Here’s why the younger generation is taking it way too easy

Let’s recap.

There is freedom and opportunity brought about by the internet. Obviously, that is quite positive.

 If I want to see a street, house or cafe in London and I’m in Dodoma, Kigali, or Lusaka, I just tap Google Maps.

 As easy as spitting.

 I remember back in 1978 I was living in Mwananyamala, Dar es Salaam, and corresponding with friends in Japan via posted letters that took weeks. We were pen pals. Those days, “pen-palling” was akin to today’s Facebook. When they told me about their town, I had to travel to the only credible library in the city. Maktaba had encyclopaedias. These huge encyclopaedias were the Google of that era. From there, I saw where my friends were actually from. By the time they physically strolled into Mwananyamala Kisiwani in 1979, I had a rough idea where they were from. They said the same thing about me. They used encyclopaedias to locate Dar es Salaam too.

We are now in 2023 and need a perspective. How do young people operate?

Abdi Sultani’s column last Friday not only hinted at, but also brought our sub-editors’ tough gig to attention.

“Please pray for our newsroom elites we call sub-editors. These should be focused on deviations in grammar, brevity, clarity and facts, right? But no, they have to waste time ensuring reporters’ text has Kassim Majaliwa and not “kassim majaliwa” or Moshi, Kilimanjaro, instead of “moshi, kilimanjaro!” And that from the pen of someone who holds college credentials!”

This is quoted from his “Our Kind of English” column, which also appears on this page. Mr Sultani has been doing a fantastic job highlighting our relationship with the second official, commercial language.

A few years, ago I dared suggest “corrections” for a social media blogger’s atrocious language. He was terribly offended.

Each time I see someone writing “long” instead of “wrong”, I get the typical generational explanation – BUT YOU UNDERSTOOD WHAT I MEANT, DIDN’T YOU?

Where is education squatting today?

Here in Europe, there is a rise in the so-called “mental health problems” among young people. Things that we went through and contended with 50 years ago are now considered “torture”.

I admit that when I was in my mid-teens, if I was summoned to the headmaster’s office, I would know what to expect.

 Those days it was rare and you knew you had done something horrendous. You knew how many strokes were due on your backside.

These days?

I don’t know.

I just know here in London there are many tales of teachers being wary of hurting “children’s feelings” and even end up sobbing sometimes.

Check this recent social media narration:

“One morning when the said teacher walked into the classroom with a hand in the air, a boy asked her, ‘Why the hell can’t you treat us properly?’ Teacher reacted by storming to his desk to shout to him and he reacted by standing up and pushing her forcefully into a cupboard and locking the door. When someone eventually managed to unlock it, she was in tears.”

Teachers weeping in front of children?

Fifty years ago?

No way.

Apart from “behaviour”, how about the stress issue?

GSCE exams (called Form Four exams in East Africa) are considered the most stressful for students and lately, yoga has been introduced to help children cope.

And back to the theme.

Why are writing and language standards so bad, especially among those born after 1990?

Is it because they are handled like cotton wool and eggs?

Is it because of the “text speak” language where you text someone “wht r u dn 2-day?” instead of “what are you doing today?”

Has the text and internet lingo contributed to the demise of literary standards?

In 1979, I had to travel for an hour to find an encyclopaedia to learn about a Japanese town. In 2023, it only takes seconds. Google or Bing shall inform Ogasawara is the cleanest city in Japan. In 1979, pornography was banned in Tanzania. In 2023, porn is readily available through phones that youngsters carry. No wonder (according to doctors and pharmacists), we have a surge in dwindling sexuality among the under-40s.

Retired journalist Abdi Sultani is empathetic towards our sub-editors. A symptom of falling standards in the era of…how should we put it? Short attention span, literary deficiency, Tik Tok videos, laziness to read books and long prose. And if so, how do we manage and improve our short-attention span generation?