Over at Dharma Folk, kudos makes an interesting series of points about the decline of faith among the world’s youth:
In this generation, the youth communicate through text messages, Facebook wall posts, and AIM instant messages. They express themselves through emoticons and profiles, identify themselves with online communities and Facebook groups, and voice concerns through forums and blogs (like us!). Now surely, with times changing, maybe Buddhism needs to change with it. I find the amount of free Buddhist resources on the Internet and the communities established online amazing but mainly targeted towards an older audience. If Buddhists can use what had been a distraction as a teaching tool or a way to appeal to the youth, maybe things will start to change.
I’ve taught high school students for nearly seventeen years, and while this certainly doesn’t make me an all-knowing authority, it does give me an interesting view of psycho-spiritual appreciations of youthful, suburban San Franciscans.
First, I’d say that they are at the high-tide of egoic development, continually caught between conflicting concerns. Am I competant? Am I inferior to my peers? Is this my identity? Will this confusion last? Am I liked? Am I worthy? All of these questions, and others, fill the minds of even the most outwardly grounded kids. But when you really push past their facades you get human beings with all the richness and complexity of adults. They are interested and curious about life’s deeper questions in ways that I couldn’t care less about when I was their age. This isn’t scientific, it’s anecdotal. It’s also pretty cool.
Second, they are products of their time, and this time is unlike what I experienced in the early 80s. It isn’t about wealth. It isn’t about the typical trophy-worshipping and vanity that I lived and breathed. Instead they seem to seek a deeper connection with things. All things. Facebook and Twitter allow for a felt sense of instantaneous interconnection. These connections spawn other connections to other people as well as other ideas. Their youthfulness is one of a deepening flexibility rather than uncovering an ideology that offers what they know to be false security. They look to enhance their connections beyond the bubble by spending their summers building homes for the poor and less fortunate in far off countries. They see that this time is a time that demands a certain sense of urgency and yet I’m continually amazed that the urgency they feel fuels something that extends way beyond the personal.
Third, as much as I might like to glorify these Millennials, these Gen Ys, they are still kids. They are still up to goofy, and often irresponsible activities consistent with kids that have been born from parental practices of excess. I see examples of self-esteem gone amok that serves only to set kids up for big developmental traumas. The parents didn’t mean to hobble their kids but at times its obvious that they have. For instance, entitlement abounds in entire families where pedigree is seen as something that merits special treatment. Working hard often gives way to working smart. But all that is really delivered in all of these smart offerings is a series of mediocre efforts that amount to, well, not much. And yet, the lesson that “I tried really hard” doesn’t mean “I have delivered excellence” is often lost on the kids as well as their boomer parents who still often believe that trying is all that counts.
Despite their lean into cool new evolutionary territory, the Millenials have work to do. In the same way, one might argue that Buddhism specifically, and traditions in general, are in the same boat. Will today’s crop of hyperconnected kids offer an adjustment to the way we spread the Dharma? Can the Dharma adjust the way we raise future generations of kids? Or will everyone’s burgeoning idealism get lost in the shuffle of these many global crises with which we’re becoming so intimate?
