Youngsters seem unable to walk normally nowadays.

Comhrá

I do a regular walk which brings me past a large private secondary school. If it's around 4pm the students are walking out to be collected by parents in their cars.

Observing the youngsters, the don't seem to stride at a normal pace, usually slowly ambling along, faces glued to their phones. I'm moving fairly briskly and usually have to step off the footpath to get past them, shuffling along two or three abreast, walking like old people.

Have they all lost the ability to move with a bit of purpose, or is it now just a thing to amble along as slowly as possible, or is it all part of being under the smartphone's insidious spell?

o1s1n

I don't remember ever really striding along at a fast pace as an adolescent, do you?

Jim_Hodge

Sounds much like it's been for generations (minus the mobile phones). You're now the cranky old man rushing past as you shuffled along years ago.

Gregor Samsa

It is no wonder the coal mines no longer employ youngsters, what with their dilly-dallying and lackadaisical demeanors.

Why, just yesterday morn, I observed one tardily exit a carriage, and amble - AMBLE, I say - down the thoroughfare. How does one expect to prosper on the battlefield against the Kaiser's troops with an attitude like that? I almost dropped my monocle!

Comhrá

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122875000#Comment_122875000

You're probably right! 🙂

Comhrá

Well I had to walk from school a lot more than the present day youngsters, that's for sure. As for pace, I'd say it was definitely a bit quicker than today's kids. No phone of course.

Larbre34

Dragging your feet and avoiding eye contact is every adolescents' God given right.

silliussoddius

LEAVE ME ALONE

taxAHcruel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058381864/youngsters-seem-unable-to-walk-normally-nowadays

You should go to Leeds sometime. I got the impression there that not just the kids but everyone there walked in this weird slow shuffle. I brought it up with my cousin who lives there and he said that yes the "Yorkshire Gait" is well known for it. :)

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122875030#Comment_122875030

I got some push back for letting my kids walk and cycle to school on their own on a thread a few months back. Though due the stupid search function on this "upgraded" site I can't find it now. I can't even remember what their issue with it was but apparently I was bad for letting them travel that far.

I keep phones out of my kids hands in general though. And generally they don't leave for school in the morning with TOO much time to be dallying either. Not skin of their teeth close on time but not oodles of wiggle room either. So they walk/cycle at a useful pace.

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122875030#Comment_122875030

It's definitely the phones. For a bit of crack, just stand still on the footpath now and again, and enjoy the chaos that ensues.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKlF4JL-4r0

LambshankRedemption

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058381864/youngsters-seem-unable-to-walk-normally-nowadays

It's not just young people. I was in the airport last week and remember thinking we should have 2 lanes, one lane for people who want to amble along while looking at their phones and one for people in a hurry who know where they need to be going.

Comhrá

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122875952#Comment_122875952

Yeah. It's fascinating how people both young and not so young, have become slaves to the phone.

The sight of three or more people at a table eating, little by way of conversation, all staring and scrolling, is a bit disconcerting.

No other gadget that I can think of, has had a more profound effect on how people behave or interact.

I'm not blameless either and I enjoy having a coffee and a scroll as good as anyone. It's how the phone has taken over so much of people's free time that I find fascinating. Sort of a comfort/ escape from boredom sort of thing. I'm sure behavioral experts have written articles about it.

thereiver

Its a new generation youngus mobilus guided by the light of the screen

Teens used to stare into space now they stare at a screen

You know your old when you start criticizing the young people,s behavior previous generations were worried about rock n roll jazz and comic books video games corrupting the youth

When I was a teen we walked or cycled home most parents did not have cars or they were at work

I wonder what's the correct age when your are allowed to walk home by your self

What do parents do who don't have a car

What happens in 30 years when YouTubers start to pass away will their channels be closed down

Her lies suPercoolMax gamerdude don't forget to press the bell like subscribe

I think when you are over 16 you prefer to cycle home by yourself cos parents are not cool

Theirs probably a phrase for this the slow mobile zombie shuffle

I wonder what trends will gen z start to hate as they are replaced by gen alpha as they grow into their 20s

The nearest thing we had to hi tech was a Sony walkman

Brian?

Mother of Jaysus, leave the young alone. There was a time we were the young and people gave out about us. We’re grand. They’ll be grand.

You’re being a tad critical

thereiver

You have reached teen maturity when you cannot bear to be. seen with your mum

mazdamiatamx5

Interesting. Do you perchance don a mack while you engage in this activity, OP?

StormForce13

At least those youngsters aren't mimicing the Conor McGregor swagger (or is it a strut?)! That may be because they're going to a private school!

yagan

Each to their own and all that but we are witnessing an altering of human concentration, and it's not just a generational thing. I see stolen attention happening amongst mobile users of all ages, especially worrying when driving and you can see drivers checking their screens.

cj maxx

grand-da gave out about daddy

Daddy gave out about me

I gave out about my children

Each of us were right in our own time.

It’s their time now 😳 who knows what else those crazy kids will do

thereiver

I,m not an expert i read professors at harvard or princeton are saying teens find it hard to read novels or books, eg young people who passed exams to reach third level education.

they spend so much time on social media ,looking at tik tok ,youtube, it takes hours to read one book.

you can spend hours looking at videos on tik tok or doom scrolling

Their attention span is reduced .

Parents are using ipads to keep kids quiet looking at cartoon videos. i see kids in prams looking at mobile phones.

i think every teen now has a tablet or a laptop and a games console ,

its hard to make time to read a novel in your spare time.

https://www.generationtechblog.com/p/are-books-dead-why-gen-z-doesnt-read

theres also a problem with some cars having large screens instead of mechanical buttons and drivers getting distracted .

i read alot of books when i was a kid there was only 5 tv channels ,

playstation 1 was almost ready for release.

now you can download free games and apps without spending any money .

i wonder do people under the age of 20 read any books apart from harry potter ?

in 10 years time will gen z be complaining about rude lazy teens

they,ll be probably be playing 4k games on playstation 7 by then .

thereiver

its a private school so all the parents have cars ,god forbid the kids might have to walk 2 miles home by themselves

gameoverdude

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122874896#Comment_122874896

I do

Comhrá

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122874896#Comment_122874896

I always walked fairly quickly. Getting to and from school in time trained me to step it out, until I was old enough to cycle.

That may be why I'm still a fairly fast walker in late middle age.

John_Rambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122876514#Comment_122876514

Any kids I know going to private school get public transport and walk, I'm urban based so it's more likely. Rural school kids tend to be driven door to door.

Hyperbollix

The only thing they have to worry about is their hairdo's and how many likes they got on Insta. We were like them once, (minus the Insta)

Let them enjoy their carefree youth. Their day of rushing around and eeking out a bit of free time will come soon enough.

Bogey Lowenstein

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122876491#Comment_122876491

It's true, young people's attention spans are getting shorter and shorter thanks to social media. If you look at Tiktok videos for instance, a lot of them have big subtitles that flash up as the person speaks, lots of memes and video clips spliced throughout, sometimes even footage of a completely unrelated fast-paced video game on the screen below them. They are using everything they can think of to constantly stimulate the viewer because they know that if the video is just them talking to the camera most young people will not watch it for very long.

taxAHcruel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122877760#Comment_122877760

I am not convinced. My daughter has friends who are all phone addicted and obsessed. Talking about Tiktok all the time and some influencers or others.

But I have a phone free house so if they come here they have to put the phone away and do other things. If they go to other friends house they don't. But time after time they choose to come here where they know the phones have to be put away.

I think their attention spans are fine. The difference is I give them things to hold their attention. Often for hours and hours at a time. Such as our Christmas project where I have gone all over Ireland picking up broken down and abandoned and unwanted bikes.

The girls have spent collectively 1000s of work hours breaking them into parts, individually cleaning each part often with a toothbrush and steel wool and painting them, and rebuilding them together into workable bikes. Learning skills along the way. And at Christmas the bikes are (all but one which is ear marked for my daughters recently acquired bully) going to go to children who can not afford bikes. We have been working most of 2024 on this project.

Their phones and tiktoks and influencers are entirely forgotten during working on this. And they seem to have no trouble focusing their attention.

I think the issue is that many parents do not take/have the time to invest the effort in giving things of actual interest to children to focus on. They take the easy out like the poster above talking about kids in prams clinging to phones. God forbid your toddler might communicate with you or make any demands of you while you push them down the supermarket aisle after all :)

Whenever I hear parents complain their own children are forever looking at phones I wonder if they have considered whether that's their own failing and not the kids'. Perhaps Tiktok is the symptom not the disease in many cases.

silliussoddius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122877760#Comment_122877760

It’s way too easy to blame this on the childer. I would suspect that the majority of people you see commuting on the bus or train spend as much time scrolling on their phone as they do reading a book. We also like to use the term “influencer” for the morons the yoof listen to, but there are a lot of podcasters etc. that “adults “ listen to that aren’t exactly MENSA material.

Comhrá

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122878571#Comment_122878571

Well, it's not a question of blame. The students aren't doing anything wrong as such. It's more of an observation than a condemnation.

I just find it almost a bit sinister how smartphones have changed people's interactions from where they might otherwise be focused on talking together.

It's a bit like mass hypnotism of sorts.

Even at another level, people now prefer to use WhatsApp to communicate than actually use their phones for speaking to each other. It's become almost an intrusion to phone someone out of the blue. I even had a few people text me asking if it's ok to ring? It's all a little ironic whereby the smartphones get more and more advanced every year, but people are more and more reluctant to use them for actually speaking to each other!

Perks

Try shuffling along at their pace when you hit the kids just out of school from a long day about to get into a car with parents section, you might learn something.

taxAHcruel

I do not think it is just the smartphone. I am 45 and I have memories from when I was in my mid teens of kids my age walking around in groups all on their individual Sony Walkman. Being "alone in a group" is by no means something that arose with the smart phone it seems.