Surfing through the internet, it’s typical to come across an article about another kid genius, swipe to a video of a nine year old musical virtuoso, see a post from a gifted young artist, watch a show starring an actress who has already partaken in over two dozen films and TV shows at the old age of 17 (looking at you, McKenna Grace), or read about another young athlete training to win big at the next Olympics. Prodigies are seemingly everywhere. Children are building robots and solving problems. They’re competing, and winning, against adults in Olympic street skateboarding. They’re graduating from college, meeting with politicians, writing books… the list goes on and on. Clicking through young talents and success stories daily, young people may start to ask themselves: are they just not good enough?
Social media has had a progressively greater impact on the youth with time. Gen Z were the first digital natives, and the upcoming Gen Alpha is practically being raised by the internet, with digital tablets becoming increasingly popular in the classroom among kindergarteners – five- and six-year-olds. With this comes the exposure (and maybe over-exposure) of child prodigies, singers, YouTubers, influencers, and celebrities to a young, impressionable audience, potentially leading to rising sentiments of inadequacy within them as time progresses.
People who find success in youth are seen as inspirations, with other ambitious young people striving to achieve what they have and finding purpose in doing so. However, as those ambitious young people age and do not attain the same level of success they see online, on TV, in magazines (for the more old-fashioned), or even in their favorite escapist media (because they should be saving the world at twelve years old, obviously), it’s not outlandish to suggest that they may feel dejected, inadequate, and/or increasingly anxious to do something that’ll cause them to be “successful” as they get older and age out of being considered young.
Constantly being exposed to young talent is exhausting. There’s a difference between exposure and over-exposure, and with digital media becoming a greater part of childrens’ and young peoples’ lives, many are, perhaps, becoming over-exposed to people their age who have accomplished “greater” things. Modern society loves to chatter about unrealistic expectations in the media pertaining to body image and beauty, but rarely do we hear about the unrealistic expectations the youth has subconsciously swallowed on “making it big” at unbelievably young ages — which is tiring to all the people working hard to reach those goals. It’s not a rarity to see children achieving more in their respective fields than many will in their lifetimes. Yes, there is likely envy attached to seeing these success stories, but as that envy fades with maturity, a deeper sense of inferiority may begin to seep in, with the effects being more or less severe depending on the ambition and expectations of the increasingly less young subject. The clock keeps ticking — have you done anything to cement yourself in the history books yet?
Even our favorite imaginary heroes are oddly young. If box office numbers have anything to say about who our favorite fictional heroes are, Spiderman is definitely among our most beloved. Of course, Spiderman doesn’t exist. He’s one of our escapist fantasies, so he doesn’t need to be realistic. Young audiences find him “relatable” (as relatable as a superhero who can swing from buildings and scale walls can be), and older audiences find his youth and immaturity endearing. The same can be applied to protagonists like Harry Potter, who originates from the most popular book series of all time and was written for children, or Katniss Everdeen from "The Hunger Games", who was aimed at young adults and begins the trilogy as a 16-year-old. If the audience is young, then the characters should be too. However, I wonder if seeing characters toppling governments and defeating evil while having barely reached adulthood also impacts the audience’s expectations for themselves, just as hearing about child geniuses may influence self-esteem.
Of course, we should celebrate the ones who “won.” Young people are doing great things. They’re engineers, advocates for change, musicians, artists, writers, and so much more. Of course, people should look up to them and cheer them on. Of course, everyone can agree they’re skilled and wish them well. The problem lies in how children are impacted by seeing too much success from others who look like themselves, or when the thought process upon seeing another success story changes from “if they can do it, so can I!” to “they did what I never will.” When the inherent advantages people are born with, like socioeconomic status, are ignored, then the child may begin to blame themselves and their own perceived inferiority rather than understand that there is a lot of life left to live and make use of after the age of 18.
Coming from me, it’s all purely speculation and private thoughts, and without studies being conducted on the matter, the results of exposure to seeing others’ accomplishments as young people may not be as profound as I suggest them to be for the greater population. However, I still believe the possibility should be explored and taken into consideration, because among all the other detriments to come from social media usage, show business, and the music industry, feelings of inadequacy for not being greatly accomplished are likely to be among them. Perhaps we should shift the focus to encouraging people to do great things throughout their lives rather than on what the exceptions have already achieved in their youth.