Growing Up today

I agree with Mr. Christopher’s opinon that growing up today is really different comapared to our former gnerations. The first generation to grow up with the Internet and all it has wrought in the cultural mainstream is beginning to come of age. It is a generation for whom 900 numbers and scrambled scraps of flesh on the Spice channel have given way, in a few short years, to bulk e-mail ads for the Paris Hilton sex tapes and porn subplots on “The O.C.” It is a generation in which sexual frankness has become a permanent feature of the landscape, with uncertain long-term implications. Images and subject matter that were stigmatized a generation ago now flow and multiply from one mass medium to another, turning yesterday’s taboo into today’s in-joke. Adult film actress Jenna Jameson has moved from X-rated DVDs and downloads to the bestselling sex manual “How to Make Love Like a Porn Star” and, last year, a VH1 documentary. Dance moves once associated with strippers are as common on MTV as tight pants on rock stars. Pamela Anderson and Paris Hilton are famous equally for their TV work and their downloadable bootleg sex tapes. When he states, “Find a teenager and ask her if she thinks she will grow up to lead a free life…nearly every one of these 11th and 12th graders said ‘no’.” This hits home because I too do not believe that I will live freely. Everything has rules; this may be for the best, but I still feel like I can’t be myself when rules are involved sometimes. Rules can make things boring and unmemorable. Learning from our mistakes is what makes us human. I also agree that, living in today’s society, it is harder for our generation to succeed. “They are far more likely to be diagnosed with a psychological malady of the stress, depression, or attention-deficit variety and to be medicated.” These disadvantages want me to get rid of the numerous assignments given to us, but I still feel like the disorders are not the worst that can happen to us if or when we give up education