I am finding that I have very different perspectives on the world of adolescents than I did when I was a full time parish based youth minister. I have always benefitted from the viewpoint of the teacher and coach that I am married to – even though I find school a totally different animal than youth ministry. Jane shares with me insights to the world of school that I have always appreciated. What I gain from her is a glimpse into a world I would otherwise be totally ignorant of. With three teenagers at home I have the parent perspective, which has its blessings and challenges. So, my days always include stories of school from both my wife and kids. It seems like our conversations are always about teenagers (which is rather normal for me).
I had an interesting conversation the other day with Jane. It got me wondering if our society has created monsters. You may be thinking… “duh! Of course we’re dealing with monsters.” In our generation (old people like Jane and I), television was quickly becoming the babysitter and default entertainment/time waster. We were possibly the first generation of kids raised in the world of sitcoms. Consequently, as teacher and youth minister we both were told that television had shortened the attention span of kids. All problems and conflict were resolved (on televison) in 30 minutes. Mysteries only took an hour! No one had to pay attention for more than about ten minutes before the next commercial break. Think for a moment about the impact of that perspective which is so different to reality.
Now the question is how is the internet impacting kids? Just to see the way Facebook has changed our communication is stunning! As a teenager, it was a bit chicken to ask a girl out (or break up) on the phone. Now that is left to the vastly more impersonal Facebook. We used to have to read people’s emotions and ask how they were doing, now we just check their status. Interaction has changed and we have all become something of stalkers. (said with a little humor here) Everything is instantaneous. I grew up with just a fast food culture where we wanted it quickly.
Here is the real question. Have we created ADD monsters? I constantly hear stories from school (both from Jane and my kids) about students riddled with ADD. I realize that this is a serious disability that some people suffer from but I also constantly hear people joke about having “an ADD moment”. By that they mean their attention was lost or distracted for a moment. In fact, I feel like much of the time I am distracted or my attention is lost. (no old age jokes please) Have we (our society) created a culture that is attention deficit? If so, then we need to think carefully how we communicate important truth. How do we share the gospel? How should we teach scripture? Perhaps we need to look more closely at active learning and engaging the senses and move away from traditional ‘youth talks’. We could turn this problem on its head and change the way we communicate to accommodate the attention deficit generation. At the same, perhaps we should keep in mind that our students will sit for hours in a good movie. Does that suggest kids really can concentrate for long periods of time if we can just engage them in what is going on? Maybe the guy who insists that we only do ten minute youth talks has got it backward. If we think more creatively about how we communicate, perhaps we can truly engage this generation rather than cater to it. Have I just contradicted my thinking? Oops, another “ADD moment”.
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