Week Starters
Start your week on the right foot with these informative topics regarding world issues and relevant topics
by Corey Gray ![]() I’ve been thinking a lot as of late about how my sixteen years old friends act more mature than my twenty-one year old friends. About how you can scroll through Instagram and see fifteen year old makeup artists. When I was fifteen, everyone I knew was just worried about acne and little cute crushes. Now it seems like people are maturing at a much earlier age, and I want to explore that idea. I’m nineteen, only one year out of high school. While in high school, there were obvious changes from class to class concerning maturity in different regards. Of course, the observations I’m going to get into could’ve been completely random. Everyone is different, so the classes could’ve just had a lot of a certain kind of person, but I believe the changes were so specific to our societal context that it’s less than random. My grade was the first to full-heartedly embrace social
media. We were the kids Snapchatting everything and Instagraming in class. We were still awkward teens, though, and looked at it as just a fun way to share a moment with your friends. Overall, I would say we were an immature group in many ways, romantically, sexually, aesthetically, and intellectually. Nothing had really come together with us. We were still all growing, which a lot of people argue is the best way for a teen to be; growing and enjoying their spry youth. I noticed a change when I was a junior. The freshmen class that year showed a distinct change from the current student body. They seemed more aware, not only of themselves, but also the world. Of course, my grade was by now much more aware of everything, but these kids were two years younger than us, and in some ways, but definitely not all, they were closer to equals with us than felt natural within the high school hierarchy. In that freshman class, I saw confidence and a sense of self. They came into high school with a gusto that I wasn’t expecting, and I am honestly think it’s an affect of the rise of social media and the technological age. Now, I’m not old, but when I was younger I didn’t even know what the word “gay” really meant until I was about 9. The area I grew up in is small and everyone is really the same, and I didn’t have a smart phone or high-speed Internet, let alone my own laptop. I grew up in the middle of the woods in Maine, a state known for nature, not diversity and representation, or technology, and that reflected in my age group. We were all very much molded by our parents and our community, and no one really had much distinct individuality. Then that freshman class came in, and turned that upside down. Rather than being molded only by the area, they also had the influence of the Internet and social media on them. They were so much more woke than my grade was at their age. They were exposed to diverse thoughts and opinions and news from a much earlier age, and finally self-expression was more welcomed. The next year, the incoming freshman class was like the one before them, but times ten. I was seeing tons of different gender expression (something I didn’t even think about when I was their age), tons of knowledge about the world and current events, very well thought out opinions, and a very welcoming group. This was the year that I started a Gender & Sexuality Alliance at my school and the members were primarily from this freshman grade, and the grade above them. People like to write the social media babies off as superficial for being so aware of their appearance, overly sexual for not shying away from a topic that should be talked about more at that age, and too technology obsessed for having their eyes glued to a screen all day. They don’t acknowledge that these teens are gaining so much from the boundary transcending quality of social media. They are no longer confined to the area they grew up, they are exposed to so much more early on. I can honestly say that the younger teens that I’ve met as I’ve grown into my last year of teen-hood have blown me away with their confidence, morality, and perseverance. Social media has given them a voice, so I’ve found so many young activists who are fighting just as hard, and even harder with their online presence than people I know in college. They are still young, and of course they make mistakes, but I really think we need to celebrate the social media babies more. The ones in my life are a constant inspiration, and we should all try to celebrate them more, rather than belittle them.
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