Are people getting more fragile?

[Gheld]

An observation I've made (since I work in heavy labour, and have the honour of having a birthday that puts me right in the transitional period between generation X and Generation Y) is that people who are younger than me by more than a couple of years tend to end up on "modified duty" due to repetitive stress injuries more frequently than people who are less than a couple of years younger or older, in fact the only time this seems to happen is after they leave work on a stretcher. I'm going to be generous and put the cutoff point for the two halves of this story at 25 and I'm not trying to wage generational warfare, the question is:

What is up with my observation?

Are younger people becoming more fragile because of poor diet and lifestyle?
Are younger people becoming wimpier due to increased coddling and streamlined access to health services?
Or Are older people just unnecessarily ruining themselves with cowboy attitudes when it comes to on-the-job injury?
Or is my observation explicable by random chance and not a real phenomenon?

[helma]

Well people are getting more Whimpier atleast in my country.

All the people used to ride moped, now alot of em ride those gay scooters.. and even guys ride Vespa's WHAT.

Atleast i still drive a moped with gear like some other guys.


But i work in the forests kinda lumberjack. and well there aint much people of my generation who can do this. most people want an office job.
Why? i dont know but the people at my school.. also lumberjack kinda school all of us has those oldskool phones. none of us has the internet phones with touch screen.


perhap's we're not so cool but atleast we're men and not those kind of ''things'' that call themself men these days.

and then i'm talking about these kind of guys.
you know ugly jacket with huge animal fur on it earing ect.
oh only pic i could find but alot of 'white'' people in my country also EXACTLY dress like them... and sitting on a vespa where's this going

[greysaber]

Then you have all these 'males' that are obsessed with toys my sister liked when she was 7. (my little pony)...

[Fahrenheit]

My wife is a teacher (5 and 6 grade) and she tells me all the time that we (society) are raising a generation of overweight, socially inept pussies. I agree.

[vindicatorx]

I think a lot of younger people just like to complain more. most think they are "different" or "special" and have yet to realize their perception of the world around them isn't how the real world opperates. If I have a shitty job to I don't generally ask why or complain about it I just do it. I hear a lot of younger people ask why a lot and honestly I think they learn as they age that there is no point in asking why.

[Illuwin]

voted 2nd from bottom. 26, my younger brother (19) could probably run circles around me physically as could tons of his friends, although in my college years we'd be evenly matched. He's a Jock, though, my older brother (28) is the opposite, he was more intellectual type. It's just who you run into at any given point in time... men will be men and boys will be boys.

I think over time its just becoming more 'accepted' to become less "manly" as a male, so you see more examples of boys wearing outlandish stuff or doing non steriotypical manly things when before it would have been more hidden. If you compare now (2012) to the turn of the century (2000's) it was a lot more "trendy" in 2000 to be metro or feminine than it is now, a lot of that to do with what was being produced tv-wise.

[xylophone]

I vote a mix of 2 & 3 on your observations in the OP.

[Feral404]

I believe it just depends. Maybe person X does a job that is very physically demanding and person Y doesn't. Maybe person X has suffered countless bodily injuries and person Y hasn't. There's too many lurking variables to be absolutely sure. But then of course there are just those people that are just fragile.

Off topic- The I like beans made me laugh.

[melodramocracy]

In the states, there are probably several reasons for this:

a) if you look at it from a generational point of view, there's probably far more 'over-parenting' going on now.

b) manual labor is, as time goes by, simply less required due to machinery etc etc.... hence, folks do less physical labor overall. Combine that with diets, and the athleticism of a cubicle jockey, there certainly could be a perception of folks getting more fragile. Certainly from an attitude point of view.

[Nengal]

I honestly think the underlying issue here is that very few children play outside anymore. Recess has been removed in most middle schools and drastically cut or removed in lower grades. Inside, there's video games, FaceBook, and TV to keep kids occupied. When kids do go out, they usually go to the movies or the mall or whatever kids do now. Whatever it is, it isn't running outside and playing.

On top of lowered activity levels, food choices for children and young adults now are horrible. I walked into Lowes Foods the other day and saw a chicken pot pie in the frozen food isle. Oh man. This thing... Looked like a dinner made by Jesus Christ himself. Then I turned it over and looked at the facts.... This meal had well over 100% of your fat intake for the day and like 3000mg of sodium with virtually no protein.

And I can only imagine fast food is just as bad. And soda virtually replaces water and MILK in the diets of MANY younger people. The only time I ever drink soda is on the rare occasion I have alcohol in it or if I'm in another country where I don't trust the water supply so I get bottled coke. And who knows what the long term effects of preservatives and crap are...

Lack of activity and poor food choices have crushed the health of young people in America and it is spreading.

(And yes, I know not all kids/young adults are like this, but an overwhelming majority are.)

[Deleted]

Then you have all these 'males' that are obsessed with toys my sister liked when she was 7. (my little pony)...

Hey, hey, hey! Woah, woah, woah! Let's not drag Equestria into this! And besides, is this guy a 'male'?



OT: Over political-correctness could very well undo civilization. I feel it's the 'tolerance' (read: acceptance and excuse-making) of dangerous and oppressive ideas and practices in otherwise free and developed societies, for the sake of fairness and multiculturalism, that is potentially devastating to our cultures. Not people getting softer or less violent.

[Deleted]

Everything is so efficent and precise today that if you can't keep up you'll get fired, Young people know that and compensate incompetens with stressing hence they damage themselfs in the process! You live to work not the other way around.

[Deleted]

I'm just good at finding new and creative ways of hurting myself.

[Gheld]

Everything is so efficent and precise today that if you can't keep up you'll get fired, Young people know that and compensate incompetens with stressing hence they damage themselfs in the process! You live to work not the other way around.

So you're saying I should have added a "Young people are cowboys" option? I probably should have

Edit: I'm just going to assume the young cowboys are going with the bean option.

[Purlina]

As time goes on there seems to be a greater emphasis on white collar / office jobs. Because of this young people typically don't work out as much as they did in the past since it's not as critical for their livelihood.

[greysaber]

In the states, there are probably several reasons for this:

a) if you look at it from a generational point of view, there's probably far more 'over-parenting' going on now.

b) manual labor is, as time goes by, simply less required due to machinery etc etc.... hence, folks do less physical labor overall. Combine that with diets, and the athleticism of a cubicle jockey, there certainly could be a perception of folks getting more fragile. Certainly from an attitude point of view.

what do you mean in your first point?

if anything, parents do far too little these days. maybe i'm not quite sure what you mean by 'over parenting'. 'over coddling' i could see. also way too much 'trying-to-make-my-kids-my-buddy' as well.

[Deleted]

So you're saying I should have added a "Young people are cowboys" option? I probably should have

Edit: I'm just going to assume the young cowboys are going with the bean option.

Haha ye something like that^^

[Deleted]

And soda virtually replaces water and MILK in the diets of MANY younger people. The only time I ever drink soda is on the rare occasion I have alcohol in it or if I'm in another country where I don't trust the water supply so I get bottled coke. And who knows what the long term effects of preservatives and crap are...

Yeah and all fizzy juice is packed with fructose which makes you gain weight more than anything else. You shouldn't really trust the water supply nearly anywhere, I hear some countries put fluorine in their water. lol.

[DeltrusDisc]

I think diet and how society is nowadays, quality of food that is actually affordable, and lifestyle..... plays a role in making young people more fragile and wimpy. This coming from a 22 year old American male. If you want to save money when buying food, you ultimately have to buy cheap quality food, so more often I see friends buying fast food, though I gave that up for 2012, so far going strong. Obviously exercise plays a role too, but still, if you aren't getting adequate nutrients/protein, not only will you not have much energy, but your bones won't be too strong either, nor your muscles. More kids these days drink more soda pop than anything else, it seems.

[Gheld]

Oh I accidentally excluded 25 year olds, lol. An interesting observation is that nobody over 25 seems willing to admit to cowboyism.