Do you think teenagers in 1980s were more matured and practical than teenagers we see today?

NO! Growing up in the 1980's, I didn't have near the responsibilities and pressures that these kids face today. Heck far, if we had sex the worse thing to happen to us was to get pregnant or crabs.

Today- these kids face DEATH if they go unprotected. AIDS, we didn't have AIDS. And, take all this technology... We didn't have to worry about what was written about us, or what we wrote about ourselves.

Because it never could be traced back to us really, and we were free to rewrite our dynasty and past as we saw fit. Nowadays, everything is computerized. You cannot change your past- today, it literally follows you wherever you go.

Somebody knows something personal about you somewhere. Like who you married, if you dropped out of college, if you got in a fight in another town, if you got in trouble at school or at work..., the list is endless in that regard. If you got bullied in because of Facebook somebody knows it, and it could potentially crop back up again in your life.

I never had to worry about bosses and human resource people checking into my personal history with background checks, and raiding the Internet for any personal information to defame my character. These kids literally have to watch every word they say, every word they write, how they behave everywhere they go and on the Internet. I didn't have to worry about whether I made a wrong step that it could come back to bite me in the butt at a much, much, later date.

But these kids have to worry about that... Can you imagine not being in control of your own dynasty? I can't. No I think the world is much tougher today.

We didn't have to worry about crazy Religious zealots. No we just have the USSR. We all knew that deep down inside that they would never want a Nuclear attack to happen.

These people in the Middle East, OMG dying for them is a blessing. How do compete with that..?, you don't. I would much rather to have worried about the cold war, than to have to grow up in a life where planes fall out of the sky over American soil.An attack on the nation, on our own soil in the 1980's was never on our minds.

But it is on the worried minds every teenager today... I grew up in a time that was more simplified, than what our teenagers face today.

Maybe in some areas but not in general! I think teenagers today are very mature and practical if we allow them! It is to much helicopter parenting and it is also very difficult for young people to get a job when they have finished their studies.

All together, it is like they are forced to be teens longer now than before. It takes responsibility and practice to become mature and practical! I feel glad when I see teenagers of today, because they are our future, if we let them!

They are smart, curious and forward which they need to be in this peculiar world!

I am so glad both of you left very much interesting answers. I really appreciate it. Thank you IntimatEvolution.

Thank you thougtforce.

My opinion is that some of the teens today are immature and irresponsible, coddled by thier parents and have a hideous dress code ever.80's teens, well from my own perspective, we're more independent and job orientated than the youth of today!

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.