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If you are, have, work with, or care about humans between the ages of Born-Yesterday and Twenty-Five, and have not yet read Jonathan Haidt’s March 2024 piece in The Atlantic regarding the impacts of smartphones on an entire generation of young people then I highly recommend doing so (as soon as you are done with this newsletter, or right now, if that’s what it takes!).
Without giving it away, this article explores (and explains) why we are seeing runaway rates of anxiety, depression, self-harm, isolation, and malaise and ennui among young people. This is not anecdotal, it is not an anomaly, it is not just a blip on our collective radar. It’s not just your neighbor’s kid. This is not just “Covid times were tough” (although that certainly didn’t help!). These challenges are systemic and widespread, and they are hitting college students especially hard.
We gave the world’s entire library of knowledge to our kids, in the form of little pocket computers, about 15 years ago. Then we invented and layered in Social Media. And last year we added Artificial Intelligence. The future is happening, it is now, it is real – and the evidence is that it is happening to us faster than we can keep up. Eleven-hundred years after inventing The University System of Education we are asking eighteen year olds to navigate this fast-moving world – at the average cost of a late 1990’s starter home – with limited resources and statistically-identifiable declining ancillary skills in attention, self-regulation, self-advocacy, and overall independence.
To put it simply, the costs of college (both in terms of tuition, but also in terms of lost-income potential for students who do not attend or finish) are rising at the same time the critical ancillary skills of college success are systemically declining.
Knowing the quadratic equation, the syllable pattern of a haiku, or the past-imperfect conjugation of Hablar are all some pretty good party tricks – but also nothing your phone can’t do faster. Learning how to think critically, build new models of information, ask and answer questions, and evaluate data are more critical than ever – and college remains a great place to learn these skills – but success depends even more on a student’s ability to self-monitor, self-advocate, and use applied executive functioning in order to be successful.
Virtual Hall’s coaching model can help students bridge the gap and get the most out of their college experience by providing 1-1 Academic, Executive Functioning, and College Life Coaching.
Contact Us Today For More Information.