I'm not sure what you think they "get" better than older people, but if it's camera controls and basic theory, then the problem is these days is not whether they can get it or not, but the fact that they're not arsed about getting it. Turn your back, and 70% of them will just put the camera back on auto. At degree level, the mature students are by FAR the better students. The kids ignore all the technical stuff these days.... they've been made to feel cocky by F.E courses that reward crap and produce "distinction" students that have never been taught to operate the gear... actually been rewarded for it. Then there's social media and Flickr et al that further rewards they're work produced with no technical skill at all.... then I come along and tell them they need to go back to the beginning now, because we're using manual studio flash, or film, or just because I want to ensure you can use a camera manually in tricky situations... or, being controversial... because it's FUN. Guess how that goes down...

The more mature students just accept it, do it, lean from it, and get better as a result. The kids fight it, challenge you, and invariably continue shooting on auto and making things on a computer that ultimately no one outside of social media is actually interested seeing, and certainly no one wants to PAY them for. By year 2 they start to get it, but by then they're the weakest students and need to work so much harder.
Sorry mate... but you're dead wrong on this one, but it's nothing to do with kids being measurably more stupid, but because education at lower levels than I teach at have convinced themselves that these "digital natives" need to do every ****ing thing on a computer. Decisions made by idiots, basically.
That's the majority though. Seriously.... more people in the world think that Kennard montage above is real than not. That's the world now. Despite more and more images being false, more and more people actually believe what they see. This democratisation of photography the digital world has heralded in, genuinely is a double edged sword. The majority of the world are NOT photgraphers, despite the popular saying that suggests they are.
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