On June 20, Franciscan TV’s Friar Time presented a voice that perhaps isn’t listened to enough—not the voice of an expert, a politician, or a commentator, but a young man. During a groundbreaking episode titled, “What Do Young People Really Want? An Unfiltered Conversation”, host Fr. David Convertino, OFM, welcomed Chris Berrios, a 17-year-old student who bravely sat down to explore questions such as:
What do young people really value? What are they searching for? And where, if anywhere, do they see God in it all?
“A lot is said about young people today,” observed Fr. David, “but very little is actually heard from them.” He and Chris began their exploration at the intersection of two profound concepts:
“Chris, do you think young people today are focused more on happiness or success?” asked Fr. David.
“I would say success,” answered Chris. “I know a lot of people who are pursuing careers that they never had any intention of pursuing simply because, you know, it can make them a lot of money in advance. It’s kind of like they’re just chasing success, but it’s not like they really want to do that. If they had the option to do something else, they’d much rather do it. And it’s not like they’re chasing a purpose or anything like that.”
“They would sacrifice happiness for success?” mused Fr. David. “Do you agree with that?”
“It’s difficult because some people have options and some people don’t—in the sense of can people afford to pursue things. Some people don’t have options and have to go with the route that can ultimately give the most success and comfortability in life.”
“Is there something that older generations don’t understand about what it means to be 17 years old?”
“I’d say that what they do heavily impacts the younger generation,” asserted Chris. “I’ll give an example of overcapitalization. When houses used to be like $50,000, they purchased all the houses, and now they’re reselling them for a million each, and no one can afford a house. So that’s kind of what I mean. When they do that kind of stuff, the younger generation can’t thrive as they did. College tuition costs as much as a house sometimes. And then, along with all these insurances and bills and all that, inflation’s way up there now. So, it’s a lot harder to make money. I know some people who are making three times the federal minimum wage, and they still can’t afford to live properly.”
“Okay, so let’s talk about what sometimes the older generations think about the younger people being under a lot of pressure in terms of identity, in terms of expectations,” said Fr. David. “We hear there’s a lot of pressure on young people today with social media, school, and expectations. Where do you feel it the most?”
“Oh, yeah, people expect more things out of you,” shared Chris. “A lot of people, especially in the older generation, they were able to live pretty comfortably. My grandfather had his house in his 20s. It’s not the same now. People can’t afford to have a family. Some people can’t even afford to get married. So, people expect you to do things traditionally, but you can’t really do that anymore because things are just so different now. Sometimes I try to explain it to my grandfather, but it doesn’t always compute. He just doesn’t really empathize with it. So sometimes there’s really nothing you can do about it.”
“So how does social media fit into all this?” asked Fr. David. “It seems that people really put on a facade for social media.”
“People have to realize you can’t really compare someone’s social media life to your personal life because they can be going through things as well,” answered Chris. “And you shouldn’t let how they present themselves online bring you down.
My friends say, ‘Oh man, their life is so good!’, just because they post photos in their stories of them in, say, Puerto Rico, and it looks like they’re on vacation all the time. But they probably go through things too.”
“This might be hard to answer, Chris, but do you think young people today are more free, or do you think they’re kind of more trapped than previous generations?”
“It’s confusing because we’re more free mentally in a way that the younger generation is breaking tradition and can be more true to themselves,” replied Chris. “But we’re not financially as free. Again, things are expensive now, and it’s kind of hard to thrive and be truly free because everything is just so stuck. And not just stuck, but like everything just kind of went backwards. There are a lot of norms that have been shattered by a variety of people, politicians, religious people, and entertainers, especially. Let’s just take an example in terms of language, okay? There were words that no one would ever say in public. And now we’re having this cursing and profanity coming from the highest echelons of the government. People, in a way, are indecent with their words a lot online, especially politicians. I see that a lot. Like what they say about other people, it’s kind of like they talk down to each other like humans are dogs—like we’re not all people.”
“So, you see those social norms that used to be in place are kind of gone. So now what? How do we act now? Where do we get our morals from?”
“It’s weird. In a way, it’s like we took steps backward. After World War II, everyone was like, ‘No more genocides!’ But then I see the rise of new politicians and new government leaders— all of a sudden people are like coming out of the mud right now, and they’re like, ‘I support genocides. I support wars.’
And it makes no sense because how can you agree with, for example, what Germany did in World War II?
How can you agree with that? But then all of a sudden start supporting genocide now? It’s kind of contradictory in a way.”
“So how do young people feel about all this?”
“Let’s say you live in an area that has more access to good education, you pretty much understand that what’s going on is wrong, improper, or indecent. But then you go to areas that don’t have as good an education, and they end up supporting this stuff because it’s what they see on TV, and they think that, Yep, this is correct because they’re showing it on media.”
“If you could talk to parents, leaders, teachers, churches, entertainers, politician—the whole group—what would you want us to understand about your generation?”
“That there’s still hope. Things can change, but we have to do things together in order to make it happen. We have to work together. We have to tolerate each other. And we got to learn to love each other as people. And in that way, we’ll be able to achieve anything.”
“Do you feel listened to, or do you feel dismissed?”
“Sometimes I feel like I’m being heard by my friends because they’re able to empathize with my situation. But then sometimes when I’m talking to adults or other kids in my school, they brush me off. And it’s like your words have no significance. So, it just depends on who you’re around and sometimes about finding people who hear you.”
“If you could say to adults, ‘You guys need to stop doing this,’ what would it be?”
“Just because we’re young doesn’t mean we’re naive or don’t know anything. Sometimes you’ve got to be willing not only to see things through your single lens but also to be open to new perspectives, especially young perspectives, because they can teach you something. Just because you’ve been on this earth for 30 years more than I have doesn’t mean you’ve experienced everything I have. You shouldn’t keep a closed mind when it comes to listening to others because you can be taught something by someone who’s a lot younger than you.”
Fr. David concluded the conversation by reflecting on what struck him about it: “Young people are certainly not empty or lost, and they are certainly not without values. They are searching, just like all of us. We’re searching for the truth in a world of noise, searching for identity in a world of labels, and searching for a connection in a world of screens.
And yes, all of us are searching for God, even if we don’t always have words for it or the same labels for God. Maybe the real question isn’t, what’s wrong with young people today? Maybe the real question is, what’s wrong with some of us adults?
The question may be, are we really listening to them? Because if we listen, I think we’re going to hear the gospel stirring in their hearts and in their questions, and in their answers.”
This transcript comes from approximately 8 minutes of the 29-minute episode of Friar Time: “What Do Young People Really Want? An Unfiltered Conversation.” To enjoy Fr. David and Chris’s full conversation, visit tv.FranciscanFriarsCharities.org