IT HAS been pleasing to see the younger generation - and by that I mean teenagers - becoming very visible when it comes to fundraising and getting behind causes. It's particularly pleasing because it is a repeated lament about the perceived selfishness of generations spawned after the baby boomers.
I admit I can't recall, at school, any spontaneous campaigns such as Kuranui College's Kina for Skinner, Monday's head-shaving campaign for a student who has cancer.
However, most of my generation were probably already involved in do-gooding activities.
We tended to belong to Cubs and Scouts, many of us gave a small amount of money to relief causes like World Vision (African causes were trendy), and we all did the 40-hour famine. The social conscience aspects of them probably didn't impress on us that much. They were generally things you were told to do. As a teenager, self-interest was reasonably strong. You understood fundraising was generally a good thing, in the same way you understood attending church services was a good thing.
What is different these days is the mechanism to make a cause more visible - the internet. It also means, via social media, a person can become a minor cause celebre just by pitching a selfless idea on line. I suspect the visibility of such causes appeals to teenagers. Facebook and social media is all about presence, and seeing your comments and photos and postings circulate, seeing reactions like ripples among your peers. Now a selfless sacrifice of time, energy and hair can quickly galvanise people to your banner.