Tuesday Links: "Young Adults Are..."

It's Tuesday, which means it's time again to let the internet tell young adults who we are.

This week, young adults are...

Buying a lot of greeting cards. (According to this study, young adults are the "highest spending age group across all five stationary product catagories": greeting cards, stationery, gift wrap/party goods, and paper gifting.)

Pessimistic about aging, though it seems there's no reason to be.

Supportive of gay and lesbian people serving openly in the military. (81% of people under age 30 favor the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell.")

"Slow to spot" identity theft.

More likely than other groups to blame people who have been sexually assaulted for their attacks.  (A study commissioned by The Havens, a group of crisis centers in the United Kingdom, finds that those between the ages of 18 to 24 are "more likely to say that engaging in conversation in a bar or accepting a drink makes [a person] partially responsible" for his or her rape.)

Young adults: do these assertions feel accurate to you? Do they resonate with your experience?

NOTE: To comment, please click the "comments" speech bubble on the left.

Share Your Faith Question #3: "Thank You"

Howard Zinn

1922 - 2010

(To see video of Dr. Zinn discussing his legacy, click the photo.)

"I want to be remembered as somebody who gave people a feeling
of hope and power that they didn’t have before." -- Howard Zinn

When news broke on Wednesday evening that the professor, historian, and peace activist Howard Zinn had died, a certain part of the Facebook community found themselves suddenly mourning. Young adults all over the country (most of whom first encountered Zinn and his book A People's History of the United States* as college students) were saddened to realize that the man who had so inspired them to work for peace and justice was gone. The group "Thank You Howard Zinn" gained literally thousands of new members overnight and was inundated with messages of grief and gratitude. "We will both mourn and organize," said one; another, "Thanks for making history something I actually can understand!"

That so many young adults respect and admire Dr. Zinn is no surprise: as a champion for those whose lives and concerns were overlooked in both history's conventional narrative and today's struggle for power and prosperity, he was rebellious and principled. As a teacher, he assured his students that their voices matter and told them that they are obligated to speak for those who cannot.

Learn, he said. Question what you think you know. Commit yourself to justice.

Whose life or work has inspired you? Has this person influenced the course of your life?


*A People's History is available in full and for free by clicking this link.

Share Your Faith Question #2: My Generation

Who are young adults? How do we define ourselves as individuals and as a group?

"The Splinter Generation," an online community for writers and artists born between 1973 and 1993, describes us as a fragmented, isolated population:

Our generation is split into a million different cultures and subcultures, whether they are religious, musical, literary, ethnic, class-based, or consumer-based. Our identities have become selective and insular. We have each found a little niche we think we fit in and we stay there. As a result, we stay in our little group---our splinter---and we rarely talk to each other.

It is impossible to make sweeping generalizations about us because we're not alike. Because we're so wrapped up in our social groups, we don't pick up as much on ideas and mannerisms and habits of people we don't hang out with, we end up being different in ways that make it impossible to define us as a generation.

Do you agree that young adults, as a group, have no cohesive identity? What words would you use to describe yourself and your peers? What would you say we stand for?

Comments are most welcome!

"The Mind Free": Religious Freedom Day

Happy National Religious Freedom Day!

224 years ago today, on January 16, 1786, the Virginia General Assembly formally adopted Thomas Jefferson's Statute on Religious Freedom, which guaranteed that "no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or [burdened] in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but [...] shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, [his] opinion[s] in matters of Religion."

The Statute served as the basis of The U.S. Constitution's First Amendment and is echoed in the Unitarian Universalist Association's fourth Principle, which promotes "the free and responsible search for truth and meaning."

Job Satisfaction in Young Adults Low

A recent survey by The Conference Board (the not-for-profit organization dedicated to "disseminat[ing] knowledge about management and the marketplace to help businesses strengthen their performance and better serve society") finds only 39% of people under the age of 25 to be happy in their current job.

Last night's episode of WGBH's Greater Boston (see the clip above) examines why this might be so and asks whether young adults need to lower their expectations or whether their dissatisfaction can be valuable to them in the long-term.