Comment by format997 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by format997 | Hacker News Reader

I tend to see this type of article and the associated discontent with a protracted adolescence quite a bit on ycombinator, and I can't understand it as of yet. Is their really that much research suggesting that an extended education and a delayed maturation really is detrimental? Or is it more of a shared experiential resentment? Or is it just a resentment at the lack of flexibility and accommodation in our current system, a system that assumes that one size fits all?

In some ways, I wouldn't have minded earlier exposure to questions that forced me to discover my innate passions as opposed to continuing to be fed prerequisite course after prerequisite course. However, I can't say that this is equivalent to wishing that I had started my adulthood at age 15 (or earlier). Modern society is more complex, as are the roles that adults assume in modern society, and I presume that a protracted adolescence serves to give maturing adults longer to find their place in this increasingly complex society.

Is the resentment founded in the fact that we force everyone to extend their adolescence for so long? Or that such a period provides no usefulness whatsoever?

so you argue that it's okay to FORCE kids through school?

i wouldn't have been ready for the world at age 15, but maybe at age 19-20. now i'm 23 and i'm getting sick and tired of university. they don't even try to relate the stuff they teach to any real-world applications.

i realize that i've been depressed for a while now. it's affecting me physically now. i can't handle expectations these days. i avoid even thinking of studying for exams, which might be the third response of the fight-or-flight response. i can't manage my time. i'm always 20 minutes late to anything, even dates i set myself and that affect nobody else, even if i "account for" that usual delay, unless it's a one-time event and i'm making a real mental effort.

kids want choice, because they're not given any. expectations are the opposite of choice. i can't blame kids for turning out fucked up like they are.

I actually have experienced the same depression and listlessness you described, and I imagine a lot of it could be tied to the constant lack of choice and excessive amount of expectations that our current, mill-like educational system forces students through. I definitely agree with you that our system, one that burns so many kids out about caring about anything, needs an antidote. But, along the lines that you said, I don't think that the antidote is necessarily forcing kids to take on full adult responsibilities at age 15. I guess I can see a real-life-buffered educational system that allows for more responsibility and choices without going so far as asking kids to start working full time and living on their own at age 15.

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