
Cool Kids Lose, Though It May Take A Few Years  - sizzle
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/06/12/321314037/cool-kids-lose-though-it-may-take-a-few-years?sc=tw
======
klunger
I'm getting tired of this "nerds" vs "cool kids" narrative. It is a false
dichotomy. Kids fall all over the map in terms of behavior and social groups
as they grow up.

Case in point: I was a quiet "nerd" all the way through high school, but
really found my element and became a social butterfly in college. Some other
people have the opposite trajectory, or zig zag all over the place.

Kids are kids. All of them do stupid things at some point, and all of them
have potential to grow and change their personalities to a large extent.

But, it seems to be popular in various circles these days to set up these
labels of "cool" and "nerd" and it leads to pointless tribalism.

~~~
shanecleveland
You just labeled yourself as a "nerd" in high school and demonstrated that it
didn't forever cast you into a life of loneliness and despair. You excelled!
Likewise, the cool kids won't be cool forever. That's the point. Who you are
in high school doesn't define you.

~~~
matwood
_Who you are in high school doesn 't define you._

But it does for a lot of people. I know people who have the same friends from
HS, listen to the same music and generally act the same way. They graduated
HS, but never really left the mentality.

~~~
hyperliner
Actually, didn't we just see somewhere that your first name affected the
possibility of getting an interview?

Something along the lines of identical resumes, where names were stereotypical
African names vs. stereotypical "American" names, and the latter would get
more interviews, in statistically significantly higher numbers.

~~~
inanutshellus
It was in the Freakonomics documentary. They also referenced another study
where they cataloged over 100 unique spellings of the name "Unique" (e.g.
"Uneek").

They also appear to have covered it in a podcast...

[http://freakonomics.com/2013/04/08/how-much-does-your-
name-m...](http://freakonomics.com/2013/04/08/how-much-does-your-name-matter-
a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/)

------
jawns
The study that this NPR piece reports about is focused on the outcomes of kids
who were, as middle schoolers, pseudomature, which I suppose could be
described as having mature interests but not mature behavior. (So, interested
in drugs but lacking the ability to regulate themselves, or interested in sex
but lacking the ability to engage in healthy relationships.)

The study found that pseudomaturity was associated with "short-term success
with peers." That stands to reason. You know how kids look up to their older
siblings? Well, in a way, pseudomature kids are acting the way older siblings
act, and I can see how that might lead to peer approval.

But what I think bears mentioning is that in addition to kids who are
pseudomature, you have kids who are genuinely mature and kids who are
immature.

The kids who are genuinely mature are those who (unlike pseudomature kids)
have mature behavior, and either have interests that are appropriate for their
age or, if they have mature interests, are smart enough to know that they
shouldn't act on those interests.

The kids who are immature are an interesting bunch. There are some (like I was
in middle school) who do not have mature interests, but have mature behavior.
There are others who neither have mature interests nor mature behavior.

The more you think about maturity as having to do with two spectrums -- one
for interests and one for behavior -- the more the results of this study make
sense, and the less it makes sense to use the "cool kids vs. nerds" narrative.

The results make sense because kids who get into adult situations but aren't
able to handle them in grown-up ways are likely to end up in various forms of
trouble, and it doesn't surprise me that the effects of that early trouble may
persist into adulthood. You can also infer that kids who have mature interests
are probably more likely to be exposed to mature themes at home, perhaps
because of a troubled home life, which probably influences them as adults as
well.

The reason the "cool kids vs. nerds" narrative doesn't make sense is because,
really, what we're talking about is not popularity influencing outcomes but
behavior influencing outcomes. Kids (whether they're cool or not) who aren't
good at regulating their behavior in middle school are more likely to be bad
at regulating their behavior in adulthood; kids (whether they're cool or not)
who are good at regulating their behavior in middle school are more likely to
be good at regulating their behavior in adulthood.

~~~
shanecleveland
But these labels mean something to teenagers, and it doesn't matter if it's
society's fault for creating these labels. Kids know who the "popular," "cool"
kids are, and they know who the "nerds" are. Likewise, they know where they
stand. And it matters to them, and it has an impact on them. The result will
vary, of course, and there will always be exceptions. So the study is asking
"what happened to the kids who their peers considered 'cool' or a 'nerd'?"

~~~
mtdewcmu
How universal are those categories? Can you generalize the results of this
study to other times and places?

~~~
Arnor
When I go visit my in-laws who have two daughters in high school, I'm amazed
at how the things that were nerdy when I was in high school 10 years ago are
cool now. These girls who watch Dr Who and make honor band are extremely
popular. What's more, I hear from them that there is very little of the petty
popularity war going on. I know that this is a very special school and things
aren't happening this way everywhere, but it's encouraging nonetheless.

~~~
mtdewcmu
I think you may need to intervene and call out the nerds, otherwise they may
start missing crucial developmental milestones.

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shanecleveland
I'll never forget a peer of mine slapping me on the back and saying "nice guys
don't win." This was as we were leaving class our senior year after the
homecoming court was announced. He made it. I didn't. Fifteen years later, we
are both doing well. But he definitely took a nose dive after high school;
drugs, alcohol, legal trouble, dead-end jobs, etc. And I went to college,
started a career and consider it the best time of my life. But, it was not a
death sentence for him, and I'm not a millionaire or anything ;)

We both still live in the same town and are married with kids and have good
jobs. And there are many more examples of both of us, but some "cool kids"
continue their downward spiral or continue to ascend to great things as they
shed their earlier un-coolness. It definitely didn't take a study to see this.

In my opinion, many "cool kids" find that doors get closed through their
riskier behavior or poorer results in school and are no longer able to get by
solely on good looks and athletic prowess. While hard work and education open
up more opportunities for others, particularly as popularity is taken out of
the equation.

EDIT: I should note that the king and queen of homecoming were _very_
attractive, but not necessarily "cool kids." It was very refreshing, and
perhaps an indication of things to come.

~~~
mtdewcmu
"Nice guys don't win." \-- He sounds like a Jeffrey Skilling type character.
The guys that say things like that in high school probably are the ones that
go to Wall Street and become white collar criminals.

~~~
shanecleveland
I am sure that is true in some cases. Had he pursued higher education, that
may have happened. In this case, he was athletic, good looking and charming;
in a word, popular. But he was also very good at being an asshole. I think
there was the thought that "if this is working for me now, then it will always
work for me."

We were friends in that we hung out with the same group of people. I made a
point to hang out with this group of people and do the things they did so I
could try to be popular. Luckily, I realized at some point that being myself
was preferable.

------
noname123
Tangential but for peeps who're in their late 20's and early 30's in tech, do
you feel like we have peaked and now are in the decline?

When I first got out of school, was feeling like a shiny new penny as most of
my other peeps were going for law school or doing their gap year in life
sciences or other prep for graduate school. Basically leading life as
struggling students. So relatively, I had relative high spending power, living
in the city with discretionary income and splurging it on un-necessary latte
/gastro-pub/trendy lounges and going to feel-good rock-climbing/hiking trips
on weekends (posted on FB obviously) and believing in the mission of the
startup/corporation same as mine.

Now in my late 20's, I feel like both my programmer peers' buying power and
personal power are waning. Financially, most of my friends who're going for
medicine and law are now in residency/associate training and will soon over
take me in earnings. For my friends in finance/ management/accounting, there
is a well-defined path to promotion where I feel like I have capped out and
they're gonna start making more and having more power in comapnies. Applying
to accelerators and doing hackathons and making business cards for startup's
seem awfully empty to me now.

In terms of personal agency, my friends who have pursued graduate research are
wrapping their degrees and are either going for post-doc's or joining industry
as Associate Scientists doing much more self-directed research than the off-
the-shelf web CRUD and "Big Data" that I'm doing. My friends who are musicians
or artists or film-makers, albeit still poor are pushing out their albums and
films in festivals and galleries; not so much critical success but having
something they made by themselves and persevered to show for. I just made a
bunch of cogs tick in a number of corporations and a few vanity project that I
call "startup's."

I feel like I followed the cult of PG kinda of like the cool kids in high
school have followed the cult of "cheerleaders and football QB" and bought in
the hype. When I don't really care about consumer web, whether Angular.js or
Macaw or whatever is next is better than Backbone.js, or the next message
queue performance metric's or the next startup mantra about "pivoting" and
"increasing your luck surface area" so all I was doing was looking for
personal validation or trying to get rich without a cause. Oh well, youth is
wasted on the young and I hope to learn and from this experience to recoup my
loss.

~~~
philangist
I think the problem here is that you were spending too much time comparing
yourself to your peers. Instead of being happy for their success, you're
seeing it as devaluing your own worth. Is the point of having a high paying
9-5 making more money than your friends, or is it about having the the ability
to dictate what you can do in your spare time? And is the point of pursuing
things in your spare time and time (like rock-climbing/hiking/taveling/doing
cocaine off hookers) to show off on Facebook or for personal enjoyment and
betterment? I recently saw an interview with Dave Chappelle where he said that
"money is the fuel of choices" and I think he nailed it.

~~~
bartonfink
I've heard it said "money doesn't buy happiness, but it does buy options."

------
sillysaurus3
Most people lose, whether they're nerds or cool kids. They end up in unhappy
jobs or unhappy marriages for the rest of their lives, which is a kind of
prison that can be hard to escape.

~~~
mtdewcmu
True. You can always eschew the nerd/cool argument and choose realism.

------
pessimizer
The definition of "cool" defined as "Pseudomature behavior—ranging from minor
delinquency to precocious romantic involvement" seems designed to detect poor
kids and kids from dysfunctional and abusive homes. It's only the word 'cool'
that's getting this into the media rotation. If the headline was "Poor kids
and kids from dysfunctional and abusive homes lose," I'm not sure that anybody
would be interested in reading the story.

Too bad the public isn't allowed to read the study, so I can't actually see
all of their metrics for defining cool other than petty crime and early sexual
behavior - things that plenty of clearly not-cool kids get into.

------
gatehouse
From personal experience the path-of-least-grief is to assume that
attractiveness, intelligence, personality, and diligence are all uncorrelated.

~~~
hyperliner
Very good.

However, I also remember that _some things_ do affect the outcome. For
example, there are studies that being tall or attractive provides some
advantages, or that being short or bald provide some disadvantages in
controlled experiments.

~~~
gatehouse
Since people value attractiveness for its own sake I think it makes more sense
as outcome itself.

------
josephschmoe
This doesn't address whether psuedomature behavior is the cause of these
problems. It could simply be a effect of problematic life circumstances:
parental divorce, child abuse, neglect, etc. that are pervasive across
economic classes.

This is much more likely correlative than causative.

------
soperj
Seems a little biased, considering he actually says "I would say I was part of
the not-so-cool kids."

~~~
Zikes
Which is why the scientific method was invented and is taught in grade school.

~~~
soperj
I wish they continued to teach it through out High School too, since there
seems to be a significant misunderstanding of how science actually works.

------
josephschmoe
From Abstract:

Early adolescent pseudomature behavior predicted long-term difficulties in
close relationships, as well as significant problems with alcohol and
substance use, and elevated levels of criminal behavior.

------
ianstallings
"Look everyone, I've proven mathematically that _I_ am now the cool one. Told
you."

Pathetic.

~~~
Zikes
Some sociologists have decided to tackle studying the concept of "cool" and
how it affects peoples' lives. They clearly stated that their definition of
"coolness" is based on pseudomaturity, for which they also defined criteria.

The paper and study are published, and may provide interesting insights, but
are unlikely to be accepted as canon without sufficient followup study and
peer review, which by publishing the study these sociologists are clearly
inviting.

Now, are you saying it's pathetic for people whose fundamental focus of life
is to try to better everyone's understanding of the human psyche and in this
case psychological development in early years? Are you saying it's a subject
not worth studying at all? Are you saying that it's impossible to conduct an
unbiased study on the subject? Are you saying that it would be better for the
study to be performed by someone who would identify themselves as falling
within the "cool" group in their childhood?

Or are you saying you'd rather just dismiss the study and disparage the
scientists on the basis that you do not agree with the results of what appears
to be a properly documented scientific study?

Skepticism is encouraged in science, dismissiveness is not.

~~~
ianstallings
I'm saying that this is a thinly veiled _revenge of the nerds_. And I'm not a
scientist, so my discouragement shouldn't harm anyone. It's called an opinion
and it doesn't require a peer review.

~~~
Zikes
If anything here is thinly veiled, it's your opinion.

~~~
ianstallings
Well I got good news for you. I'm not doing any science.

------
Spooky23
The little secret is that nobody really thinks they are the cool kids.

~~~
ssully
What do you mean? Deep down no one actually thinks they are cool? In both my
high school and grammar school there were kids who were self proclaimed
'cool'. They were seen as such too. I don't think this was out of the
ordinary.

~~~
Spooky23
In a fishbowl like a high school, people are really driven by their
insecurity.

------
badman_ting
Talk about burying the lede - the most important sentence in the whole article
is the final one.

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api
Also known as "peaking in high school."

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squozzer
Moral of today's story - sit down, shut up, and do as you are told by
authority figures who are morally and socially superior to you.

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mantrax5
Random statements alert:

\- "Cool" fuzzy term, no specific definition given.

\- "Lose" fuzzy term, no specific definition given.

~~~
epi16
From the abstract of the actual study:

\- "Cool" => "Pseudomature behavior—ranging from minor delinquency to
precocious romantic involvement"

\- "Lose" => "Early adolescent pseudomature behavior predicted long-term
difficulties in close relationships, as well as significant problems with
alcohol and substance use, and elevated levels of criminal behavior."

------
joeyspn
Nerd is the new cool...

