I think it's worth disaggregating the activities of individuals, rather than just dividing folks into devoted/engaged vs not.
I may be biased by my personality, but I've always been a procrastinator. I'm an intellectual - I loved college and was very engaged in learning and my classes; today I work a challenging intellectual job and for a hobby read and comment on Substack essays.
Even so, I never turned in anything or started studying for an exam until the very last minute. To this day, I still routinely have to do all-nighters to hit deadlines because I procrastinate. And, if there's an acceptable way to avoid doing it/procrastinate longer - baby, you get I'm finding it and exploiting it.
I don't know why I'm like this. But I was not alone - lots of people (if felt like almost everyone at times) just don't do the grind part of work until they have to, even if they will get a lot from it and enjoy it.
If they'd had the permissive, forgiving/manipulable culture they have today when I was in school, or if I was in a less forgiving profession, I am sure I'd be on the "turning in assignments late/not doing tests" column of the ledger, even as I loved being in college and learning.
A professor whose name and school I forget told a story of students who were starting an online company. They asked him if he wanted to invest in their startup. He declined because it was days before their website was to go live and it wasn't close to ready. Their company? Warby Parker.
"We came out of it more strongly committed to activities we value highly, including passionate interests and family relationships."
Did we actually do this, or did we just withdraw from everything. I would hesitant to put too much emphasis on how, for example, the participants in online-dancing are more numerous than the previous in-person participants. Each of those new on-line participants could be substituting on-line participation for some other in-person activity they used to do pre-pandemic.
No, the participants in online dancing are not more numerous than previous in-person participants. They are less. Let's say that before the pandemic, you had 100 people who did both dancing and tennis. Now, they have split up. You have 50 people dancing who are really committed to that, and they have dropped tennis. You have 50 tennis players who are really committed to tennis, and they have dropped dancing.
Something which every routine surfer has noticed over the past two years. With lock downs and remote work and school, the number of surfers immediately doubled at every break. As work and school resumed, the crowds somehow continued.
There may be a lot of things people stopped doing as much of, but a lot of folks have decided they want to surf more.
And for the record, there is pretty much nothing a surfer prefers to do than surf. It is both healthy and addictive.
There's an explanation here that has more to do with remote work than a change in values
Many surfers now can surf when it's conditions are good, and shuffle the work schedule to accommodate. At least this is what it looks like at my local where I used to often surf alone during the work week because I was working remotely when it was more of a rarity here. Now it has shifted to guaranteed crowds whenever the conditions are good, while the times that would have been more crowded (e.g. directly after the work day) seem to have become less crowded.
" Bosses are intrinsically very committed to their firms. They cannot understand workers who are more focused on friends, family, and recreation."
Most bosses are not owners and so are not intrinsically very committed to their firms. They could be just as focused on friends, family, and recreation. as their subordinates, but complain if their subordinate's increased emphasis on family is affecting the bosses focus on recreation.
And maybe an increase emphasis on family will reverse decreasing fertility trends.
1) Social collapse can happen at any time, so I need to accumulate wealth and experience to maximally protect myself+family.
2) The government/social services and hopefully my job should have enough slack to accommodate even the worst of circumstances, and to accommodate my declining time spent working.
I can see how both camps might see COVID as evidence that their priors were correct. Not sure if this really adds anything to the article, and apologies for that, but I guess I see it as less hedging on both sides now. Average is over...
No doubt many things have changed as a result of COVID lockdowns and there's much we don't yet understand about these changes. I have no doubt you have a better grasp of these changes than I and I thank you for sharing your thoughts.
That said I think there's something to Paul's point about procrastination even if I'm not sure where it fits in the big picture.
Also, while the changes you note may indeed be quite profound, maybe they are in many ways more subtle than they look. It's long been true that 20% of the workers (or less) create 80% (or more) or the value added. In my work life there were plenty of people who lived to work and also plenty who procrastinated to the point of accomplishing nothing. And of course everything in between. This is not new though maybe it is new that those who contribute the least are increasingly willing to say so instead of pretending they are contributing more than they do.
Despite there being many academically weak athletes who are recruited to various sports programs, I think if you looked at the numbers, student athletes are way above average as college students go.
Re: "I am pretty sure that some students enjoy learning [...] and they may be willing to leave behind the students who are there for the athletics and the parties. [... .] The educational model has become misaligned with technology. Chalk-and-talk can be replaced by YouTube, and small seminars might be conducted on line using conferencing software."
Let me sketch what I take to be an equilibrium -- psychological and institutional -- at elite colleges.
Talented, motivated students who enroll at selective colleges demand a *total institution,* i.e., the "residential campus experience," which integrates a curated peer group, communal living, prestige, impressive facilities, athletics, clubs, and intense, often libertine-but-sheltered social life.
Many of them seek an ambiguous mix of delay of adulthood, autonomy without independence, rites of passage, sandbox governance experience, and a passport to career.
Many of them embrace an ideal of personal growth through well-roundedness within the total institution. They prefer breadth over depth. This manifests itself in their studies, too. Furiously signaling, they complete 2 Majors and a Minor. At every turn, they demand assessment: "Grade me, damn it!"
They sense that academics don't prepare them for the real world. They see the mismatch of curriculum and career. They see that academic production -- writing papers -- is peculiarly solitary, whereas the workplace revolves around team production. They see that academic outputs (papers) are remote from market tests, whereas the workplace must reckon with the measure of the market. Is it any wonder, then, that students gravitate towards well-roundedness, breadth over depth, participation in athletics, GLOs, and cultural houses, i.e., campus orgs that combine collective production, hierarchy, and competition with rival orgs for membership and organizational success (the measure of the market within the total institution)?
I think it's worth disaggregating the activities of individuals, rather than just dividing folks into devoted/engaged vs not.
I may be biased by my personality, but I've always been a procrastinator. I'm an intellectual - I loved college and was very engaged in learning and my classes; today I work a challenging intellectual job and for a hobby read and comment on Substack essays.
Even so, I never turned in anything or started studying for an exam until the very last minute. To this day, I still routinely have to do all-nighters to hit deadlines because I procrastinate. And, if there's an acceptable way to avoid doing it/procrastinate longer - baby, you get I'm finding it and exploiting it.
I don't know why I'm like this. But I was not alone - lots of people (if felt like almost everyone at times) just don't do the grind part of work until they have to, even if they will get a lot from it and enjoy it.
If they'd had the permissive, forgiving/manipulable culture they have today when I was in school, or if I was in a less forgiving profession, I am sure I'd be on the "turning in assignments late/not doing tests" column of the ledger, even as I loved being in college and learning.
A professor whose name and school I forget told a story of students who were starting an online company. They asked him if he wanted to invest in their startup. He declined because it was days before their website was to go live and it wasn't close to ready. Their company? Warby Parker.
That was Adam Grant, at Wharton.
"We came out of it more strongly committed to activities we value highly, including passionate interests and family relationships."
Did we actually do this, or did we just withdraw from everything. I would hesitant to put too much emphasis on how, for example, the participants in online-dancing are more numerous than the previous in-person participants. Each of those new on-line participants could be substituting on-line participation for some other in-person activity they used to do pre-pandemic.
No, the participants in online dancing are not more numerous than previous in-person participants. They are less. Let's say that before the pandemic, you had 100 people who did both dancing and tennis. Now, they have split up. You have 50 people dancing who are really committed to that, and they have dropped tennis. You have 50 tennis players who are really committed to tennis, and they have dropped dancing.
Something which every routine surfer has noticed over the past two years. With lock downs and remote work and school, the number of surfers immediately doubled at every break. As work and school resumed, the crowds somehow continued.
There may be a lot of things people stopped doing as much of, but a lot of folks have decided they want to surf more.
And for the record, there is pretty much nothing a surfer prefers to do than surf. It is both healthy and addictive.
There's an explanation here that has more to do with remote work than a change in values
Many surfers now can surf when it's conditions are good, and shuffle the work schedule to accommodate. At least this is what it looks like at my local where I used to often surf alone during the work week because I was working remotely when it was more of a rarity here. Now it has shifted to guaranteed crowds whenever the conditions are good, while the times that would have been more crowded (e.g. directly after the work day) seem to have become less crowded.
Good insight.
" Bosses are intrinsically very committed to their firms. They cannot understand workers who are more focused on friends, family, and recreation."
Most bosses are not owners and so are not intrinsically very committed to their firms. They could be just as focused on friends, family, and recreation. as their subordinates, but complain if their subordinate's increased emphasis on family is affecting the bosses focus on recreation.
And maybe an increase emphasis on family will reverse decreasing fertility trends.
Two camps:
1) Social collapse can happen at any time, so I need to accumulate wealth and experience to maximally protect myself+family.
2) The government/social services and hopefully my job should have enough slack to accommodate even the worst of circumstances, and to accommodate my declining time spent working.
I can see how both camps might see COVID as evidence that their priors were correct. Not sure if this really adds anything to the article, and apologies for that, but I guess I see it as less hedging on both sides now. Average is over...
No doubt many things have changed as a result of COVID lockdowns and there's much we don't yet understand about these changes. I have no doubt you have a better grasp of these changes than I and I thank you for sharing your thoughts.
That said I think there's something to Paul's point about procrastination even if I'm not sure where it fits in the big picture.
Also, while the changes you note may indeed be quite profound, maybe they are in many ways more subtle than they look. It's long been true that 20% of the workers (or less) create 80% (or more) or the value added. In my work life there were plenty of people who lived to work and also plenty who procrastinated to the point of accomplishing nothing. And of course everything in between. This is not new though maybe it is new that those who contribute the least are increasingly willing to say so instead of pretending they are contributing more than they do.
Despite there being many academically weak athletes who are recruited to various sports programs, I think if you looked at the numbers, student athletes are way above average as college students go.
Re: "I am pretty sure that some students enjoy learning [...] and they may be willing to leave behind the students who are there for the athletics and the parties. [... .] The educational model has become misaligned with technology. Chalk-and-talk can be replaced by YouTube, and small seminars might be conducted on line using conferencing software."
Let me sketch what I take to be an equilibrium -- psychological and institutional -- at elite colleges.
Talented, motivated students who enroll at selective colleges demand a *total institution,* i.e., the "residential campus experience," which integrates a curated peer group, communal living, prestige, impressive facilities, athletics, clubs, and intense, often libertine-but-sheltered social life.
Many of them seek an ambiguous mix of delay of adulthood, autonomy without independence, rites of passage, sandbox governance experience, and a passport to career.
Many of them embrace an ideal of personal growth through well-roundedness within the total institution. They prefer breadth over depth. This manifests itself in their studies, too. Furiously signaling, they complete 2 Majors and a Minor. At every turn, they demand assessment: "Grade me, damn it!"
They sense that academics don't prepare them for the real world. They see the mismatch of curriculum and career. They see that academic production -- writing papers -- is peculiarly solitary, whereas the workplace revolves around team production. They see that academic outputs (papers) are remote from market tests, whereas the workplace must reckon with the measure of the market. Is it any wonder, then, that students gravitate towards well-roundedness, breadth over depth, participation in athletics, GLOs, and cultural houses, i.e., campus orgs that combine collective production, hierarchy, and competition with rival orgs for membership and organizational success (the measure of the market within the total institution)?
This was a very useful piece.