June 8, 2004
Teens' text for a closer society
Social researcher Hugh Mackay says that younger generations were herding together like never before, using new technologies such as SMS and email chatrooms to foster tight social bonds, reports the Australian IT.
"Having grown up knowing only "instability, uncertainty and unpredictability", Generation Y had instinctively drawn together to cope, Mr Mackay said.
"The most precious resource they have is each other. And they can't get enough of each other," Mr Mackay told the Communities in Control conference in Melbourne yesterday.
"They are the most intensely tribal, herd-based generation of young Australians I've ever known."
Maybe partly because so many of them are the product of fractured marriages and households, it's almost as though they've created extended surrogate families," he said.
"I'm not predicting a revolution but I think it's the early sign of a genuine culture shift away from individualism to a more communitarian kind of culture."
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