Immaturity Level Rising in Adults

Ant writes to tell us that a Discovery News article is exploring the old adage, "like a kid at heart", which may be closer to the truth than we would like to admit. New research is showing that grown-ups are more immature than ever. From the article: "Specifically, it seems a growing number of people are retaining the behaviors and attitudes associated with youth. As a consequence, many older people simply never achieve mental adulthood, according to a leading expert on evolutionary psychiatry."

To that I say...

[Aadain2001 (684036)]

They are all just poopy-heads! Big, smelly, ugly, poopy-heads!

Explaination

[Zemran (3101)]

Growing old is mandatory but growing up is optional... and I opted out.

Re:To that I say...

[Skidge (316075)]

They are all just poopy-heads! Big, smelly, ugly, poopy-heads!

Nu-uh! You're a poopy-head!

Resignation.

[haeger (85819)]

[Stolen from some website]

Adult Resignation
To Whom It May Concern:

I am hereby officially tendering my resignation as an adult.

I have decided I would like to accept the responsibilities of a 6 year old again.

I want to go to McDonald's and think that it's a four star restaurant.
I want to sail sticks across a fresh mud puddle and make ripples with rocks.
I want to think M&Ms are better than money, because you can eat them.
I want to play kickball during recess and paint with watercolors in art.
I want to lie under a big Oak tree and run a lemonade stand with my friends on a hot summers day.
I want to return to a time when life was simple.
When all you knew were colors, addition tables and simple nursery rhymes. But that didn't bother you, because you didn't know what you didn't know and you didn't care.
When all you knew was to be happy because you didn't know all the things that should make you worried and upset.
I want to think that the world is fair. That everyone in it is honest and good.
I want to believe that anything is possible.
Somewhere in my youth...I matured and I learned too much.

I learned of nuclear weapons, war, prejudice, starvation and abused children.
I learned of lies, unhappy marriages, suffering, illness, pain and death.
I learned of a world where men left their families to go and fight for our country, and returned only to end up living on the streets... begging for their next meal.
I learned of a world where children knew how to kill...and did.

What happened to the time when we thought that everyone would live because we didn't grasp the concept of death?
When we thought the worst thing in the world was if someone took the jump rope from you or picked you last for kickball?

I want to be oblivious to the complexity of life and be overly excited by little things once again. I want to return to the days when reading was fun and music was clean. When television was used to report the news or for family entertainment and not to promote sex, violence and deceit.

I remember being naive and thinking that everyone was happy because I was.
I would walk on the beach and only think of the sand between my toes and the prettiest seashell I could find.
I would spend my afternoon climbing trees and riding my bike.

I didn't worry about time, bills or where I was going to find the money to fix my car.
I used to wonder what I was going to do or be when I grew up, not worry about what I'll do if this doesn't work out.

I want to live simple again.
I don't want my day to consist of computer crashes, mountains of paperwork, depressing news, how to survive more days in the month than there is money in the bank, doctor bills, gossip, illness and loss of loved ones.
I want to believe in the power of smiles, hugs, a kind word, truth, justice, peace, dreams, the imagination, mankind and making angels in the snow.

I want to be 6 again.

.haeger

Re:Resignation.

[by Anonymous Coward]

I want to think M&Ms are better than money, because you can eat them.

Clearly you were unimaginative as a kid, and thus missed out on the special trip to the hospital.

I want to go back to the time when green was a flavour.

Who wants to be six again?

[SuperKendall (25149)]

Yes that's all very sentimental but why do you want to be six again, an age where from time to time you can sail a stick across a mud puddle but more often than not you are told you can't go near the mud muddle because you're wearing good clothes/at a wedding/supposed to stay dry? Who yearns for a time when everything is out of your control and sailing sticks across a pond is fun because you've still to undeveloped mentally to enjoy a good game of Risk?

I prefer a world where I have greater control over my freedom, where my education is in my own hands as is my destinty. A world where I can paint watercolors any damn time I feel like no matter what I'm wearing and while I am aware of nuclear weapons I can also dismiss such vapid fears casually to enjoy a warm summer day.

Being an adult is awesome if you just follow the golden words of Paul McCartney and let it be!

Burden is an illusion

[SuperKendall (25149)]

When you are 6 you are unburdened by the full weight of reality

What weight? Is there a physical cinder block upon you? Put it to the side then. All other weight, especially mental weight, is chosen by you. You are the one who decides if weight of your imagining is dragging you down or something to stand upon.

The point I am making is that being much older I have had many more experiences and am able to enjoy them in ways a six-year old is not, as I can enjoy more esoteric pleasure just as much as splashing in a puddle (alluded to in the words of the musical Chess with "The Queens we use would not excite you"). My higher level of awareness also leads to greater ability to experience joy. While it is true that also means a greater ability to experience esoteric suffering, I would not give my far vaster scope of ability to simply feel more just because sometimes there is pain. There was pain when I was six as well so what would be the difference except that by opting to stay six forever I would wish myself to be enclosed in a box.

Have you ever read Flowers For Algernon? There is a reason why that story is a sad tale instead of a joyous return to a blissful state of ignorance.

Re:Resignation.

[dhalgren (34798)]

I want that too.

Now I just have to find somebody to clothe, feed, and house me while I indulge myself.

Laugh or Cry

[by Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it's because as the world turns increasingly to s h i t, people develop a imaturity complex derived from the "laugh" half of the proverbial "laugh or cry" syndrome.

Re:Laugh or Cry

[cp.tar (871488)]

There is a reason why most stand-up comedians are people with a hard personal history.

Humour, cynicsm, sarcasm... all defence mechanisms.

Does this surprise anybody?

[agent dero (680753)]

With the focus in the past few decades on feelings, emotions, and our complete obsession with "our inner child." It's not surprising at all, it's been a while since we cared about some responsibility.

There's a reason people are suing everybody, there's a reason tobacco companies have been losing so much money in courts; we're like a cuontry of 8 year olds, always pointing at somebody else in the back of class that through the paper airplane.

That said, I think we're going to see a turn around with the generation in college right now, less divorces, less stupidity because it seems that more and more young people are sick and tied of the bullshit.

Re:Does this surprise anybody?

[node 3 (115640)]

There's a reason people are suing everybody

What, exactly, is wrong with suing someone? It's a legitimate and often necessary thing to do. There is no "plague" of lawsuits, the way you are trying to present it.

there's a reason tobacco companies have been losing so much money in courts

Yes, they are deliberately killing people. Or put more accurately, but lengthily, they knowingly lied about the medical risks and addictive qualities of cigarettes, portrayed them in advertisements as cool, including marketing that was deliberately designed to appeal to children, and, as if all that wasn't bad enough, they knowingly added ingredients which are very toxic and purposefully formulated cigarettes that are even more addicting than they naturally were!

That said, I think we're going to see a turn around with the generation in college right now, less divorces, less stupidity

Not gonna happen. The reason is that your lament is millennia old. Seriously. There are writings from ancient Greece and Rome that read exactly like the cranky old man of today, who decries the awful state of the youth "these days". If you want the divorce rate to go down, the number one thing you can do is to make it so that the middle class is strong and vibrant, and that people have great financial security and physical health. If you, on the other hand, make it so that both members of the married couple have to work long and hard just to scrape by, how can you possibly be surprised that the stress of daily life will have a detrimental toll on their marriage?

because it seems that more and more young people are sick and tied of the bullshit.

Wishful thinking made by someone who clearly hasn't turned on a television in the last 20 years. Just as it had always been, youth culture will reject the rigid demands of old coots like yourself. Just like always, there will be a segment of the youth who will be very responsible and upstanding. And just like always, life will go on and a whole new cadre of old coots will spout the same old nonsense about how the "youth of today" are worse than ever, just as it has always been for thousands of years.

Re:Does this surprise anybody?

[highonlife (942559)]

always pointing at somebody else in the back of class that through the paper airplane.

Did it happen during english class when they were teaching the word "throw"?

Re:Does this surprise anybody?

[Bloke down the pub (861787)]

we're like a cuontry of 8 year olds, always pointing at somebody else in the back of class that through the paper airplane.

Eight year olds can spell "country" and "threw". Now write both of them 100 times, or I'll keep you in at recess.

Not sure about this guy's definitions

[Bombula (670389)]

"immature ... in the sense of being unpredictable, unbalanced in priorities, and tending to overreact."

I'm not sure if that's the world's best definition of immaturity, since its corollary would suggest that maturity is defind by predictability, having balance of priorities (what does that mean?), and not overreacting (does that mean reacting appropriately - how do you define appropriate?).

I hate to reduce things to an argument over definitions, but this stuff seems a little fruity to me. I think a simpler definition of maturity is a willingness to accept responsibility for oneself and for others. By that definition, then we definitely do see a lot of immature, i.e.: irresponsible, behavior among adults - probably because irresponsibility no longer gets you eaten by lions and tigers and bears the way it did for our hunter-gatherer ancestors.

But this guy is definitely right about the value of maintaining mental elasticity as an adult. My grandfather is a good example. He was a prof at a big university and has always had an amazingly agile and adaptive mind. And today I got an email from him of some pictures he took on his digital camera that he doctored in photoshop. Th guy is 86 years old. Email went mainstream when he was in his late 70s, for God's sake.

It's all about definitions

[Silver Sloth (770927)]

From TFA

A "child-like flexibility of attitudes, behaviors and knowledge" is probably adaptive to the increased instability of the modern world, Charlton believes. Formal education now extends well past physical maturity, leaving students with minds that are, he said, "unfinished."

and

"By contrast, many modern adults fail to attain this maturity, and such failure is common and indeed characteristic of highly educated and, on the whole, effective and socially valuable people," he said.

So it looks like his definition of 'maturity' coresponds to my 'boring old fart', which, at the age of 53, I hope I'm not.

It's a symptom of the cause,

[centipetalforce (793178)]

...not the cause of the symptom. I hear jokes that sound ridiculous when heard from third person all the time that I might laugh at if told to me. But stupid jokes don't cause immaturity, nor vice versa necessarily. It does all depend on the taste and context though, as some third grad jokes are as good as ever if done in the right context and aren't done in a derisive or tasteless sense.

But the real cause of bad jokes is that people are as desperate as ever to be well liked. I blame that on the growing culture of sexual presumptiveness in our society. You can't just go up to a stranger and start conversing with them usually without her/him thinking your up to something, no matter how natural you are (unless you have a reason to be talking). People in general are paranoid, presumptive, and take themselves too seriously. They have nightmare stories in the back of their minds from 'Unsolved Mysteries' that tell them never to talk to strangers because they will rape and kill you!

At least, that's the way people are in my town. I dunno about yours.

Personal position

[heinousjay (683506)]

I can only speak for myself.

I reject the traditional concepts of maturity. I refuse to spend my life doing things I don't like because of some outmoded notion of 'have to.' The pressure to grow up, to think like an adult, is ridiculous and useless from an objective standpoint.

This doesn't mean shirking responsibility is part of the mindset. It simply means I try to retain a childlike viewpoint on the world. One of the most important things children have that most adults lack is a sense of wonder and discovery. The benefits are astonishing.

That said, I didn't actually read the article, as it were, so I may be wildly off-topic. In true immature fashion, whatever.

Responsibility is key

[SuperKendall (25149)]

I don't think the immaturity discussion at hand has really anything to do with becoming one of the Sheeple and conforming to expected norms. I think it has everything to do with accepting responsibilities. That I think is a growing problem that people seem to be less responsible than in the past...

I myself am happy to maintain a child like outlook on life but I also take responsibilities and commitments and relationships very seriously. Perhaps it is the erosion of serious relationships in society (and that could mean anything from partners to very close friends) that is tainting other aspects of life for some people.

Responsibility

[abdulwahid (214915)]

I think part of the problem might be that people are not forced to grow up and take responsibility at such a young age as they were before. I am now living in Africa but comparing my experiences to when I was living in the West I see this every day. Many children here have to take serious responsibilities in life from a young age. Perhaps they have to look after whole families or simply go out and find food every day for themselves. Regardless, when speaking to some of the young people you find that they are relatively mature.

Perhaps in the West people are too protected and hence don't need to grow up. Many people by the age of 18 have never gone to bed with hunger pains. They have probably never had a real job. They are probably given an allowance from their parents that they can go and waste on useless luxuries. The kids in the West are pampered and spoilt. No wonder there is a trend towards immaturity.

Re:Responsibility

[Planesdragon (210349)]

I think part of the problem might be that people are not forced to grow up and take responsibility at such a young age as they were before.

Nope, sorry.

The friends of mine who HAVE had to take responsibility at a young age, who HAVE gone to bed with hunger pains (and not out of choice) are far more immature and unable to take care of themselves than those of us who were children until the age of 18. Being introduced to hardship doesn't cause one to grow up faster -- it causes one to stop growing and start muddling through, even if they're not ready.

If you look at the rate of war, murder, and general chaos, you'll find that those regions of the world where children are not allowed to mature before being forced to act like adults are far worse off than places like the west. While I won't argue that western children are "spoiled" far more often than their african counterparts -- I think I'd rather my children be spoiled than broken.

A way to deal

[demon_2k (586844)]

I think that this is just a way for adults to deal with the stress of current day life. Or a side affect if you will.

Academics, eh?

[EnglishTim (9662)]

From the artice:

The theory's creator is Bruce Charlton, a professor in the School of Biology at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, England...
"People such as academics, teachers, scientists and many other professionals are often strikingly immature outside of their strictly specialist competence..."


I'm amused that he singles out academics, teachers and scientists - pretty much the exact description of people he has in his department. Not that I wish to suggest that the fine fellows at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne are in any way immature (I did my Bachelor's degree there), but I can't help thinking that his paper is by implication not exactly flattering to them.

Worldwide?

[Bazman (4849)]

Some people have commented that this is only happening in developed nations. But if it happens all over teh globe, would that make it a Peter Pan-demic?

It depends

[Vandil X (636030)]

Before we got married, my wife and I decided to not have kids. Over the years since and to this day, when people ask us why we don't have any kids, we simply say "We're not done being kids, ourselves."

And its true. We'd just rather spend all of that child-rearing money on ourselves and keep our options open (go out/take trips whenever), while not having to put up with the hassles of tending to kids.

I'm sure many traditionally-raised folks might see this as immature or selfish, but it all depends on the point of view.