Slashdot Mirror
Old People Enjoy Reading Negative Stories About Young
A study by Dr. Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick and co-author Matthias Hastall suggests that your grandma's self-esteem gets a boost when she hears about the stupid things young people do. "Living in a youth centered culture, they may appreciate a boost in self-esteem. That's why they prefer the negative stories about younger people, who are seen as having a higher status in our society," said Dr. Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick. From the article: "All the adults in the study were shown what they were led to believe was a test version of a new online news magazine. They were also given a limited time to look over either a negative and positive version of 10 pre-selected articles. Each story was also paired with a photograph depicting someone of either the younger or the older age group. The researchers found that older people were more likely to choose to read negative articles about those younger than themselves. They also tended to show less interest in articles about older people, whether negative or positive."
The youth is wasted on the young, but the decrepitude is aptly deployed on the geezers.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
That would explain why we've been told, since the beginning of time, that society is collapsing and "kids have no respect these days":
"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."
~ Socrates (399 BC)
Warning: This sig is not thread safe. For more information see Slashdot's sig policy.
"Trip and break your arm getting off my lawn! "
(which reminds me of the old joke...
A young person in a sports car cuts off an old lady in a Cadillac.
the old lady honks in irritation and the young person shouts out, "you were too slow! I'm younger and faster!"
to which the old lady guns her Cadillac into the sports car shouting, "Well I'm old and insured!"
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."
~ Socrates (399 BC)
Unfortunately, there is no evidence that Socrates ever said that. Your quote first appeared in the book Personality and Adjustment in 1953. There is no evidence of the quote before that date. See
http://www.bartleby.com/73/195.html
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=398104
Unfortunately, there is no evidence that Socrates ever said that. Your quote first appeared in the book Personality and Adjustment in 1953. There is no evidence of the quote before that date. See
If you want to get technical about it, there is no direct evidence of Socrates saying anything. Most of what we know about him is through second hand accounts.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
Youth-centered culture? Is that why the boomers are doing everything they can to ensure that no subsequent generation will have the same prosperity they did?
Followed by, "Low-Digit Slashdotters Enjoy Reading Stories About the Failures of Other Websites."
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
How does this compare with young people's enjoyment of negative vs. positive storeis about old people? Because unless such a study shows that young people enjoy reading positive stories about older people more than negative stories, I don't see that this study has shown anything surprising or interesting. In fact, I don't see how this wouldn't boil down to "People in Group A enjoy reading negative stories about opposite Group B". I bet Democratics enjoy reading negative stories about Republics, Atheists about Christians, Children about Parents, Men about Women, Gamers about Non-Gamers, Nerds about Non-Nerds, Straights about Gays, I could go on.
From the blurb at the top, it sounds as though the researchers could have misinterpreted their results. I can't imagine an old fuck (love ya Georgie) like me getting an ego boost from seeing young folk fail, except for the mentally challenged or those in the beginning stages of dementia. I don't have much time left and it does my heart good to see younger men and women succeeding in every human endeavor around the world which, of course, includes my children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews.
Yes, and it collapsed because their warrior class spent all their time playing "oil the spear" with young boys. See? Kids destroyed ancient Greece. Q.E.D.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."
~ Socrates (399 BC)
Unfortunately, there is no evidence that Socrates ever said that. Your quote first appeared in the book Personality and Adjustment in 1953. There is no evidence of the quote before that date. See
http://www.bartleby.com/73/195.html http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=398104
Although, from that second link, they make it clear that Plato claimed Socrates had made statements to that general effect, and Plato himself had directly stated something similar -- so while Socrates may not have said those specific words, it's pretty clear that both Socrates and Plato were saying things that were so similar as to be practically identical when the vagaries of translation are taken into account, as did Hesiod at roughly the same time. So the OP's point, that "the kids these days are all lousy slackers" was being made 3000 years ago, is still valid.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.