This is in no way technical, I was simply arrested by a few phrases, not really paying attention.
I saw this show the other night that a buncha doctoral students and actual doctors did about trying
to figure out why teenagers and adults have such a hard time communicating. They took a bunch of random teenagers and random
adults and hooked 'em up to an electronic-impulse-in-the-synapses machine and showed them hand-drawn pictures of people with
different emotions on their faces. The adults had almost no problem identifying the artists' intended emotion. Also, it was
shown that they used the fron part of their brain. I didn't catch what significance that had; sorry. The teens, however, identified
only basic emotions like happy, sad, angry, etc. and they used the center part of their brains. When shown a picture one kid
couldn't identify what was being represented. He said it didn't look like anything to him, while the artist had intended it
to be a very apprehensive face.
What conclusion am I drawing from this?
Well, for the adults, the next time you get set to lay into your kid, or the teenager you pull over,
or your student, or a patron of your establishment remember that they don't interpret they way you look or even what you say
the way you do. Attempt to have some communication skills.
And for teenagers, remember that not every adult is out to get you, no matter who or what you look
like and that your communication skills suck worse than even those of our baby-boomer elders and you need to make ten times
the effort that they do in order to prosper from talking to them, rather than talking at them.
It can be done, dammit, if we weren't so self-centered and self-righteous.
