Gen Y
Evolving the YouTube Generation
Jul 11th
This past Friday I interviewed Jason Silva and Max Lugavere, two 27-year-old producers and co-hosts of Current TV, the Emmy-award-winning cable network started by Al Gore in 2005 that has since become the fastest growing network in TV history. Picked out of hundreds of applicants, Silva and Lugavere have become the faces of the network, a role that earned them a reputation as pioneers within the emerging movement of web-enabled “citizen journalism” and “user-generated-content” the potential of which has been made so clear with the Iranian election protests. Read the rest of this entry »
Are You a Narcissist?
Jul 6th
I recently interviewed San Diego State University psychology professor Jean M. Twenge about her new book, The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement. The book is quite an achievement and deserves all of the attention it’s been getting from Newsweek and other media outlets. Bringing together an overwhelming amount of evidence from recent psychological research and pop cultural observations, Twenge creates a pretty solid case for the fact that the tendency toward self-obsession, overconfidence, and downright self-centeredness that was born out of the 1960s emphasis on the liberation of the individual has reached epidemic proportions. And as Twenge says, we’ve taken this hard-won individualism, which has brought so many important benefits to society, a bit too far. You can listen to a clip of the interview below.
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Why We Need to Compare Ourselves to Others
Jun 19th
This past weekend, I watched Kobe Bryant win his fourth National Basketball Association title as his team, the Los Angeles Lakers, defeated their opponent, the Orlando Magic, four games to one in a best of seven series. While the victory was definitely a team effort, Bryant, who was voted MVP of the play-offs, stood out above the rest, not only for his incredible performance, but more significantly for the maturity and leadership that he demonstrated throughout the arduous 100+ game journey that led to the championships.
To be honest, I have never been a Kobe fan. For most of his career he has exhibited a kind of brash arrogance on the court that has often repulsed both his opponents and his teammates and his controversial escapades off the court have won him little praise in the public eye. But something was different about him in this series. Read the rest of this entry »
Gen Y Reads Only 9 Minutes a Day
Feb 26th
…according to this article from Inter Press Service. But I suspect that doesn’t include reading IMs or txts.
Seduced by TV, the Internet, video games and text messaging, young people are famously reading less and less — 15-to 24-year-olds in the United States spend less than nine minutes a day reading for pleasure, according to 2008 U.S. Department of Labour statistics.
WWJGD?
Feb 26th
If you’ve never seen the superb 60 Minutes segment on Generation Y (who writhe about in the deepest, darkest depths of the postmodern swamp) titled “The ‘Millennials’ Are Coming,” it’s definitely worth checking out. And then you can watch this Gen-Y-made spoof of the 60 Minutes report, which poses the question that I’m sure is on many parents’ and employers’ minds: When it comes to Gen Y, what would Jane Goodall do?
Everything’s Amazing; Nobody’s Happy
Feb 24th
A friend sent me a link to this incredibly funny, insightful, and implicating video clip of stand-up comedian Louis CK appearing on Late Night with Conan O’Brien giving some examples of the extraordinary irony of our time: everything’s amazing and yet no one is happy. Check it out!!
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