Beloit College releases it’s Class of 2013 Mindset list
I must admit that I find the Mindset list from Beloit College to be fascinating. Each year I look forward to their list because it does help to explain some of the cultural problems in dealing with young people.
Their overview of the Class of 2013:
Members of the class of 2013 won’t be surprised when they can charge a latté on their cell phone and curl up in the corner to read a textbook on an electronic screen. The migration of once independent media—radio, TV, videos and CDs—to the computer has never amazed them. They have grown up in a politically correct universe in which multi-culturalism has been a given. It is a world organized around globalization, with McDonald’s everywhere on the planet. Carter and Reagan are as distant to them as Truman and Eisenhower were to their parents. Tattoos, once thought “lower class,” are, to them, quite chic. Everybody knows the news before the evening news comes on.
Some of my favorite:
# The Green Giant has always been Shrek, not the big guy picking vegetables.
# They have never used a card catalog to find a book.
# The KGB has never officially existed.
# Text has always been hyper.
# Babies have always had a Social Security Number.
# They have never had to “shake down” an oral thermometer.
# Condoms have always been advertised on television.
# They have always been able to read books on an electronic screen.
# “Womyn” and “waitperson” have always been in the dictionary.
# Members of Congress have always had to keep their checkbooks balanced since the closing of the House Bank.
# There has always been a computer in the Oval Office.
# There has always been blue Jell-O.
Check out the full list at Beloit’s website. It really does explain why young people and us old foggies have problems communicating our basic understanding of the world is different in many cases.