Whereas adults because of their weakening vitality, concentrate their attention more and more on the objective contents of life, which in the present meaning could as well be designated as its forms, youth is more concerned with the process of life. Youth only wishes to express its power and its surplus of power, regardless of the objects involved. Thus cultural movement toward life and its expression alone, which disdains almost everything formal, objectifies the meaning of youthful life.

DEFINE: Simmel distinguishes youth as concerned with the process/expression of life itself, while adults attend to objective content and forms — a useful clarifying frame for his cultural theory.

Georg Simmel, on individuality and social…, loc. 854