Is pop culture infantilizing people?
2024-08-22
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An article published in the Times of India on August 19, titled: Does Western culture hinder people's growth? In his book "Infantilization," Danish criminologist Hayward of the University of Copenhagen wrote that today's young people are less mature than previous generations, and Western culture is the culprit. He cited a large number of examples of "childishness" to support his point of view. For example, some adults like to recreate the joy of childhood, play the role of "My Little Pony" game characters, and buy tickets to play games such as jumping ball pits and pillow fights.Wear a jumpsuit to schoolWhen he was a university lecturer, Hayward often worried that 18-year-old students were "like immature teenagers on the eve of adulthood, or like frightened schoolchildren wandering in the adult world." Once, a student came to the classroom wearing a jumpsuit. Hayward asked him if he was worried about being considered childish? The student replied that he wanted to be treated like a child because being an adult was too difficult.The traditional criteria for adulthood include leaving home, becoming financially independent, getting married and having children. Today, in wealthy countries, the proportion of people who reach this standard by the age of 30 has fallen sharply. In the UK, the median age of first marriage is 33 for men and 31 for women, 10 years higher than in the early 1960s. In 2016, a Pew Research Center study found that American 18-34-year-olds are more likely to live with their parents than with their partners in a separate residence, a phenomenon that has occurred for the first time in 130 years.Watching a movie is more like visiting a toy storeHayward believes that popular culture is infantilizing people. Modern movies celebrate immaturity. From the stubborn teenagers in "School of Rock" and "Ted" to the endless remakes of "Batman" and "Spider-Man", going to the movies now is more like visiting a toy store. Reality TV shows normalize childish behavior by having celebrities in their 40s and 50s dress up as toy cars, bears and dinosaurs. Many advertisements are also "attacks on adulthood." In a "rejuvenation" promotional poster for a mineral water, adults wear T-shirts with the torsos of babies exposed below the neck.The education system is also to blame. Students are shielded from potentially disturbing ideas and told things that are demonstrably untrue, such as “you can be anything you want to be.” At the same time, so-called youth leaders are increasingly given the cultural authority to educate adults, even though they have little expertise or original ideas.Hayward denounced: "When society acts in a hypocritical way, adultizing people on the one hand and infantilizing people on the other, it is playing a dangerous and hypocritical game." According to research from the University of British Columbia laboratory, those who often describe themselves as victims are more likely to lie and cheat for personal gain, which is a habit that people should change.There are two flaws in this argumentBut Hayward's argument has two flaws. One is that it's too extreme. Why can't adults dress up as comic book characters if they like? What's wrong with liking the cartoon Wallace and Gromit? The second flaw is even bigger. Hayward lacks strong evidence for the so-called surge in "infantilism." Perhaps there's more evidence now that adults are behaving like children because everyone has a camera and likes to post funny clips to social media. While the stupid things that baby boomers and Gen X did in their twenties are all but forgotten, what Gen Z does can easily go viral online.Perhaps today's young people are staying in school longer than previous generations, so they are waiting to get a job and have children. A whopping 40% of Americans aged 25 and over have a college degree, compared to just 8% in 1960. This is a huge change, and a good thing. Those who are still in school at 25 are less likely to be financially independent and therefore may be reluctant to have children. This is not naive, it is sensible.Other writers, such as Jonathan Haidt and Jean Twenge, have also produced potentially disturbing studies of young people, such as high levels of mental distress among young people. But to treat an entire generation as giant babies, as Hayward does, seems insulting.
