Young & Meaningful

Elise Beal notes a Japanese philosophy of finding pleasure in the small things, and matches it with an online trend.

- Elise Beal

“Our generation is so screwed.” I hear it everywhere on social media, and whispered in-between the lockers at the high school (I am a sixteen year old girl who thinks a lot, and notices more). As we read the headlines and succumb to the fearmongering, the endless nihilism stemming from the infinite trove of bad news that teenagers are exposed to online seems suffocating. I observe my friends and peers as they turn on their phones in the morning, faces blank despite the absurd amount of content we consume: social media, online articles, and various types of messages from both the loved and unloved, all read in the blink of an eye with a passive glance. It is impossible to deny the impact this technology has had on the younger generation’s minds. I even researched this article on my phone — reading studies while mindlessly following my sister through the airport, never appreciating the fact that an abundance of mental stimulation is available to me.

With my generation of young adults, we are seeing how modern trends reflect a reformation in traditional philosophical thinking in response to societal change. And so, through quietly observing and spending long nights thinking and staring at the ceiling, I’ve come to notice patterns in how the young people around me perceive their existence, and how they have their own novel ideas about the world and their place in it.

Despite my own ramblings, I can assure readers that the average teenager is averse to thinking about philosophical concepts and wider issues of the universe, lest they have an existential crisis at sixteen. There is simply too much to think about, between school and sports and whatever else my friends choose to fill their days with. However, there is a simple way to discuss how this demographic copes with the existential undertones caused by the endless bad news.