Slacker Generation

You say that your comment is based on American figures alone, and that you have no idea what the Australian figures would be. But my own guess, would be that the Australian figures would show much the same thing. I think that there are a lot of contributing factors to the problem, such as the previously mentioned illegal immigration (lack of work), more youth in tertiary studying, but I believe that a percentage of it is just that kids these days are slacking off. Is it all of them? No. But it's certainly a large percentage of them. It's the way the Baby Boomers generation have grown them up. I see a lot of parents (especially the younger married/unmarried parents mentioned by Chloe) that aren't showing their kids what it's like to work hard. Or to really try their best with things, such as school or a job. There's a total lack of initiative. There's really no solution to this, but maybe we can hope that people start realising this, switch off their kids TV's and XBox's and start showing them what "hard work" really means.
After reading Nicole's post, I have to say that whilst writing my post, I neglected the fact that we are indeed in a different world nowadays. But I believe that just saying "oh, we're so influenced by drugs, and the media etc etc" is contradicted by the fact that since you're saying that, you obviously realised that you're being influenced - and if you realise it, why don't you do something about it? Now I realise that the previous generation worked hard to give us an easier life, but aren't we taking advantage of it by taking it to the extreme?

Nick Thurgar.