People have different views of what it means depending on when and where they’ve grown up, making it difficult to measure or quantify. Excluding biological measures such as when children hit puberty, our understanding of childhood is largely a social construction. To understand how we measure growing up, it’s important to think about what most people mean by “childhood” and “adulthood”.
FEAR OF GROWING UP UPDATE
It may also be time to update what we think of as the milestones of maturation, and what it really means to grow up fast. Yet whether they are actually growing up more quickly may be a matter of perspective. Technology may be exposing kids to more, making them intellectually savvier. Gen Z are consistently reaching traditional markers of adulthood such as finishing education and leaving home later than previous generations, and studies have shown that teenagers are engaging in ‘adult’ activities such as having sex, dating, drinking alcohol, going out without their parents and driving much later than previous generations. Yet though many worry that kids may seem to be growing up too quickly, there’s also evidence that they could, in fact, be maturing more slowly. The theory has been around since the noughties, and ever since, experts have attempted to prove out the early demise of childhood by pointing to causes ranging from the age at which they get a smartphone, to the fact that kids are now watching more adult television programmes, to the problem of teenage girls being pressured to think about their appearance due to greater exposure to beauty ideals on social media.
Rooted in marketing, the idea is because of KGOY, kids have greater brand awareness, so products should be advertised to children rather than their parents. There’s a term for it: ‘KGOY’ or ‘kids getting older younger’, meaning children are more savvy than previous generations. The average parent allows their child a smartphone at age 10, opening up a world inaccessible to previous generations, with unlimited access to news, social media and other privileges previously reserved for adults, forcing them into emotional maturity before they reach adulthood.
FEAR OF GROWING UP FREE
Kids these days don’t get to be kids anymore, say the adults who remember a childhood free from the rules, oversight and digital pressures today’s young people navigate.