Hear Hear!
________________________________
From: Mike Dixon <mdixon.6...@yahoo.com>
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sun, 30 May, 2010 9:07:52 AM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Study: Today's students have less empathy
Good for them!!!!!!!! !! Nothing like being saddled with other people's debts
and being their *slaves* to make you worry about your own future. It's about
time a new generation return to living according to *natural law* i.e.
evolution, survival of the fittest, allowing the cream to rise to the top,
freedom! Of course this leads to so much prosperity that once again, the next
generation will have too much free time and again begin to ponder if they can
organize life better than nature. Kudos to the*me generation*, God bless you!
________________________________
From: do.rflex <do.rf...@yahoo. com>
To: FairfieldLife@ yahoogroups. com
Sent: Sat, May 29, 2010 9:22:36 AM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Study: Today's students have less empathy
Today's College Students Lack Empathy
By Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Managing Editor
posted: 28 May 2010 08:05 am ET
Live Science - College students today are less likely to "get" the
emotions of others than their counterparts 20 and 30 years ago, a new review
study suggests.
Specifically, today's students scored 40 percent lower on a measure of empathy
than their elders did. The findings are based on a review of 72 studies of
14,000 American college students overall conducted between 1979 and 2009.
"We found the biggest drop in empathy after the year 2000," said Sara Konrath,
a researcher at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research.
The study was presented this week at the annual meeting of the Association for
Psychological Science in Boston.
Is "generation me" all about me?
Compared with college students of the late 1970s, current students are less
likely to agree with statements such as "I sometimes try to understand my
friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective, " and "I
often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me."
"Many people see the current group of college students – sometimes called
'Generation Me' – as one of the most self-centered, narcissistic, competitive,
confident and individualistic in recent history," said Konrath, who is also
affiliated with the University of Rochester Department of Psychiatry.
Konrath's colleague graduate student Edward O'Brien added, "It's not surprising
that this growing emphasis on the self is accompanied by a corresponding
devaluation of others."
Other recent studies have shown mixed results on the character of today's
youth. For instance, one study of more than 450,000 high-school seniors born at
different time periods showed today's youth are no more self-centered than
their parents were at their age.
The role of media
Even so, Konrath and O'Brien suggest several reasons for the lower empathy they
found, including the ever-increasing exposure to media in the current
generation.
"Compared to 30 years ago, the average American now is exposed to three times
as much nonwork-related information, " Konrath said. "In terms of media
content, this generation of college students grew up with video games, and a
growing body of research, including work done by my colleagues at Michigan, is
establishing that exposure to violent media numbs people to the pain of
others."
The rise in social media could also play a role.
"The ease of having 'friends' online might make people more likely to just tune
out when they don't feel like responding to others' problems, a behavior that
could carry over offline," O'Brien said.
In fact, past research has suggested college students are addicted to social
media.
Other possible causes include a society today that's hypercompetitive and
focused on success, as well as the fast-paced nature of today, in which people
are less likely than in time periods past to slow down to really listen to
others, O'Brien added.
"College students today may be so busy worrying about themselves and their own
issues that they don't have time to spend empathizing with others, or at least
perceive such time to be limited," O'Brien said.
You can find out your empathy score and how it compares with today's college
students by taking the empathy quiz.
http://www.livescie nce.com/culture/ empathy-college- students- generation-
me-100528. html
