Young people failing at maintenance and DIY

I can (and do) bleed the radiators in my house, but I wouldn't attempt to put up wallpaper. Writing a check is oh so much easier. I could probably wire a plug if I had to, but then again, this is why the gods invented electricians.

 

How do these figures compare with the population fraction living in homes that even have wallpaper or radiator-based heat?

 

Im young and play lots of video games when there is time. I also recently remodelled a bathroom (framing, tiling, plumbing, carpentry, painting, everything) and installed a ceiling fan where there wasn't anything before. Also do lots more... I teach myself and watch tv

I don't think there is a coorelation between video games and laziness or ignorance. It seems like most of the people that I come into contact with outside of the engineering/science departments just generally do not care. They almost see ignorance as a desirable feature, and just do not want to learn. Even when you try and explain certain things, it is not uncommon to hear "I don't care".

 

An interesting article. I've noticed a fair number of Gen-y and Gen-z who fail at a lot of things in life: summed up as an "I don't care" attitide. They expect others to bend over backwards and cater to their every whim

Interestingly enough, those with advanced degrees (Minimum B.Sc., usually MS or PhD in Sciences) are a mixed bag. Some can build their own home and rebuild their own transmission, others can't even tie their own shoelaces

I've never hired a plumber, electrician, carpenter in my life, and hope I never have to. Especially when building your own home, the savings in labor are enormous

 

I agree with Toaster... Almost all my friends are engineers (go figure), and all are very active in maintenance and upgrades on their houses/cars/motorcycles/whatever.

For me:

Wiring a plug - run wire and put in 4 new outlets myself since i moved into my place two years ago. Last year, I replaced all of the outlets in my mom's house (they were 20 years old, painted over, and looked like crap).

Wallpaper - I've put some up before (at my mom's place), and I've taken even more down. Lets face it... painted walls are in, wallpaper is out. This fall (most likely), I'll be stripping the last of the wallpaper in my house.

Radiator - I've never lived in a place that used radiators for heat, so no... I don't know how to bleed one. If i had one, however, there's nothing that would stop me from looking up the procedure online and giving it a shot.

Putting up shelves - I've got all the materials to make some really nice floating shelves for my entry way, I'm just waiting until it cools down a bit so I'm not sweating while building them in my garage.

Gardening - I designed and built a raised garden last spring. Completely enclosed in bird netting, with 360 degrees of access with wood-framed bird netted doors.

As for their statement

I'm far, far better at this stuff than my dad. I helped my sister move a few weeks ago... In packing up her place, I noticed a series of nail holes in one of her wall (at least 8 holes). Apparently she asked our dad to hang a picture when he came to visit... In her new place, everything was hung, and no extra holes were made in the process

 

And before that people said the same thing about gen-x. And probably the baby-boomers before that, but I wasn't around then. Complaining about the next generation is a rite of passage for the older generation.

I think a lot of this is just experience, the survey made no attempt to compare this to previous generations at the same age. Since becoming a homeowner I've gradually been forced into different repairs and different upgrades, so I've learned as I went. Sometimes, depending on scope and emergency status we've called in the professionals. It helps to have somebody around who's done it before.

I've only lived in a place once with radiators and didn't have a clue that you could even bleed them until the landowner showed me how. (This article was for a survey done in Great Britain, which explains the whole radiator thing).

I've shown my son how to change a bicycle tire, he checks the tire pressure and can pump it up himself, and before he can drive I'll make sure he knows how to change a tire. Maybe change the oil if the car still has an ICE then. My wife has shown him a few things around the kitchen, how to cook simple things. The parents are at least as responsible as the kids. (And he does know how to make a youtube video, which I couldn't do at his age )

 

i think it's a natural process as people become more educated and affluent, they hire others to do more menial tasks and spend there spare time doing the things that bring them pleasure. that's why we have become a service economy and manufacturing jobs and others have gone to countries willing and able to do it for less.

 

Well ... if it's any consolation - people have been failing at their 'significant-other' / relationship skills for decades & decades. It's the law of entropy ... and the second law of thermodynamics.



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Not to mention the "manual labor" nature of the tasks the OP mentions. Today's youth don't grow up encountering these problems. They have the technological frontier to deal with. And while it seems "laziness" is the result, I think it's all a matter of perspective.
If we consider laziness to be a lacking of productivity, a computer wielding teen is in all fairness much more likely to get more accomplished than his counterpart from 1972, though the accomplishments will be different. If we talk about laziness as a lack of useful productivity, there an argument could be made against youth. However, this argument is likely to be made and understood, in majority, by old people who can't see that the DIY spirit isn't dead, it's just less and less analog. Kids program and customize computing and life functions of computing to no end. It is DIY, and likely something older people could not replicate, given that older people did not grow up in such a technology infused world.
Walls still need painting, plugs need wiring. Yes.

But, by comparison, what percentage of 50+ year olds (vs 16yr olds) can build a pc from scratch? Hell, transfer data from one computer to another? These may seem trivial (at least the do to me) but it is the direction the world is going.
What I'd like to add to this converstation is this: the OP has a point, but it is a matter of perspective. The world we live in and are headed towards does not need the same skillset the OP gained in his youth, however the spirit of problem solving is largely the same now, albeit for different goals.

My step dad is old school DIY and taught me everything he knew. But he'd constantly be on my case because of hoe much time I spent in my room on my computer.....no matter how many times I told him that I worked (at the time) for Google

 

It's simply a matter of how much you value your own time. DIY is terrific for those of us who enjoy it, so spending time on it isn't "wasted", but if tipping the washing machine onto its side to replace a pump isn't your idea of a good time don't make yourself miserable, hire someone else to do it.

DIY carried to an extreme would be the ultimate job killer, incidentally, because there'd be no money in running repair and maintenance businesses, so having ten left thumbs generally increases our overall prosperity: more people doing the work that needs doing and fewer people spending time doing something they'd rather not.

 

Oh sure, you just had to bring THAT up, didn't you?

[Incoherent mumbling about recent Evil ex-girlfriend]

I'll also admit I'm a fairly awful cook, but I haven't killed myself with my cooking - yet

 

A large factor in not doing many tasks yourself is the issue of liability. If you wire a plug yourself, and your house promptly burns down, you are at fault and I would bet money that you wouldn't get insurance to cover it.

 

That's true in another sense - I could be a full time handyman and house restorer, but then I wouldn't have time to work.

Good point.

Also, the trend in design seems to be towards replacement rather than repair. Even with car parts, you can't buy that one little peice that's broken, you have to buy the whole assembly.

 

The previous owner of my house fancied himself quite the "Do-it-yourselfer". He wasn't. The first thing I did when I moved in was hire plumbers, electricians, and carpenters to undo the damage he did.

 

I've built 4 new homes, all passed the various inspections with flying colors, thank you very much

 

As long as the required permits were filed and checked up on, there is no reason for it to have been done the wrong way.

Well at the time at least. Unfortunately my house is plumbed with Polybutylene piping which was fine at the time it was built but a nightmare nowadays. Legal then, but not "correct" today.

 

You obviously know what you're doing. However, just because you (and I mean that in the general sense, not you in specific) can wield a wrench doesn't mean you should.

I can fix computers with the best of them, and I get half my business from folks who tried to "fix" them themselves.

 

To steal that wonderful adage about pilots:

The superior DIYer uses his superior DIY judgement to avoid having to use his superior DIY skills.

He doesn't start taking apart something unfamiliar without either the book or someone who's done it before right beside him. Lotta booby traps behind those opaque metal plates with only three screws and a bolthead visible.