From the perspective of these kids real work probably involves working with your hands. I don't think we need to get too upset over what people who have yet to enter the workforce have to say about "real work". They need to be employed for a few years before they learn the lesson that almost ALL work is fake work.

My definition of real work is - can I point at something and be proud of it? It might not even be something physical (but often is) and my involvement may not be obvious (say, managing the spreadsheets for a building project), but there it is, the thing I worked on.