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I hope you'll clean out my cage

Teaching 19 -25 year olds I sometimes find it helpful to remember that most of them were born in around 1987. Some of my references to popular culture fly over their heads either because the weren't born yet or the subject might as well be a cave painting in France. Punk rock had started 10 years before and died soon after. So it was interesting to read a speech by John Naughton to the English Society of Editors about declining newspaper readership - or more specifically why the average age of a newspaper reader in the UK is 54 (and rising).

"…These are the future, my friends. They're here and living among us. They're not very interested in us, and I'm not sure I blame them. The best we can hope for is that one day they may keep us as pets."

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Young people don't like us. Who can blame them?

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