But then, if 'mentors' applies to parents, then I guess I'm saying the same thing.
Having said that, my teenage son wastes a lot of his life playing online games with his friends, but having said that, I heard him say mid-game to a friend of his "Brazilian isn't a language you idiot!". So, I mean it's trivia, but he knows there's no language called Brazilian. He's a smart kid (that's not the only data point).
(I had to look it up: Portugese is the official language of Brazil).
+1. Same for me.
Relationships has been more important than what I could consider ideal or optimal (in terms of how many missed opportunities are there).
Once I was reading a technical paper from a colleague and could not follow much. Spoke to him and he could explain the crux of it in two-three sentences. I was left wondering why that was not there in the paper itself. But that happens repeatedly. People are able to explain much better than the literature they produce*.
This perhaps has a contribution as to why good relationships and mentors end up being so important. But then, this ultimately comes in the way of scalability.
* Of course, it may possibly also be that in a verbal conversation when the author personally knows the reader, they can explain to that reader better. However, I think this effect is less important than people being able to write better.
As someone who benefited greatly from a few mentors in childhood and adolescence, my goal is to be able to give the same to at least a few other people in my lifetime.