I can sort of see this happening. I think they may be overstating it, but parents are definitely getting more and more lenient. I don't think we should be too strict or overbearing, but I'm wondering what kind of standards they hold for their kids. I'm almost in this generation, but I guess I miss it by 5 years. This sounds like what I went through in high school, so I think they are definitely generalizing. I know kids who were insanely dedicated and intelligent, and I also knew many who could care less about school and skipped most of the time. A friend of some friends, I don't know his name, said he went to college 2 times in the last month or so. Everyone thought that was hilarious, but I thought it was horrible. I quite like reading up on things I don't know about and I like doing puzzles that help keep the brain moving. Mainly cryptograms and logic puzzles like these:
I also have 2 apps on my iPhone that I use quite a bit. One has 2,000 different words that are supposedly advanced (like "wend" and "obstreperous"), and the other one is all about Geography and currency.