Six Things I've Learned From My Interns (Or Why Most Young People Are Smarter Than Me)

Here are six things I have learned from my interns that suggest to me that younger people are way smarter than we give them credit for:

1. We are obsessed with unpredictability and chaos and we have devoted countless books, papers, and research to the study of (and even the management of) chaos. However, the younger generations tend to accept chaos as the natural state of things and order as the illusion of control. They acknowledge that limitations exist in terms of the amount that people can manipulate their situation and what we often think of as their dismissive attitude is just a neutral and unemotional  acknowledgment of those limits. We like to think we have answers, but they know that no answers exist. Damn them.

2. We tend to dismiss the positive effects of the culture that we enforced upon them of minimizing competitiveness and instead promoting an attitude of "everyone wins a medal for participation." This does lead to some sense of entitlement, I suppose, but it also yields an incredible amount of self-confidence. Whether that confidence is warranted or not remains disputable, but no one can argue with the fact that an individual's potential for success receives an incredible boost with that level of confidence -- whether false or valid. I've listened to every one of my interns respond to author proposals via phone, and in every case those authors, unaware that they were speaking to younger interns, were floored by the level of feedback and advice they received.  Authority perceived is authority achieved.

3. Somewhat related to (1), my young interns have very fluid definitions of concepts such as careers and development. Ideas that may have seem ridiculous to me and others like me some decades back  (going to tour the globe for a year with no agenda or specific return date, or working in the Soweto townships after being born and raised entirely in Southern California, or living in Beijing for two years before even turning 21, or getting a doctoral degree in history and then deciding to perhaps get a law degree) have become perfectly acceptable. While we tended to have the pre-planned career arc that regarded anyone who broke away as some kind of a "hippie free spirit destined to become a junkie in Kathmandu," my young interns often see such a disruption as necessary in terms of life experience.They are absolutely right.

4. My interns exhibit way more resilience and bounce back from disappointments much more quickly than us older ones. I can't even begin to explain what accounts for their stronger constitutions, but I do know that I have seen my interns go through broken relationships, deaths of loved ones, personal tragedies and issues, and yet they move on with strength and grace.  They don't hide their pain, but they also don't stay in bed for two weeks with an outdated prescription of Attivan and take-out pizza (perhaps giving away too much about myself here). Instead, they come in to work and even mention what they are going through rather casually with a mild downturn at the corners of their mouth,but little more.  I envy them, and I know I'm not the only one.

5. Their awareness of the world makes us look like inbred villagers.  The younger generations set a fine example of what happens when technology and culture create an environment where any question can be (and is expected to be) answered immediately. In my day, getting an answer to an academic question meant hiking to the library, commandeering the snooty reference librarian, and digging through microfiche (microfiche, for god's sake!) and bound back issues of musty journals. It could take you two days to find the answer to the question you can now get in two seconds on the net. Like it or not, many of us had questions or interests that we never entertained because of the hassle involved in obtaining answers.  It was just easier to be ignorant. Now, when I speak to my interns about Hayek and Keynes, they start tapping away on their laptops and know the basics before I've finished.  They've even seen the video, for God's sake. They don't have to nor want to wait to get information, which means they are smarter than we were at their age, and they'll be smarter than us when they hit our age. The future is safe.

6. We think we know multitasking.  We don't know a damn thing. We pride ourselves on being multitaskers because we can be reading a report, sending a fax, and photocopying something for a meeting while eating lunch. My interns are working on editorial issues, updating databases, posting to their blogs, checking their Facebook page, responding to emails from up to three different accounts, checking their tweets, creating charts tracking stats of competitive books, and reviewing proposals -- all while checking in with their significant others and family. We think they're distracted because that's how it looks to our puny minds. In fact, we remained neanderthals with basic opposable-thumb skills while they evolved into the next stage.

And what is the one skill that I have that none of them had? Surprisingly enough, almost none of them know how to use a fax machine.  I will hold on to this glory for as long as I can, which at the current rate of technology change should be another week or so.