity or oversharing with complete strangers, many dazzled by the idea of getting fame through those interactions and often turning what should be personal relationships with real friends into exclusively virtual interactions, and it compounds when you get older and you're further incentivized to put yourself publicly out there with LinkedIn and such."

This is exactly opposite of everything I've heard and seen. If anything, they're retreating from public places to Discords and private chats with friends to reduce the risk of becoming their school/community's main character. Opening up on public social media is seen as unacceptably risky.

edit: there's also the phenomenon where almost every weird, disingenuous, etc, callout in public is from someone under 20. It's fear-based performance. The action of someone still naive and inexperienced enough to think that if they seem virtuous, no one will come for them. It's been a huge problem on furry Twitter as the fandom gains more younger members with all the furry bait coming out of Disney, Pixar, and Netflix anime. It's how we got the sinful spine line and "any furry over 30 is sus" memes.

Oh yes, the proverbial wise young people who understand the world better. Not being able to be genuine on social media when they spend a large proportion of time "socializing" there clearly can't do any harm. In no way can this bring about a distorted view of reality and of what people actually think. No, not a chance, young people are savvy about these things.

Every source of media is a distorted view of reality. This has been true since the printing press was invented to today. There is no crystal ball.

I’m saying that young people can navigate the environment they were raised in effectively.

You mention “understand[ing] the world better” yet I made no comment about young people being wise and understanding the world.

My only claim is that young people are capable of navigating between public and private personas such that they can satisfy their intellectual curiosity. We are not, as the author claimed, intellectually stifled by fear of asking the wrong question.

Feel free to state why you think this is not true, rather than just offering a mocking tone.

It's not like people are genuine in real life though? Do you tell your coworkers about your politics, religion, or sex life?

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