"I think I’d like to say only that they [young people] should learn to be alone and try to spend as much time as possible by themselves. I think one of the faults of young people today is that they try to come together around events that are noisy, almost aggressive at times. This desire to be together in order to not feel alone is an unfortunate symptom, in my opinion. Every person needs to learn from childhood how to be spend time with oneself. That doesn’t mean he should be lonely, but that he shouldn’t grow bored with himself because people who grow bored in their own company seem to me in danger, from a self-esteem point of view."
This is from decades ago. It's easy to suspect we live in the age of noise, but I feel it's likely the perception is exaggerated much like the notion our times are particularly turbulent - in reality the past was plenty turbulent too.
I pretty much dismiss all 'the youth today' statements. People have always been people, so why would the youth today be so much different from, say, young people a hundred years ago (in what they think, feel and want that is).
However, to add to the point about noise: Often I just want to go have a few drinks with my friends, but there's virtually no place where you can do that, without getting bombarded by way-too-loud music. The only places I could think of where that would not be the case are working-class watering holes where people my age apparently don't like to go anymore. I'd love for us (I'm living in Austria) to have more of a pub-culture like in England, where it seems to me, it's more accepted, also among young people, to just sit in a bar, have a drink and be able to talk to another.
Also living in Austria (Vienna), I do not experience the situation being as bad as you do. There are cafés where you can talk for hours (also in the evening), there are pubs (some of them do play loud music tough), and plenty other bars where you an go to and have a nice chat, with background music but not disturbingly loud.
I'm sensitive to noise but there are usually plenty of choices if I want to hang out in tranquil places. The situation is different on the countryside where you don't have that much choice.
This is also my experience in Vienna. Having been there very often and also a few times in London I would say that there are both noisey and quiet bars/café's/pubs in both cities. And indeed in most cities in europe.
I pretty much dismiss all 'the youth today' statements.
I once read an article (it was a paper, so long time ago) about late Roman Empire customs. Young people used to fill the circus for massive, noisy concerts. No electric instruments, so the noise was achieved using lots of percussion. Also long hair and ripped trousers. Nihil novum...
I have difficulty finding bars where you can sit and talk; many of them have obnoxious top 40 playing loudly on the speakers. Had this problem yesterday when attending a tech meetup and the jukebox in the main room was overpowering the speakers.
I'd add Siegfried Kracauer to the discussion, a German journalist, sociologist and film theorist who wrote most of his essays during the Weimar Republic (many of them included in the "The Mass Ornament" (http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674551633) volume). Unfortunately I couldn't quickly find that many English-written articles about his work, the best that I could do was this blog-post about one of his essays called "Boredom" (https://itwascuriosity.wordpress.com/2010/07/23/on-being-bor...) and especially his "Travel and Dance" essay (https://books.google.ro/books?id=yIWJASvV9uwC&pg=PA65&lpg=PA...), which talks critically about the mass-tourism phenomenon that was just about to start and about the dance and jazz music of his era.
Possibly off-topic, but I would have guessed Tarkovsky would be as popular here as any filmmaker, at least because of Solaris and Stalker. Are the nerds of today no longer into such stuff?
"I think I’d like to say only that they [young people] should learn to be alone and try to spend as much time as possible by themselves. I think one of the faults of young people today is that they try to come together around events that are noisy, almost aggressive at times. This desire to be together in order to not feel alone is an unfortunate symptom, in my opinion. Every person needs to learn from childhood how to be spend time with oneself. That doesn’t mean he should be lonely, but that he shouldn’t grow bored with himself because people who grow bored in their own company seem to me in danger, from a self-esteem point of view."
This is from decades ago. It's easy to suspect we live in the age of noise, but I feel it's likely the perception is exaggerated much like the notion our times are particularly turbulent - in reality the past was plenty turbulent too.