Thanks a Bajillion!!!

Goodness gracious!  To everyone who participated in that silly survey of mine - THANK YOU!!  I got more than enough responses - 85 last time I checked.  So thank you so much if you took the time to do that for me.

Like I promised, here are the results of the survey.  I made them into nifty little graphs.

Here is the age breakdown of all you awesome participants.

Almost 80% of you believed that it IS fair that today's up and coming Generation Y has been given the title the "Entitlement Generation."

The main justification for the title "Entitlement Generation" is that Generation Y has "high expectations with very little effort."  The close second is that Gen. Y has a "sense of privilege."

Just under 75% of actual "Entitlement Generation" members felt that they probably ARE more entitled than their parents were at their age.

Okay, this one is a little trickier to read.  The blue line is the results for recreation activities enjoyed during CHILDHOOD.  The red line is the results for activities enjoyed NOW.  As adults now, we spend WAY less time participating in semi-organized sports and games and WAY more time spent on electronics.  I was especially glad to see that the amount of time spent in outdoor activities hadn't decreased much at all!  Some activities I missed that people noted were "make believe play" for childhood, and "cleaning" or "exercising" for now.

This is where things got interesting.  Although the above chart reported that most people haven't decreased the amount of time they invest in outdoor recreational activities, the number one change people predicted that the "Entitlement Generation" would cause was a decrease in outdoor recreation.  The second biggest change was that the "Entitlement Generation" would integrate new types of recreation (such as YouTube channels as a form of recreation, etc).

And in regards to whether recreation is better today or was better while you were growing up, the majority feels that things are better today!

Now, I asked a couple comment based questions.  Rather than type out every single comment (p.s. all the comments were awesome, thank you so much for taking the time to put your two-bits in!!) I categorized them into major categories.

For the question "What major changes have you noticed in recreation since your childhood?", the most common responses were:

• More screen time / recreation is spent doing the most easy alternative aka technology/electronics
• Recreation is now more solitary and independent
• There are more time restraints keeping you from participating in recreation
• There are fewer organized sports available
• You are more out of shape / sedentary
• Recreation is influenced by family members or new roles (ie. spouses influence type of recreation; new role as a mother influences recreation)
• And a response I got a couple times that I liked / thought was sad is that you felt you no longer had an imagination, or that your imagination has suffered

For the last comment question, the prediction question, these are the main predictions I got:

• The "Entitlement Generation" will raise an even WORSE generation after them / the tail end of the "Entitlement Generation" will be even worse than the beginning half.
• People will become more robotic / people will lose their skills of interacting and socializing
• People will continue to become more fat and lazy
• Recreation will become BETTER / be made more of a priority (this one made me happy)
• More technology will be integrated into recreation
• There will continue to be less and less recreation (this one made me sad)
• There will be more and more debt
• And a response I got a couple of times that made me laugh / could actually be true is that human beings will eventually degrade to the point they are in the movie Wall.E, where they sit in little motorized chairs so they never have to walk.

For other questions that got comments, some of the common themes or responses I noticed were regarding parenting.  Many believed that the type of parenting styles out there today are what have given the "Entitlement Generation" a less than desirable image.  I looked more into this for my report.  Apparently the "Entitlement Generation" was raised with two unique new styles that are beginning to appear detrimental.  "Hover Parenting" (where a parent literally "hovers" like a helicopter over their child's head, reducing their ability to develop independence) and "Trophies for All" (where parents and child leaders/teachers/etc believe all children deserve a reward, regardless of their effort, because they want everyone treated equal) are not so good for kids.  One commenter called it "hyper-parenting."  Another person commented on the "ridiculous amount of structure" kids are forced to go through, both at home and school.  Another person said that as a parent you face the pressure to be a "hyper-parent," constantly scheduling and programming your kids, because that's what everyone else is doing.  

Overall, I got exactly what I needed, so thank you so much.  I guess I found these parenting comments the most interesting because I have a firm belief that the first place (and most important place) a kid is introduced to recreation is in the home and through the parents.  If the parent is over doing it, they risk the chance of their child becoming burnt out, and seeing recreation as a burden.  If the parent just plum doesn't do it, they risk the chance of their child becoming hooked on the easiest alternative, aka the dreaded technology monster!!  I hope these results were a little interesting to you.  I know that they have been absolutely fascinating to me.

Thanks again!!!  You're all the best.