The Death of Interest
How the Modern Adolescent has Lost Passion, Curiosity and Wonder
Every autumn, high school seniors would anxiously scurry into my office and sit down at my desk. Pulling their laptop out of their backpack (and perhaps a snack), they’d have a list of things they wanted to discuss: concerns, ideas, fears, and hopes. They were high-performing, ambitious, and held high expectations of themselves. They also expected nothing short of my best and I did my best to deliver.
Knowing me and my approach to college admissions counseling, they knew they were in for an intense psychological analysis regarding who they were as individuals and an on-going philosophical discussion that would be challenging. If I was going to bring it, they were going to have to as well.
Our meetings were full of lively discussion, often an hour or two long. We talked about anything and everything. As long as I felt I was engaging them to think, to be present, and to challenge their pre-conceived notions of life and all that goes into it, I was doing my job. When I wasn’t engaging them in philosophical dialogue, I was enacting or reviewing their application strategies down to the smallest of details.
They never let me down. They were lovely to talk to, their skills improved with every meeting— the way they could verbally spar with me, how they articulated their thoughts, and how they wrote — and their confidence grew by the week. I didn’t need the college acceptance letters to prove I was doing something right (although they didn’t hurt).
In those years, I came to respect and admire teenagers. I saw everything they were going through and how they navigated it with such humor and grace. I was fortunate to have worked with many students of great character and promise.
The pandemic marked a turning point. The admissions cycle of 2020 was busy for me. I had a great roster of students and great admissions results that followed. However, the following year would show a decline that, five years later, hasn’t let up.
Where students used to talk about their personal passions for hours at length, not students have a difficult time even expressing remote interest in anything; where students used to ask a bunch of thoughtful questions, I now get very few of the like; and where students used to have a genuine hunger for their future, I now am seeing students that seem apathetic and tired.
Students aren’t interested anymore.
Aren’t interested in their future? No, interested period.
We’ve raised a generation of boring, uninteresting people. It is only our fault.
The seniors I am working with right now are those that experienced the onset of the pandemic when they were in middle school (at the height of their development as I espouse). When their personal, social, emotional, and intellectual development was supposed to be blossoming, they instead went dormant. We saw a stagnation of development. Many articles have been written and studies conducted on this topic— we saw this coming. We heard from teachers in the classroom. We heard from parents with children that were “all of sudden not themselves.”
But here it is in the bigger picture. My senior students right now, while still good natured, high-character individuals from good homes and families, cannot compare to students from merely five years ago. That is frightening. Forget about the need to compete, what about their own fulfillment and a life worth living?
It is one thing to be focused on and make arguments for critical thinking, analytical reasoning, or interdisciplinary academic ability etc. but these students are having a hard time simply expressing a single idea (I am not exaggerating).
I’ve been talking about this concept with my older students as of late and their unhappy about it. They’re not unhappy with me for bringing it up or making these claims. They’re unhappy because they agree with my claim and hate that it’s happened to them. For the record, they refer to themselves as boring and uninteresting (but since I’ve gotten those types of statements from students for years, I didn’t think much of it until very recently).
Passion has died. There is no appetite for curiosity. No fun in wonder. Students have become zombified spectators who are only worth providing one thing— attention. They are not challenged at school or by anyone for that matter. They are not pushed to think or to be creative, only to listen and complete tasks. We have removed the lust for life, and we’ve removed it from the group that is supposed to be most hungry for it.
I will continue to work with my older students to tackle these issues. The good news is that it seems to be working. Conversations are becoming more engaging, emotions are being displayed, and those thoughtful questions are starting to come.
More good news: if we focus on middle schoolers, we can intercept them at the right time and make sure that their development doesn’t stagnate but bloom. The work is worth it. When they are applying to college in several years, they’ll be not only ready for college but full of life.
