But Mr Hayward, a criminologist at the University of Copenhagen, goes much further. In “Infantilised”, he contends that young people today are less mature than previous generations, and that Western culture is to blame. He offers plenty of examples of “kidulting” to reinforce his case. ©

*Shrug* The word kidult was in fashion when yours truly was young (in her early twenties, more than 25 years ago), so it’s not the case. If we take a step away from the usual “this generation is horribly infantile” etc., we quickly end up with a zero sum game, as it doesn’t benefit anybody. The intergenerational shift is usually irreparable—that’s how history is making itself—but what’s new is the omnipotence of the Internet in all its iterations (socials, gaming, overconsumption, you name it), which youngsters are much more prone to comparing with the previous generations, simply because they don’t know anything else (i.e. it’s easy to “touch grass” with your avatar in any existing game than literally go outside for this). What *is* frustratingly obvious is this overall new lukewarm approach, when the best you can do is to become a meme-lord, and all you need for this is more or less reliable access to the local wifi.