AP: 1 in 3 teens says First Amendment goes 'too far'

This is why we don't let 18 year old kids determine Constitutional issues.

They'll think differently when they're older.

 

Exactly. This is not a supprise since kids don't have a clue. Demographics surveys have shown that kids are generally conservative when they are in their teens. Become liberal when they go to college and slowly become more conservative as they get older.

 

I'm glad I will be dead before one of these morons is elected President of the United States.

 

America, love it or leave it. Looks like 1/3 of today's teens should pack their bags and move to France.

 

Yea all of us young kids are idiots...right.

 

Looks like some Democrats want to lose the youth vote also.

People are making too much of this. If you grew up in a time when women and blacks didn't have the same rights as white men, yes, free speech was a huge issue. It's still highly important, but it's not at the forefront. The main issues now are terrorism, the economy, globalization, the environment, etc. And it's not like anyone is threatening to take it away.

"It turns out the First Amendment is a second-rate issue to many of those nearing their own adult independence." I could have told you that for free.

 

So 2/3rds think it is adequate.

That is 67%.....it is all perspective people.

DD

 

Exactly what I was thinking.

 

Todays youth are subject to infringements of their rights on a regular basis so it just becomes no big deal.

Random searches at schools
Random drug testing
Constant monitoring via camera

 

(CBS) If you've ever wondered why corporate America, Hollywood, Madison Avenue and the media all seem obsessed with the youth culture, the answer is simple.

The largest generation of young people since the '60s is beginning to come of age. They're called "echo boomers" because they're the genetic offspring and demographic echo of their parents, the baby boomers.

Born between 1982 and 1995, there are nearly 80 million of them, and they're already having a huge impact on entire segments of the economy. And as the population ages, they will be become the next dominant generation of Americans.

Who are they? What do they want? As Correspondent Steve Kroft reported in October, you'll be surprised.
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The oldest are barely out of college, and the youngest are still in grade school.

And whether you call them "echo boomers," "Generation Y" or "millenials," they already make up nearly one-third of the U.S. population, and already spend $170 billion a year of their own and their parents' money.

Almost none of it is spent on boring things like mortgages and medication. And the world is falling all over itself trying sell them things.

What brands do they love? Sony, Patagonia, Gap, Gillette, Aveda.

Only a small percentage are eligible to vote, yet they are already one of the must studied generations in history -- by sociologists, demographers, and marketing consultants like Jane Buckingham of the Intelligence Group.

Buckingham uses focus groups to gather information for clients such as NBC, Chanel, Nike and Levi Strauss.

Echo boomers are a reflection of the sweeping changes in American life over the past 20 years. They are the first to grow up with computers at home, in a 500-channel TV universe. They are multi-taskers with cell phones, music downloads, and Instant Messaging on the Internet. They are totally plugged- in citizens of a worldwide community.

Nick Summers of Columbia University and Andie Gissing from Middlebury College in Vermont are college seniors and editors of their college newspapers. They are both in touch with the echo boomer ethos.

"I would say that my generation tends to be very overachieving, over-managed," says Summers. "Very pressured."

"I would agree with that," adds Gissing. "A lot of people work hard or want to do well, I guess."

And it's no wonder they feel that way. From when they were toddlers, they have been belted into car seats, and driven off to some form of organized group activity. After graduating from "Gymboree" and "Mommy and Me," they have been shuttled to play dates and soccer practice, with barely a day off, by parents who've felt their kids needed structure, and a sense of mission.

Dr. Mel Levine, a professor at the University of North Carolina, is one of the best-known pediatricians in the country. He says it's had as much to do with shaping this generation as technology.

"They have been heavily programmed. The kids who have had soccer Monday, Kung Fu Tuesday, religious classes Wednesday, clarinet lessons Thursday. Whose whole lives have really been based on what some adult tells them to do," says Levine.

"This is a generation that has long aimed to please. They've wanted to please their parents, their friends, their teachers, their college admissions officers."

It's a generation in which rules seem to have replaced rebellion, convention is winning out over individualism, and values are very traditional.

They are also the most diverse generation ever: 35 percent are non-white, and the most tolerant, believing everyone should be part of the community.

Historian Neil Howe, along with co-author William Strauss, has made a career studying different generations. Howe says all the research on echo boomers always reflects the same thing: They are much different than their self-absorbed, egocentric baby boomer parents.

"Nothing could be more anti-boom than being a good team player, right? Fitting in. Worrying less about leadership than follower-ship," says Howe. "If you go into a public school today, teamwork is stressed everywhere. Team teaching, team grading, collaborative sports, community service, service learning, student juries. I mean, the list goes on and on."

Howe thinks they are more like their grandparents, the great World War II generation -- more interested in building things up than tearing them down.

"When you ask kids, 'What do you most hope to achieve there?' Where they used to say, 'I wanna be No. 1. I wanna be the best,' increasingly they're saying, 'I wanna be an effective member of the team. I wanna do everything that's required of me,'" says Howe.

And you can already see some results. Violent crime among teenagers is down 60 to 70 percent. The use of tobacco and alcohol are at all-time lows. So is teen pregnancy. Five out of 10 echo boomers say they trust the government, and virtually all of them trust mom and dad.

Through sheer numbers, they're beginning to change society. They have affected school construction, college enrollments, product development, and media content. And according to Buckingham, they are changing the way things are sold, from clothing to cars, because mass marketing doesn't always reach them.

"They're not watching the traditional networks as much because they have so many choices. They're playing on the Internet. They're playing videogames," says Buckingham. "They're out and about shopping a lot. So, the traditional 30-second commercial isn't always working the way it was."

They are the most sophisticated generation ever when it comes to media. They create their own Web sites, make their own CDs and DVDs, and are cynical of packaged messages. They take their cues from each other. A well-placed product on one of their pop idols, like Paris Hilton or Ashton Kutcher, can launch a brand of $40 T-shirts and trucker hats. But they also shop at vintage clothing shops.

Buckingham employs the services of some 1500 young people scattered around the country, and relies on their regular reports on what's hot and what's not to keep her and her clients ahead of the latest trends.

"One of the things with this generation is word of mouth. Buzz is more important today than it's ever been," says Buckingham. "And that can get started on the Internet. That can get started just through friends. And it's very hard for a marketer to tap into that unless it's really a product that they like."

Toyota is already betting hundreds of millions of dollars to try to create that buzz, in launching a car division aimed exclusively at echo boomers.

"They've affected clothing. They've affected beverage. And now, they're just about to affect the car business," says Jim Farley, head of Toyota's Scion division.

Toyota is quietly peddling its new $15,000 cars, with air conditioning and power windows, by sponsoring events like street basketball/break dance festivals, where they always have cars on hand for people to look at and sometimes even test drive.

"People kind of just stumble on our product, and it's cool that way," says Farley. That's what the company wants. "This is like regular car companies are on TV. This is our regular activity. This is how we expose our cars to young people."

Seventy percent of Scion's promotion is being spent on those events. Only 30 percent is spent on traditional advertising, and much of that is on the Internet, where echo boomers can fill out a Scion order form, customize their car with 40 different options, and drop off the form at the dealership without ever hearing a sales pitch.

It's early yet, but Farley says Scion is meeting its sales projections: "I think how we've looked at it is that we can't afford not to do this."

Echo boomers have their own television network, the WB, and their own stores, with multimedia presentations and disc jockeys to lure them in the door. It's a generation used to being catered to.

"They are more protected," says Howe. "They regard themselves as collectively special, because of the time in which they were raised."

Why do they consider themselves special?

"Because they came along at a time when we started re-valuing kids. During the '60s and '70s, the frontier of reproductive medicine was contraception," says Howe. "During the '80s and beyond, it's been fertility and scouring the world to find orphan kids that we can adopt. ...The culture looked down on kids. Now it wants kids; it celebrates them."

Echo boomers are the most watched-over generation in history. Most have never ridden a bike without a helmet, ridden in a car without a seat belt, or eaten in a cafeteria that serves peanut butter.

"Sometimes, they don't know what to do if they're just left outside and you say, 'Well, just do something by yourself for a while,'" says Howe. "They'll look around stunned. You know, 'What are we supposed to do now?'"

They're hovered over by what college administrators call "helicopter parents." Protected and polished, they are trophy children in every sense of the word.

"Everyone is above average in our generation," says Summers.

"Everybody gets a trophy at the end of the year. It's something you're used to," adds Gissing. "And you have the rows of trophies lined up on your windowsill, or whatever."

"Parents feel as if they're holding onto a piece of Baccarat crystal or something that could somehow shatter at any point," says Levine. "And so parents really have a sense their kids are fragile. And parents therefore are protecting them, inflating their egos. Massaging them, fighting their battles for them."

Levine, who is considered one of the foremost authorities in the country on how children learn, is now researching a book on young people entering their 20s. He is concerned that groupthink is stifling initiative. And because they have always been rewarded for participation, not achievement, they don't have a strong sense what they are good at and what they're not.

For instance, when a young person shows up for work at his or her first job, what do they expect and what are they finding?

"They expect to be immediate heroes and heroines. They expect a lot of feedback on a daily basis. They expect grade inflation, they expect to be told what a wonderful job they're doing," says Levine.

"[They expect] that they're gonna be allowed to rise to the top quickly. That they're gonna get all the credit they need for everything they do. And boy, are they naive. Totally naive, in terms of what's really gonna happen."

Levine says that is not the only part of their cultural conditioning that's going to require an adjustment in the workplace.

"I talked to the CEO of a major corporation recently and I said, 'What characterizes your youngest employees nowadays?'" says Levine. "And he said, 'There's one major thing.' He said, 'They can't think long-range. Everything has to be immediate, like a video game. And they have a lot of trouble sort of doing things in a stepwise fashion, delaying gratification. Really reflecting as they go along.' I think that's new."

Levine calls the phenomenon visual motor ecstasy, where any cultural accoutrement that doesn't produce instant satisfaction is boring. As echo boomers grow up, they'll have to learn that life is not just a series of headlines and highlight reels.

But this may be something that, for now, echo boomers can deal with.

"What would you call your generation?" Buckingham asked Scott, one of her focus group participants.

"Perfect," he says, laughing.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/10/01/60minutes/main646890.shtml



Are you in?

 

This is true to a certain extent. I've never felt like this is an infringment on my rights, though because I don't do anything illegal so I have nothing to be worried about. Search my bag, you won't find anything. You're just wasting your time because I have to be at school anyways.

Most of today's youth operate by a social contract type of mindset. Most of us feel that "we'll do what's necessary to feel protected (and sadly sometimes things that we don't feel are necessary)." If this means checking my bag before I go to school so I know nobody brings a gun to school, then yea it may be an incovenience but at least I can go through my day feeling safe. Most of us realize a couple of these things go overboard but unlike a lot of the older generation we understand that it's sometimes necesary to prevent something from happening instead of dealing with it after it happens. Anytime something happens you hear "we never thought it could happen here." I guess most of the youth today don't mind going through these things to make sure "it doesn't happen here."

*shrugs*

 

Different strokes for different folks. If anyone asked my 13 year old honor student to pee in a cup in order to participate in after school activities, or for any other reason, I would go ballistic. I think the erosion of our rights, including the rights of those still in school, is an abomination. The casual acceptance of said erosion of personal freedoms frightens me as much as the erosion itself.

If this country isn't careful, it's going to wake up one morning realizing that we ("they" ...because I don't fit this category) have casually lost a large part of what makes this country special.



Keep D&D Civil!!

 

Why would this bother you? It's an EXTRACURRICULAR activity, so it's not a right of all students. If the student wishes to participate they should be subject to whatever the school deems necessary to keep schools drug free.

Your kid would be free to do whatever s/he wants outside of school but if they want to be a part of the school's extra activities and they don't have to; it's not like they give drug tests to attend class or anything.

It's the same as applying for a job. I've taken 3 drug tests for jobs with no problem because I knew they wouldn't find anything. It's not like I felt threatened by co-workers or anything but it was policy so I went along.

And the fact that your child is an honor student doesn't really have any impact in this situation (not meant to be disrespectful). Being in honors classes all my life I can tell you that some of the most rampant drug use is among those in advanced or honors classes. Again, I'm not saying that your kid does drugs just pointing out the fact that sometimes drug use is the most rampant in the sectors of the schoolyard outsiders don't usually expect.

 

Because you know some honors kids who use drugs doesn't mean it's the MOST rampant in places outsiders wouldn't expect. Statistically drug use is most rampant in students who aren't involved in extracurricular activities.

It does go on in most sectors of school life to some degree, but it generally isn't kids who are into sports, drama, band, whatever, after school, that get heavily into drugs. It's the kids who don't get involved in anything.

 

My experience and the experience of many others I know is that the ones involved in the extra curricular activities are the most likely to do drugs. Perhaps we're just the exception, it's quite possible. But if you ask any youth to name some names, most of those names (I would bet) would be kids involved in extracurricular activities.

 

apparently it is different strokes. i wouldn't have felt at all outraged and my parents wouldn't have either if someone wanted a urine sample for an extracurricular activity in high school (way back in the day like 7 years ago). i would've thought it a little weird, peed in the cup, and went on about my day. the article is somewhat true, most people my age probably don't feel naturally suspicious or worried about crap like that. i would think anybody i know would feel like me, it's no big deal. it's not looked upon as an infringement on our privacy or as some sort of slippery slope we have to be careful of (sorry for the preposition to end the sentence).


my generation (technically i was born in Nov 1981 but i'm lumping myself in) is a lot like what the article said (especially the perfect part). but i will say i never wore a helmet when i rode a bike as a kid.


and if i think people should be able to tell the KKK to **** off when they wanna march even though the 1st amendment says they can, does that mean i think it goes too far?

 

I would be the last person to tell you not to tell the KKK to **** off. Go for it!


By the way, my point was directed at the erosion of our civil rights. If some of you think it's just an "inconvenience," then you are certainly entitled to believe that, and to say it. That's a civil right as well.

I not naive enough to think a person's intelligence and academic performance means they will or won't use drugs. People, including teenagers, will do what they will do. A parent just does the best they can do raising them. If the grades are there, and the kid is respectful when appropriate, stays out of trouble... why should they be presumed guilty of something without any reason. To me, that shows a lack of reason, and intellectual laziness.

Participating in extracurricular activities that bring credit to the school, and the teachers of those students, shouldn't be used to tell those same outstanding students that, "We don't trust you. We don't care what grades you have, what honors you acquire, how beloved you are by many of your teachers... we think you might still be a criminal, and dishonest. The room is on the right. Pee in the cup."


Keep D&D Civil!!

 

You mean only 33% of teens don't have a freaking clue when it comes to the constitutional protections they enjoy? Shocking... I would have thought the number would have been a lot higher.
Way to go teens, youre not nearly as clueless as I thought you were.