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Teens Aren’t Partying Anymore

245 points by SQL2219 9y ago

hodgesrm 9y ago
Basically it feels as if parts of American society are becoming desocialized--losing the ability to interact effectively with other members of the society. This article echoes Robert Putnam's "Bowling Alone" thesis [0]. His ideas are at least a quarter century old but now seem prescient. I find the social changes the Wired article describes far more disturbing than the "Internet is frying our brains" threat that people like Nick Carr fear, let alone Artificial General Intelligence. Unlike the latter we see evidence of the former on a daily basis. [0] http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/assoc/bowling.html http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/assoc/bowling.html
- Theodores 9y ago
  I think you are correct. I am in the UK and I saw a change happen to the students that went to university after I left. This was early nineties so pre-internet. Nothing to do with screens. However, my generation created and participated in untold amount of parties. We did not go to official organised events most of the time, more things we did. So no fancy concerts with known acts, just some of us playing records, everyone else dancing or propping up the bar (or taking drugs). In fact even the drug taking was different, it was about the 'raves' and not the drugs. People didn't take the drugs outside of the events. Undoubtedly the drug scene was a huge appeal to some but more people were happy on regular alcohol. The generation that came along after just did not have the aptitude for getting together with a few hundred close friends for beach parties or illegal raves. At the same time the 'rave' scene or proper party scene had been killed off by capitalism, with larger venues in big cities - nightclubs - being the new thing. In the days of partying the idea of spending a Friday/Saturday in front of a screen and not going out would be tantamount to hell. Also, back in the day, it would be possible to physically see a party event and hear the music. Nowadays that never happens, I don't see house parties as frequently as how they used to happen, e.g. on a Saturday night walking back across town there is no party to be heard, everything has to be properly organised now. I think that the change happened with Reagan/Thatcher and how the individual mattered more than society, we become atomised then. It would be nice to know how teenagers partied before the invention of the teenager to see the whole pattern and not assume everything is due to me being 'getting old'.
vinceguidry 9y ago
I have a theory that introversion and extraversion don't really exist as personality traits, and that we build up preferences out of existing culture about how much social interaction we want in our daily lives. If the culture changes, then so will our preferences. I can easily imagine a world in which I'm gregarious and fun all the time. Making that world happen on the other hand...
- have_faith 9y ago
  > I can easily imagine a world in which I'm gregarious and fun all the time Must be an overactive imagination.
  - vinceguidry 9y ago
    Think "8 year old boy in the 1800s." Castles, dragons, kings, jousting. My mind just doesn't know how to quit.
- Abitingal 9y ago
  > I have a theory that introversion and extraversion don't really exist as personality traits, and that we build up preferences out of existing culture about how much social interaction we want in our daily lives. I am under the impression that there is quite a bit of diversity when it comes to introversion/ extroversion. While I was not the one to go out partying and neither was my friends, I always thought that it was more due to which social circles I was with rather than a bigger trend.
- apohn 9y ago
  I'd recommend searching for "Introversion and extroversion brain differences" and similar topics in your favorite search engine. There's evidence that there are physical differences in the brain. Hopefully somebody with a background in medicine or neuroscience can provide a more comprehensive answer.
  - dougmwne 9y ago
    And if someone has neuroscience background, maybe they can tell us if that difference is present from birth or if these changes to the brain are environmental based on our social experiences.
FussyZeus 9y ago
I think a decent portion should also be laid at the feet of technology in general, not even just Netflix, but also that how teens interact on social media is more or less in the public (and their parents) eyes, with the exceptions of things like Snapchat which isn't very conducive to planning a party. It's also worth noting that it's much, much harder for teens to get ahold of booze these days, and the penalties for having anything they shouldn't have, be it alcohol, drugs, whatever, are extremely steep. Not saying that stops it completely, but they keep that sort of thing quiet if they don't want to end up in prison for a couple of decades. Enough weed to throw a party, in many states, would get you put in a cell until you were middle-aged. After all of that, a good amount I agree with the article is just down to kids having more to do that doesn't carry anything close to the same kind of risks; I also don't understand why this is a bad thing?
- bluedino 9y ago
  >> It's also worth noting that it's much, much harder for teens to get ahold of booze these days 20 years ago we just had an older sibling or co-worker buy for us. What's changed?
  - smelendez 9y ago
    More stigma attached to it for the buyer. Stricter enforcement of 21 to drink rules so older sibling will have a harder time buying with a fake ID if under 21. Fewer teens working so less interaction with over 21s.
    - FussyZeus 9y ago
      Also see above about high consequences. Any over 21 with a brain wouldn't do it, because that's another of those ways to fuck your life up that boomers and Xers could afford to do, but millennials really can't.
  - lovich 9y ago
    Technology has made law enforcement much more efficient and as a society we've pushed for greater and greater protections for children. For instance all the examples of people getting the cops called on them for letting their children walk outside unsupervised
westmeal 9y ago
I know, I know this is anecdotal 'evidence'. I happen to be 21 which fits me right in this generation and the main reason this occurs is due to parenting. My parents wouldn't let me go _anywhere_ by myself until I was at least 17. By that time I was completely and utterly addicted to computing to just let go and 'hang out'. As a matter in fact most of my friends are online rather than 4 real friends in real life. It seems like people in my age group had parents that would rather have their child stare at a screen than experience the world. Just my two cents.
- abledon 9y ago
  and whats crazy for this generation is thats the age people are supposed to most easily make their friends to bring them into the later stages of life. https://thewalrus.ca/the-science-of-loneliness/#.WkqJdEldy2w.twitter https://thewalrus.ca/the-science-of-loneliness/#.WkqJdEldy2w...
- Pigo 9y ago
  I think you have to factor in how much parents mold a kid into who they are. But I also went out to bonfires and snuck out to parties in spite of my parents. Knowing the hammer was going to drop when I got home just made me enjoy it even more. The little bit of social media that eventually showed up was mostly about finding out where the party was, and finding that cute girl you met there afterwards.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- the-dude 9y ago
  Here you have a 'counterdote' : I am 43. After the first year of high school ( I was 13 ), we were allowed to travel to the other side of the country by train, sleep in a youth hostel and return at the end of the next day. This is NL, the other side of the country is only 350km. When we tell younger friends, they refuse to believe.
  - vasilipupkin 9y ago
    ok, but NL has like zero crime, so it doesn't seem like a big deal
donatj 9y ago
I am a total introvert and some of my happiest high school memories involve friends pushing me to go to giant parties that pushed me out of my comfort zone. I would say that there are moments in there which are integral to who I am as a person. I really feel like they’re missing out on a developmental milestone. I almost feel like these kids are brainwashed but that’s probably just me looking in as an outsider. I am just getting old (31) and struggling with the fact that I no longer understand the youth.
- maroonblazer 9y ago
  > I really feel like they’re missing out on a developmental milestone. Are they though? Those milestones can take many different forms, as evidenced by the fact that "giant parties" are a relatively recent phenomenon, historically speaking.
  - graphitezepp 9y ago
    Kids are missing out on developmental milestones, I know I did. It doesn't have to be parties. The just hanging out thing is down too according to the article. Many people are leaving their teen years far too sheltered and socially underdeveloped, because indulging in endless digital distraction takes up more and more of our time as a society.
    - ahartman00 9y ago
      I've been wondering for years now, what is the difference between hanging out irl, and a chat room, or Facebook, or whatever? Not trying to be rude, but I just don't get how talking to your friends in meat space is socializing, but talking to your friends on the phone is a distraction? I agree with you on the sheltered thing.
  - Clubber 9y ago
    >as evidenced by the fact that "giant parties" are a relatively recent phenomenon, historically speaking. That is nowhere near true.
megaman22 9y ago
If I were a teenager today, I don't know that I'd be going out to the gravel pits or up to camp and raging like we used to, and that was not so long ago. Social media is wildly more omnipresent than it was then; when we were sitting around bonfires and drinking bud lights, most people didn't even have cameras in their cell phones. When you've got that kind of evidence spread all over Instagram and SnapChat and Facebook, with little ability to control its privacy, it changes the amount of risk involved in those activities. Unless the po-pos actually paid a visit to the shindig, or you stumbled in home the next morning stove up and reeking of beer, it was pretty easy to get away with things back then.
- shanecleveland 9y ago
  Smart homes and smart phones would have definitely put a damper on many of my extracurricular activities as a teenager ... house parties, sneaking out, saying I was in one place while actually in another, etc.
dawhizkid 9y ago
I wonder why the "young adult nightlife experience" feels so stagnant. I like going to the occasional upscale cocktail bar, but in general spending Friday or Saturday night in a crowded bar or club is not my idea of a fun thing to do. What is the alternative for more introverted people? Stay home? I went to Copenhagen recently and on a Friday night came across a big coffee/beer+wine place with lots of tables/sofas that was packed with people drinking beer and playing board games. It seems like such an obvious concept/nightlife alternative for people who don't want to stay home but don't want to go to a loud bar. Doesn't seem to exist in the U.S. as far as I know.
- swarnie_ 9y ago
  18-21 seems alive and well in the UK but we do have a very odd night life drinking culture. I found once people get to their 3rd and 4th years of university they can see "Real life" on the horizon and the awful 3am kebab shop behavior largely stops. Like you've described pub culture is quite popular for the 25-40 bracket. Somewhere you can meet and socialise which is like being at home without pounding music and £8 drinks
  - dasil003 9y ago
    As an American who lived in London from age 34-37, I loved the pub culture because it allows one to get outside and have a couple drinks with colleagues at a reasonable hour and still be home for dinner with the family. Also, cask ale much easier on my stomach than super cold and carbonated lagers.
- wlesieutre 9y ago
  If you're ever in Seattle https://www.moxboardinghouse.com https://www.moxboardinghouse.com
- itsmillertime4u 9y ago
  We got them all over the DC area, and they are mostly microbreweries. Most don't serve food since they don't have a kitchen or a license for that, but they often times have food trucks outside where you get your snacks.
nawtacawp 9y ago
Does the same hold true in Europe?
- collyw 9y ago
  I worked in a company with a lot of 18-25 year olds recently.Based in Barcelona but a very international mix of people. They seemed to do a lot of drinking and a lot of social media (we had a work trip to Rome one weekend and they looked nervous when they didn't have wifi or their phone was out of charge). As it was a very international crowd out of their home countries and most working in sales maybe it captured a fairly extroverted sample of the age group.
- shaki-dora 9y ago
  I'm in Berlin, and in my 30s. I'm partying more now than I ever did as a teenager or in my 20s. This city has a somewhat unique club culture with a bend towards left-wing politics and art (plus electronic music and psychedelics). It's gotten so big that the local government has started to consider the scene economically important, and works to protect the venues from the threats of gentrification. Festivals (in all of Europe) also seem to be growing every year. Plus there are of course house parties–I don't go as often, but most students I know do every weekend.
TurboHaskal 9y ago
I understand it to a degree. I've personally never liked partying; hated the music and the culture around alcohol and only did it in order to get girls. There are more efficient ways today.
- Clubber 9y ago
  I think you're on to something. That was the only point of going out for me too. Occasionally, I'd just want to get hammered and goof off with my friends, but we could do that at home. Most of the time, it was to chase girls.
- kenning 9y ago
  Didn't realize it until this comment, but you're right. Tinder really made hooking up a lot more efficient, and finding mates was the only reason I had to go out after I was ~23. Apparently the use of tinder in the NBA is actually making a big impact on away teams' sleep schedules. http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/page/presents18969358/tinderization-today-nba http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/page/presents18969358/tinder...
dcow 9y ago
While I'm slightly too old to have experienced what the article is describing, the trend is there and I believe technology plays an undenyable role (followed by parenting). I have many siblings but notably a brother who's in his first year high school. I also just attended a wedding and got to meet the high school brother of the groom. I was talking to my brother on NYE. He was lamenting that he could not find anyone to hang out with on NYE for a party. We asked why he didn't text people and get something together, "that's not how it works, people communicate with snapchat, and I'm not allowed to have that, not that I want it.. it's just people posting weed and coke stories". He was obviously a little moody but still unable to find any social gathering (even a parent hosted on) on NYE of all nights. The brother of the groom: nice kid but wholly uninterested in anything other than maintaining his snapchat streaks. First he came to me for data. A few days later his phone was dead and he wanted to install snapchat on my phone to continue the streaks. It's psychologically addicting. And it made me realize how much people are depending on fabricated social experiences on their phones instead of real social interactions. One thing is common: snapchat. People don't hang out anymore, they have streaks. If they do hang out it's over pot or coke, no one is even that interested in drinking these days. Oh no tech is ruining everything! Well, no. But something is happening. It's not snapchat's fault, either (unless they deliberately exploit addicting behaviors to increase engagement and retention). I think parents are largely to blame. It's easy to let your 14yr old become consumed in their phone because that means more internet time and less driving around for you. My parents are very wary of this and it's largely why they waited as long as they could before giving my younger brothers a phone and why they are reluctant to let them create an entirely digital social life. My generation, we discovered the internet before our parents knew what it was. I administered networks at 15. I built websites at 14. I was a moderator of large forums at 13. My dad gave me his old laptop when I was 12--bobs celebs era. And I think I've turned out pretty decent. So it leaves me all really torn. Do we embrace technology or shun it? My main fear isn't necessarily the tech itself, but the dependence on it. I fear the iGen isn't learning how to use computers as tools and simply becoming consumers of all the experiences we create with them. And at the same time I hate some of those things we've created like SC and FB for literally taking the human out of humanity--despite having grown quite accustomed to virtual interactions growing up. So I guess the real question is whether it's a problem that people aren't socializing anymore, or at least doing it differently. And if so what will we do about it? Maybe AR to the rescue...
temp-dude-87844 9y ago
It's worth digging one level deeper. Screen time has increased, and it may be at the expense of parties, but screen time is also an unsupervised place where the parties have an expectation of privacy and control. The stereotypical party the article laments is a complex affair that requires transportation, supplies, a venue, and desirable participants, and doesn't spring into place organically. Social circles at colleges can organize these, but there has been extraordinary scrutiny into campus parties in recent years, due to accounts of sexual assaults. These related developments makes them more difficult to plan, drives desirable participants away, and makes resulting parties less enjoyable. With common people's parties blunted, partying becomes the domain of the wealthy and attractive, in entertainment playgrounds like Miami and Vegas. As for teenagers, parental supervision is at an all-time high, so organizing a party often requires finding a cooperating adult (e.g. a socially-connected college student, an older sibling, a laissez-faire parent) who is willing to provide the venue and supplies away from the eyes of concerned parents. Fewer college parties means fewer teen parties too.
- murph-almighty 9y ago
  >extraordinary scrutiny into campus parties I was involved in Greek life in college and can testify. Not only did we need to register our parties with the university but we still had to worry about police presence and legal liability. This isn't to say that these policies should be repealed- dumb people did dumb things, and thus these came into place, but it doesn't remove the fact that it's getting harder to hold a social gathering without a cop busting down your door and citing everyone in the room.
  - watwut 9y ago
    What would be the reas on for citing? I mean, you need to break some law for the cop to do so. I am pretty sure it is possible to have drinking party without dping something illegal (harder with marihuanna and that should be lagalized imo).
    - megaman22 9y ago
      It's almost a given that any college party is going to have underage drinking, and providing alcohol to minors. When we used to have registered parties, there were wristbands for the few juniors and seniors that were over 21, and everybody else knew to set their cups down when Safety and Security did their walk-throughs. Not to mention any other drugs that might get into the mix.
kthejoker2 9y ago
Nothing new under the sun ... ___________________________________________ Human contacts have been so highly valued in the past only because reading was not a common accomplishment and because books were scarce and difficult to reproduce. The world, you must remember, is only just becoming literate. As reading becomes more and more habitual and widespread, an ever-increasing number of people will discover that books will give them all the pleasures of social life and none of its intolerable tedium. At present people in search of pleasure naturally tend to congregate in large herds and to make a noise; in future their natural tendency will be to seek solitude and quiet. - Aldous Huxley, Chrome Yellow
- mattbuilds 9y ago
  I'm not sure I would agree with this statement. I think there needs to be a balance of both solitude and human interaction, and that balances differs from person to person. I’m definitely more introverted but it doesn’t mean I don’t need human interaction. An example is that I play a ton of video games, one reason is for the solitude, but I also enjoy board games for the social component. At the core of games, I love the strategy and competition, but different types of games can scratch different itches. I think things like that can apply to a lot of parts of life.
  - olleromam91 9y ago
    All this quote says is that solitude through literature will become a natural tendency. Which it definitely has become, much more than in the centuries before today.
- pwaai 9y ago
  > As reading becomes more and more habitual and widespread, an ever-increasing number of people will discover that books will give them all the pleasures of social life and none of its intolerable tedium. spoken like a true hermit....material objects cannot replace human connection...the author of that quote is escaping that harsh truth which I'm sure he realized towards the end like so many others that came before him.
tulipmania 9y ago
Frankly this is totally case by case. I’m 22 and have been partying hard since 15. Simultaneous to that my career hasn’t been a distraction or a replacement. It would make sense that the support on a developer driven channel like Hacker News would sway the kids who hang inside more. I promise you HN, kids are partying hard.
- workthrowaway27 9y ago
  It's about population trends, not individuals.
cutler 9y ago
Society is sick, let's face it, and technology is largely to blame. We just can't see the danger in technology so long as we're blinded by everything shiny. Human beings are primarily social beings and no, that does not mean peering at each other through the alienating window of a mobile phone screen. In 1969, at the age of 9, I could be left to play with my friends and wander several miles from home without any sense of danger. Days were occupied with spports or just hanging out then reading and TV in the evening. There was balance because we had less technology. The ageing mill towns of East Lancashire, UK, still enjoyed a culture of trust and respect for your neighbours such that you could leave your front door open without fear of theft. Parents stressd "playing out" and being "out of the house" but it didn't stop kids from achieving academically. The thought of hiding in my room and hardly ever seeing my friends face-to-face would have been soul-destroying. Chess, games, cricket and football was life itself in my teens up to about 15 when the music scene and girls became the main fascination. These were all social activities and I can't imagine those glorious teenage years spent hidden in my room staring at a phone screen as a substitute for real human contact. It's unthinkable.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Society is sick, let's face it, and technology is largely to blame. Technology is never to blame for anything, because technology is not a moral actor; people may be to blame for the manner in which they use technology. OTOH, people have been falsely conflating “the youth of today seem to have a different lifestyle than I preferred in my youth” with “society is sick” for at least as long as we have historical evidence of what people thought.
  - workthrowaway27 9y ago
    There's lots of evidence that people in their early 20s and under are psychologically different than older people (higher rates of anxiety/depression at the same age, etc.). Anecdotally, I've noticed that people don't talk to strangers as much on planes anymore as when I was a child. I guess you could argue that technology isn't to blame, but technology changes people. And it's hard not to use technology when it's so pervasive. At work I have a hard time not eating donuts when someone brings them in. Technology is similar. If everyone around you is on their phone or facebook or whatever it takes a lot of willpower/willingness to be different to not do the same.
watwut 9y ago
Nostalgia for parties that "wretched parents house" says more about older people and their lack of empathy then something bad about youngsters. Am I only one who did not grew with cell phones and still did not wretched anybodies house? I would not invite kids likely to wretch our house home.
Torgo 9y ago
Our society has institutionalized child abuse by preventing them from doing things on their own until post-university adulthood.
madengr 9y ago
Not good. Better to get all the partying done in high school so one can buckle down in college.
at-fates-hands 9y ago
I was on the millennial bubble (1999) and I was a total jock in HS. I was so fearful of getting kicked off my teams, I never partied or drank beer, I was a total straight edge. Fast forward into college and at the beginning of my Freshman year I still wasn't partying because I didn't want to flunk out of college. I was so into my classes and doing well, I just didn't have time. By the middle of Freshman year, my soccer teammates basically kidnapped me and took me to my first real party where I drank, got loaded and flirted with all the girls. It was really an eye opening experience for me to learn how to be in social situations with members of the opposite sex, as well as socialize with other students my age. With less and less people of the current generation skipping college, I can easily see a huge reduction in partying and drinking overall. Add in the financial burden of being on your own and how much decent beer or alcohol costs and it just becomes out of reach due to financial circumstances. Not surprised at all by the conclusions in the article.
bsder 9y ago
Mostly? I suspect it's the fact that they always have something more interesting to do than attempt to interact with another human which, let's face it, generally has a low probability of being interesting.
jcadam 9y ago
Bah, I was a nerd/loser and never got invited to parties as a teenager (in the 90s) anyway. Actually, I still don't get invited to parties...
- jcadam 9y ago
  Dang, way to rub it in, downvoters.
  - yayadarsh 9y ago
    I'm sorry for the situation you describe. For what it's worth, the downvotes (I did not downvote you) are due to HN's insistence on comments that are productive/on topic.
    - jcadam 9y ago
      It was mostly an attempt at self-deprecating humor, which admittedly wasn't particularly productive and was only marginally on-topic.
guywaffle 9y ago
Yea... the moment the author used iGen they lost all credibility.
mohaine 9y ago
Should we call this generation the "Solarians" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaria
taternuts 9y ago
I wonder how much the pervasiveness of dating apps has to do with this as well. One of the bigger social motivators for my generation growing up was "are members of the opposite sex gonna be there?". Nowadays a lot of people meet on dating apps, _then_ choose to potentially socialize with each other and go out, whereas before you'd have to go out and be social to stand a chance of finding someone to date. Now you actually _can_ sit at home on your couch all day and still meet girls/guys.
- workthrowaway27 9y ago
  I think there's definitely some of this, and it's more pronounced in smaller cities. I used to live in a big city and it was easy to meet people in bars. Now I live in much smaller city and I have a much harder time meeting people in bars, so I use dating apps more.
- swiley 9y ago
  As someone who's used a lot of dating apps: It's an awful way to meet new people, especially potential partners. You (being the average male, since this is my experience) are competing to have a coffee date against a ridiculous number of above average males with someone who you've never met, who knows none of your friends and likely has very little in common with you. If you get their attention (which is a very hard thing to do) you might get one or two reply messages before you're forgotten about. If you manage to get a date it's unlikely to be someone who has all that much in common with you, it's likely to be someone looking for sex rather than an actual relationship, and they're unlikely to go on a second date with you anyway. Honestly I haven't had a lot of luck dating in person or on line but at least I've made a lot of friends from doing stuff IRL, while dating apps leave you with absolutely nothing.
mcgrath_sh 9y ago
One thing I haven’t seen in the comments is the pressure and expectation that you are supposed to be an excellent student and get into a good school and/or get scholarships. The pressure and work pushed onto kids from a young age is staggering. I graduated HS in 2006. I feel like I was on the early-ish side of “must get very good grades, have multiple extra curriculars, and get into a good school.” I had 4-6 hours of homework a night after sitting in school all day and having a 2-2.5 hour sports practice or a game (which was even more of a time commitment). I was often up until midnight or later and waking up at 6:15-6:30 on weekdays. Weekends were used for more practices and more homework. Even when classmates would party, it would be exceedingly rare. I would often only hang out with friends 3-5 times a month for no more than 2-3 hours. I simply didn’t have the time. I don’t buy that the homework time is the same. I think the amount of homework that kids get is absolutely insane. When I would (rarely) miss school becaus I was sick, I realized how little I actually missed during the day; I was basically fine if I got my homework done. If a boss told me in order to get a promotion (college) to a midlevel manager position I would have to work for 7 hours a day, 5 days a week, spend 2-3 hours 6 days a week for a mandatory but not mandatory activity (sports, band, plays, etc) to make my resume look better, spend another 4-6 hours after work and activities preparing for the next day, and and finally spend another 10-16 hours on the weekend learning more about my job I would be job hunting before the door closed behind me. Oh, and those mandatory activities? They cannot really be minimum wage jobs. They don’t seem to do a whole lot to impress the colleges. All told, to get into a decent state shool you are looking at ~82 hours a week! Why is that at all acceptable? That is two 40 hour work weeks! We are also at the point where kids have zero room for screwups. I have a family friend who is ~10 years younger than me. They had a C+/B- average freshman year. Became B+/A- into sophomore and junior year. They didn’t get into Pitt or PSU main campus (those are the in state schools) despite having solid extra cuticular activities for all the years. Essentially, an average semester at the start of their HS career sunk them getting into the main campus of the big state schools. 20-25 years ago, they are accepted to Pitt/PSU main campus without a second thought. So, between the absurd amount of work/time it takes to get into a decent school and the utter lack of room to be anything but the best, no wonder teens aren’t doing anything with the very limited free time they have. IMO, teens would be much better off with less homework, less demand on what it takes to get into a decent school, more time to work jobs, and more opportunity to be the odd kid/adult hybrids they are.
tremendulo 9y ago
The weird thing for me is that instead of partying people are watching Netflix videos of fictional people partying. Which makes those people fictional indeed. Are we going to eventually have movies about watching movies, about playing video games, and so on?
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Are we going to eventually have movies about watching movies MST3K and it's descendants already exist. > about playing video games, Again, it's been done.
  - tremendulo 9y ago
    >MST3K Thanks. Must check that out. What I ought to have said: we've have had movies where movies or video games are part of the adventure e.g. Wargames (1983). But an adventure takes place against a background of people living ordinary lives, which used to consist mainly of communal office work, socialising, chatting, families at the breakfast table and whatnot. Whereas now ordinary lives consist more and more of digital interaction. So the background will have to change too.
otakucode 9y ago
I disagree with their conclusion. Yes, teens are certainly partying less. But they're also increasingly unwilling to get driver's licenses or jobs as well. Basically, the overly controlling atmosphere of schooling and helicopter parenting has worked - it has broken them. They are successfully being prevented from experiencing the natural maturation process of growing independence. We can only hope that the neurological development which supports independence and the ability to form and maintain complex human relationships is not like other aspects of neurological development which is impossible to compensate for if the critical period of development is missed.
nofilter 9y ago
Umm, 25 here. All my friends are in the same age-group (21-29) and every other weekend we party like crazy. Sure, it's no longer the drink-until-you-puke type of party that we had when we were 18 (yes, in Europe you don't need be 21 to buy alcohol, 18 will suffice). It might be due to the fact that I also live in Barcelona, which is known for its parties. As far as how I was raised - umm, mom gave me a beer to try when I was 16, I spit it out because it tasted awfully (I to this day don't drink beer, do not understand the appeal), but when I got 18 I bought some cuba libre and realized that not all alcohol tastes bad. I've never had exactly strict parenting, more-so "learn through your own mistakes" with guidance provided by my parents. I think I turned out alright.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- electricslpnsld 9y ago
  > All my friends are in the same age-group (21-29) Your friend group is millennials. This article is about Gen Z, a decade younger than most millennials.
  - karthikb 9y ago
    At a decade younger, you're talking a range of 11-19. At the lower end, hopefully not partying much. At 19, probably very similar to the 21 year old crowd.
cyen 9y ago
The Atlantic did a long-form article about this, if anyone is interested in further reading (with survey results!): https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the...
blaisio 9y ago
I can personally assure everyone that plenty of people are still partying and have no problem with social interaction. This is an article that's practically targeted towards the hacker news audience of older introverted people who feel like they don't understand younger generations. One difference that might be real is people might be a little more responsible, because our education system is better and parents are more careful and have more support. But plenty of people still love going out, even when they can't legally drink.
moretai 9y ago
I remember me and a friend(same age as me) went to a concert with my brother and his friend(same age as him). We offered them drinks and things, and they declined. After the concert, I was in a state of paranoia and my friend was puking in the toilet. My brother and his friend were just sitting quietly in a separate room, chilling, watching netflix on their own computers. It was odd.
MaxLeiter 9y ago
Totally anecdotal, but I'm a 17 year old in the Bay Area, and teens are partying more than they were when my older siblings (early and late 20's) grew up in the same area. My point is that my experience isn't true for all, and I can't prove that it isn't true for the majority. This article is the same way - not enough statistical evidence to support it. Like yes, teens get together with friends less often on a day-to-day basis. But what teens party on a day to day basis?
gibbiv 9y ago
Is it just me or was this article very thin on sources of information and in general? It ended very abruptly and was not that convincing.

245 points by SQL2219 9y ago

Basically it feels as if parts of American society are becoming desocialized--losing the ability to interact effectively with other members of the society. This article echoes Robert Putnam's "Bowling Alone" thesis [0]. His ideas are at least a quarter century old but now seem prescient. I find the social changes the Wired article describes far more disturbing than the "Internet is frying our brains" threat that people like Nick Carr fear, let alone Artificial General Intelligence. Unlike the latter we see evidence of the former on a daily basis. [0] http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/assoc/bowling.html http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/assoc/bowling.html

Theodores 9y ago
I think you are correct. I am in the UK and I saw a change happen to the students that went to university after I left. This was early nineties so pre-internet. Nothing to do with screens. However, my generation created and participated in untold amount of parties. We did not go to official organised events most of the time, more things we did. So no fancy concerts with known acts, just some of us playing records, everyone else dancing or propping up the bar (or taking drugs). In fact even the drug taking was different, it was about the 'raves' and not the drugs. People didn't take the drugs outside of the events. Undoubtedly the drug scene was a huge appeal to some but more people were happy on regular alcohol. The generation that came along after just did not have the aptitude for getting together with a few hundred close friends for beach parties or illegal raves. At the same time the 'rave' scene or proper party scene had been killed off by capitalism, with larger venues in big cities - nightclubs - being the new thing. In the days of partying the idea of spending a Friday/Saturday in front of a screen and not going out would be tantamount to hell. Also, back in the day, it would be possible to physically see a party event and hear the music. Nowadays that never happens, I don't see house parties as frequently as how they used to happen, e.g. on a Saturday night walking back across town there is no party to be heard, everything has to be properly organised now. I think that the change happened with Reagan/Thatcher and how the individual mattered more than society, we become atomised then. It would be nice to know how teenagers partied before the invention of the teenager to see the whole pattern and not assume everything is due to me being 'getting old'.

vinceguidry 9y ago

I have a theory that introversion and extraversion don't really exist as personality traits, and that we build up preferences out of existing culture about how much social interaction we want in our daily lives. If the culture changes, then so will our preferences. I can easily imagine a world in which I'm gregarious and fun all the time. Making that world happen on the other hand...

have_faith 9y ago
> I can easily imagine a world in which I'm gregarious and fun all the time Must be an overactive imagination.
- vinceguidry 9y ago
  Think "8 year old boy in the 1800s." Castles, dragons, kings, jousting. My mind just doesn't know how to quit.
Abitingal 9y ago
> I have a theory that introversion and extraversion don't really exist as personality traits, and that we build up preferences out of existing culture about how much social interaction we want in our daily lives. I am under the impression that there is quite a bit of diversity when it comes to introversion/ extroversion. While I was not the one to go out partying and neither was my friends, I always thought that it was more due to which social circles I was with rather than a bigger trend.
apohn 9y ago
I'd recommend searching for "Introversion and extroversion brain differences" and similar topics in your favorite search engine. There's evidence that there are physical differences in the brain. Hopefully somebody with a background in medicine or neuroscience can provide a more comprehensive answer.
- dougmwne 9y ago
  And if someone has neuroscience background, maybe they can tell us if that difference is present from birth or if these changes to the brain are environmental based on our social experiences.

FussyZeus 9y ago

I think a decent portion should also be laid at the feet of technology in general, not even just Netflix, but also that how teens interact on social media is more or less in the public (and their parents) eyes, with the exceptions of things like Snapchat which isn't very conducive to planning a party. It's also worth noting that it's much, much harder for teens to get ahold of booze these days, and the penalties for having anything they shouldn't have, be it alcohol, drugs, whatever, are extremely steep. Not saying that stops it completely, but they keep that sort of thing quiet if they don't want to end up in prison for a couple of decades. Enough weed to throw a party, in many states, would get you put in a cell until you were middle-aged. After all of that, a good amount I agree with the article is just down to kids having more to do that doesn't carry anything close to the same kind of risks; I also don't understand why this is a bad thing?

bluedino 9y ago
>> It's also worth noting that it's much, much harder for teens to get ahold of booze these days 20 years ago we just had an older sibling or co-worker buy for us. What's changed?
- smelendez 9y ago
  More stigma attached to it for the buyer. Stricter enforcement of 21 to drink rules so older sibling will have a harder time buying with a fake ID if under 21. Fewer teens working so less interaction with over 21s.
  - FussyZeus 9y ago
    Also see above about high consequences. Any over 21 with a brain wouldn't do it, because that's another of those ways to fuck your life up that boomers and Xers could afford to do, but millennials really can't.
- lovich 9y ago
  Technology has made law enforcement much more efficient and as a society we've pushed for greater and greater protections for children. For instance all the examples of people getting the cops called on them for letting their children walk outside unsupervised

westmeal 9y ago

I know, I know this is anecdotal 'evidence'. I happen to be 21 which fits me right in this generation and the main reason this occurs is due to parenting. My parents wouldn't let me go _anywhere_ by myself until I was at least 17. By that time I was completely and utterly addicted to computing to just let go and 'hang out'. As a matter in fact most of my friends are online rather than 4 real friends in real life. It seems like people in my age group had parents that would rather have their child stare at a screen than experience the world. Just my two cents.

abledon 9y ago
and whats crazy for this generation is thats the age people are supposed to most easily make their friends to bring them into the later stages of life. https://thewalrus.ca/the-science-of-loneliness/#.WkqJdEldy2w.twitter https://thewalrus.ca/the-science-of-loneliness/#.WkqJdEldy2w...
Pigo 9y ago
I think you have to factor in how much parents mold a kid into who they are. But I also went out to bonfires and snuck out to parties in spite of my parents. Knowing the hammer was going to drop when I got home just made me enjoy it even more. The little bit of social media that eventually showed up was mostly about finding out where the party was, and finding that cute girl you met there afterwards.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
the-dude 9y ago
Here you have a 'counterdote' : I am 43. After the first year of high school ( I was 13 ), we were allowed to travel to the other side of the country by train, sleep in a youth hostel and return at the end of the next day. This is NL, the other side of the country is only 350km. When we tell younger friends, they refuse to believe.
- vasilipupkin 9y ago
  ok, but NL has like zero crime, so it doesn't seem like a big deal

donatj 9y ago

I am a total introvert and some of my happiest high school memories involve friends pushing me to go to giant parties that pushed me out of my comfort zone. I would say that there are moments in there which are integral to who I am as a person. I really feel like they’re missing out on a developmental milestone. I almost feel like these kids are brainwashed but that’s probably just me looking in as an outsider. I am just getting old (31) and struggling with the fact that I no longer understand the youth.

maroonblazer 9y ago
> I really feel like they’re missing out on a developmental milestone. Are they though? Those milestones can take many different forms, as evidenced by the fact that "giant parties" are a relatively recent phenomenon, historically speaking.
- graphitezepp 9y ago
  Kids are missing out on developmental milestones, I know I did. It doesn't have to be parties. The just hanging out thing is down too according to the article. Many people are leaving their teen years far too sheltered and socially underdeveloped, because indulging in endless digital distraction takes up more and more of our time as a society.
  - ahartman00 9y ago
    I've been wondering for years now, what is the difference between hanging out irl, and a chat room, or Facebook, or whatever? Not trying to be rude, but I just don't get how talking to your friends in meat space is socializing, but talking to your friends on the phone is a distraction? I agree with you on the sheltered thing.
- Clubber 9y ago
  >as evidenced by the fact that "giant parties" are a relatively recent phenomenon, historically speaking. That is nowhere near true.

megaman22 9y ago

If I were a teenager today, I don't know that I'd be going out to the gravel pits or up to camp and raging like we used to, and that was not so long ago. Social media is wildly more omnipresent than it was then; when we were sitting around bonfires and drinking bud lights, most people didn't even have cameras in their cell phones. When you've got that kind of evidence spread all over Instagram and SnapChat and Facebook, with little ability to control its privacy, it changes the amount of risk involved in those activities. Unless the po-pos actually paid a visit to the shindig, or you stumbled in home the next morning stove up and reeking of beer, it was pretty easy to get away with things back then.

shanecleveland 9y ago
Smart homes and smart phones would have definitely put a damper on many of my extracurricular activities as a teenager ... house parties, sneaking out, saying I was in one place while actually in another, etc.

dawhizkid 9y ago

I wonder why the "young adult nightlife experience" feels so stagnant. I like going to the occasional upscale cocktail bar, but in general spending Friday or Saturday night in a crowded bar or club is not my idea of a fun thing to do. What is the alternative for more introverted people? Stay home? I went to Copenhagen recently and on a Friday night came across a big coffee/beer+wine place with lots of tables/sofas that was packed with people drinking beer and playing board games. It seems like such an obvious concept/nightlife alternative for people who don't want to stay home but don't want to go to a loud bar. Doesn't seem to exist in the U.S. as far as I know.

swarnie_ 9y ago
18-21 seems alive and well in the UK but we do have a very odd night life drinking culture. I found once people get to their 3rd and 4th years of university they can see "Real life" on the horizon and the awful 3am kebab shop behavior largely stops. Like you've described pub culture is quite popular for the 25-40 bracket. Somewhere you can meet and socialise which is like being at home without pounding music and £8 drinks
- dasil003 9y ago
  As an American who lived in London from age 34-37, I loved the pub culture because it allows one to get outside and have a couple drinks with colleagues at a reasonable hour and still be home for dinner with the family. Also, cask ale much easier on my stomach than super cold and carbonated lagers.
wlesieutre 9y ago
If you're ever in Seattle https://www.moxboardinghouse.com https://www.moxboardinghouse.com
itsmillertime4u 9y ago
We got them all over the DC area, and they are mostly microbreweries. Most don't serve food since they don't have a kitchen or a license for that, but they often times have food trucks outside where you get your snacks.

nawtacawp 9y ago

Does the same hold true in Europe?

collyw 9y ago
I worked in a company with a lot of 18-25 year olds recently.Based in Barcelona but a very international mix of people. They seemed to do a lot of drinking and a lot of social media (we had a work trip to Rome one weekend and they looked nervous when they didn't have wifi or their phone was out of charge). As it was a very international crowd out of their home countries and most working in sales maybe it captured a fairly extroverted sample of the age group.
shaki-dora 9y ago
I'm in Berlin, and in my 30s. I'm partying more now than I ever did as a teenager or in my 20s. This city has a somewhat unique club culture with a bend towards left-wing politics and art (plus electronic music and psychedelics). It's gotten so big that the local government has started to consider the scene economically important, and works to protect the venues from the threats of gentrification. Festivals (in all of Europe) also seem to be growing every year. Plus there are of course house parties–I don't go as often, but most students I know do every weekend.

TurboHaskal 9y ago

I understand it to a degree. I've personally never liked partying; hated the music and the culture around alcohol and only did it in order to get girls. There are more efficient ways today.

Clubber 9y ago
I think you're on to something. That was the only point of going out for me too. Occasionally, I'd just want to get hammered and goof off with my friends, but we could do that at home. Most of the time, it was to chase girls.
kenning 9y ago
Didn't realize it until this comment, but you're right. Tinder really made hooking up a lot more efficient, and finding mates was the only reason I had to go out after I was ~23. Apparently the use of tinder in the NBA is actually making a big impact on away teams' sleep schedules. http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/page/presents18969358/tinderization-today-nba http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/page/presents18969358/tinder...

dcow 9y ago

While I'm slightly too old to have experienced what the article is describing, the trend is there and I believe technology plays an undenyable role (followed by parenting). I have many siblings but notably a brother who's in his first year high school. I also just attended a wedding and got to meet the high school brother of the groom. I was talking to my brother on NYE. He was lamenting that he could not find anyone to hang out with on NYE for a party. We asked why he didn't text people and get something together, "that's not how it works, people communicate with snapchat, and I'm not allowed to have that, not that I want it.. it's just people posting weed and coke stories". He was obviously a little moody but still unable to find any social gathering (even a parent hosted on) on NYE of all nights. The brother of the groom: nice kid but wholly uninterested in anything other than maintaining his snapchat streaks. First he came to me for data. A few days later his phone was dead and he wanted to install snapchat on my phone to continue the streaks. It's psychologically addicting. And it made me realize how much people are depending on fabricated social experiences on their phones instead of real social interactions. One thing is common: snapchat. People don't hang out anymore, they have streaks. If they do hang out it's over pot or coke, no one is even that interested in drinking these days. Oh no tech is ruining everything! Well, no. But something is happening. It's not snapchat's fault, either (unless they deliberately exploit addicting behaviors to increase engagement and retention). I think parents are largely to blame. It's easy to let your 14yr old become consumed in their phone because that means more internet time and less driving around for you. My parents are very wary of this and it's largely why they waited as long as they could before giving my younger brothers a phone and why they are reluctant to let them create an entirely digital social life. My generation, we discovered the internet before our parents knew what it was. I administered networks at 15. I built websites at 14. I was a moderator of large forums at 13. My dad gave me his old laptop when I was 12--bobs celebs era. And I think I've turned out pretty decent. So it leaves me all really torn. Do we embrace technology or shun it? My main fear isn't necessarily the tech itself, but the dependence on it. I fear the iGen isn't learning how to use computers as tools and simply becoming consumers of all the experiences we create with them. And at the same time I hate some of those things we've created like SC and FB for literally taking the human out of humanity--despite having grown quite accustomed to virtual interactions growing up. So I guess the real question is whether it's a problem that people aren't socializing anymore, or at least doing it differently. And if so what will we do about it? Maybe AR to the rescue...

temp-dude-87844 9y ago

It's worth digging one level deeper. Screen time has increased, and it may be at the expense of parties, but screen time is also an unsupervised place where the parties have an expectation of privacy and control. The stereotypical party the article laments is a complex affair that requires transportation, supplies, a venue, and desirable participants, and doesn't spring into place organically. Social circles at colleges can organize these, but there has been extraordinary scrutiny into campus parties in recent years, due to accounts of sexual assaults. These related developments makes them more difficult to plan, drives desirable participants away, and makes resulting parties less enjoyable. With common people's parties blunted, partying becomes the domain of the wealthy and attractive, in entertainment playgrounds like Miami and Vegas. As for teenagers, parental supervision is at an all-time high, so organizing a party often requires finding a cooperating adult (e.g. a socially-connected college student, an older sibling, a laissez-faire parent) who is willing to provide the venue and supplies away from the eyes of concerned parents. Fewer college parties means fewer teen parties too.

murph-almighty 9y ago
>extraordinary scrutiny into campus parties I was involved in Greek life in college and can testify. Not only did we need to register our parties with the university but we still had to worry about police presence and legal liability. This isn't to say that these policies should be repealed- dumb people did dumb things, and thus these came into place, but it doesn't remove the fact that it's getting harder to hold a social gathering without a cop busting down your door and citing everyone in the room.
- watwut 9y ago
  What would be the reas on for citing? I mean, you need to break some law for the cop to do so. I am pretty sure it is possible to have drinking party without dping something illegal (harder with marihuanna and that should be lagalized imo).
  - megaman22 9y ago
    It's almost a given that any college party is going to have underage drinking, and providing alcohol to minors. When we used to have registered parties, there were wristbands for the few juniors and seniors that were over 21, and everybody else knew to set their cups down when Safety and Security did their walk-throughs. Not to mention any other drugs that might get into the mix.

kthejoker2 9y ago

Nothing new under the sun ... ___________________________________________ Human contacts have been so highly valued in the past only because reading was not a common accomplishment and because books were scarce and difficult to reproduce. The world, you must remember, is only just becoming literate. As reading becomes more and more habitual and widespread, an ever-increasing number of people will discover that books will give them all the pleasures of social life and none of its intolerable tedium. At present people in search of pleasure naturally tend to congregate in large herds and to make a noise; in future their natural tendency will be to seek solitude and quiet. - Aldous Huxley, Chrome Yellow

mattbuilds 9y ago
I'm not sure I would agree with this statement. I think there needs to be a balance of both solitude and human interaction, and that balances differs from person to person. I’m definitely more introverted but it doesn’t mean I don’t need human interaction. An example is that I play a ton of video games, one reason is for the solitude, but I also enjoy board games for the social component. At the core of games, I love the strategy and competition, but different types of games can scratch different itches. I think things like that can apply to a lot of parts of life.
- olleromam91 9y ago
  All this quote says is that solitude through literature will become a natural tendency. Which it definitely has become, much more than in the centuries before today.
pwaai 9y ago
> As reading becomes more and more habitual and widespread, an ever-increasing number of people will discover that books will give them all the pleasures of social life and none of its intolerable tedium. spoken like a true hermit....material objects cannot replace human connection...the author of that quote is escaping that harsh truth which I'm sure he realized towards the end like so many others that came before him.

tulipmania 9y ago

Frankly this is totally case by case. I’m 22 and have been partying hard since 15. Simultaneous to that my career hasn’t been a distraction or a replacement. It would make sense that the support on a developer driven channel like Hacker News would sway the kids who hang inside more. I promise you HN, kids are partying hard.

workthrowaway27 9y ago
It's about population trends, not individuals.

cutler 9y ago

Society is sick, let's face it, and technology is largely to blame. We just can't see the danger in technology so long as we're blinded by everything shiny. Human beings are primarily social beings and no, that does not mean peering at each other through the alienating window of a mobile phone screen. In 1969, at the age of 9, I could be left to play with my friends and wander several miles from home without any sense of danger. Days were occupied with spports or just hanging out then reading and TV in the evening. There was balance because we had less technology. The ageing mill towns of East Lancashire, UK, still enjoyed a culture of trust and respect for your neighbours such that you could leave your front door open without fear of theft. Parents stressd "playing out" and being "out of the house" but it didn't stop kids from achieving academically. The thought of hiding in my room and hardly ever seeing my friends face-to-face would have been soul-destroying. Chess, games, cricket and football was life itself in my teens up to about 15 when the music scene and girls became the main fascination. These were all social activities and I can't imagine those glorious teenage years spent hidden in my room staring at a phone screen as a substitute for real human contact. It's unthinkable.

dragonwriter 9y ago
> Society is sick, let's face it, and technology is largely to blame. Technology is never to blame for anything, because technology is not a moral actor; people may be to blame for the manner in which they use technology. OTOH, people have been falsely conflating “the youth of today seem to have a different lifestyle than I preferred in my youth” with “society is sick” for at least as long as we have historical evidence of what people thought.
- workthrowaway27 9y ago
  There's lots of evidence that people in their early 20s and under are psychologically different than older people (higher rates of anxiety/depression at the same age, etc.). Anecdotally, I've noticed that people don't talk to strangers as much on planes anymore as when I was a child. I guess you could argue that technology isn't to blame, but technology changes people. And it's hard not to use technology when it's so pervasive. At work I have a hard time not eating donuts when someone brings them in. Technology is similar. If everyone around you is on their phone or facebook or whatever it takes a lot of willpower/willingness to be different to not do the same.

watwut 9y ago

Nostalgia for parties that "wretched parents house" says more about older people and their lack of empathy then something bad about youngsters. Am I only one who did not grew with cell phones and still did not wretched anybodies house? I would not invite kids likely to wretch our house home.

Torgo 9y ago

Our society has institutionalized child abuse by preventing them from doing things on their own until post-university adulthood.

madengr 9y ago

Not good. Better to get all the partying done in high school so one can buckle down in college.

at-fates-hands 9y ago

I was on the millennial bubble (1999) and I was a total jock in HS. I was so fearful of getting kicked off my teams, I never partied or drank beer, I was a total straight edge. Fast forward into college and at the beginning of my Freshman year I still wasn't partying because I didn't want to flunk out of college. I was so into my classes and doing well, I just didn't have time. By the middle of Freshman year, my soccer teammates basically kidnapped me and took me to my first real party where I drank, got loaded and flirted with all the girls. It was really an eye opening experience for me to learn how to be in social situations with members of the opposite sex, as well as socialize with other students my age. With less and less people of the current generation skipping college, I can easily see a huge reduction in partying and drinking overall. Add in the financial burden of being on your own and how much decent beer or alcohol costs and it just becomes out of reach due to financial circumstances. Not surprised at all by the conclusions in the article.

bsder 9y ago

Mostly? I suspect it's the fact that they always have something more interesting to do than attempt to interact with another human which, let's face it, generally has a low probability of being interesting.

jcadam 9y ago

Bah, I was a nerd/loser and never got invited to parties as a teenager (in the 90s) anyway. Actually, I still don't get invited to parties...

jcadam 9y ago
Dang, way to rub it in, downvoters.
- yayadarsh 9y ago
  I'm sorry for the situation you describe. For what it's worth, the downvotes (I did not downvote you) are due to HN's insistence on comments that are productive/on topic.
  - jcadam 9y ago
    It was mostly an attempt at self-deprecating humor, which admittedly wasn't particularly productive and was only marginally on-topic.

guywaffle 9y ago

Yea... the moment the author used iGen they lost all credibility.

mohaine 9y ago

Should we call this generation the "Solarians" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaria

taternuts 9y ago

I wonder how much the pervasiveness of dating apps has to do with this as well. One of the bigger social motivators for my generation growing up was "are members of the opposite sex gonna be there?". Nowadays a lot of people meet on dating apps, _then_ choose to potentially socialize with each other and go out, whereas before you'd have to go out and be social to stand a chance of finding someone to date. Now you actually _can_ sit at home on your couch all day and still meet girls/guys.

workthrowaway27 9y ago
I think there's definitely some of this, and it's more pronounced in smaller cities. I used to live in a big city and it was easy to meet people in bars. Now I live in much smaller city and I have a much harder time meeting people in bars, so I use dating apps more.
swiley 9y ago
As someone who's used a lot of dating apps: It's an awful way to meet new people, especially potential partners. You (being the average male, since this is my experience) are competing to have a coffee date against a ridiculous number of above average males with someone who you've never met, who knows none of your friends and likely has very little in common with you. If you get their attention (which is a very hard thing to do) you might get one or two reply messages before you're forgotten about. If you manage to get a date it's unlikely to be someone who has all that much in common with you, it's likely to be someone looking for sex rather than an actual relationship, and they're unlikely to go on a second date with you anyway. Honestly I haven't had a lot of luck dating in person or on line but at least I've made a lot of friends from doing stuff IRL, while dating apps leave you with absolutely nothing.

mcgrath_sh 9y ago

One thing I haven’t seen in the comments is the pressure and expectation that you are supposed to be an excellent student and get into a good school and/or get scholarships. The pressure and work pushed onto kids from a young age is staggering. I graduated HS in 2006. I feel like I was on the early-ish side of “must get very good grades, have multiple extra curriculars, and get into a good school.” I had 4-6 hours of homework a night after sitting in school all day and having a 2-2.5 hour sports practice or a game (which was even more of a time commitment). I was often up until midnight or later and waking up at 6:15-6:30 on weekdays. Weekends were used for more practices and more homework. Even when classmates would party, it would be exceedingly rare. I would often only hang out with friends 3-5 times a month for no more than 2-3 hours. I simply didn’t have the time. I don’t buy that the homework time is the same. I think the amount of homework that kids get is absolutely insane. When I would (rarely) miss school becaus I was sick, I realized how little I actually missed during the day; I was basically fine if I got my homework done. If a boss told me in order to get a promotion (college) to a midlevel manager position I would have to work for 7 hours a day, 5 days a week, spend 2-3 hours 6 days a week for a mandatory but not mandatory activity (sports, band, plays, etc) to make my resume look better, spend another 4-6 hours after work and activities preparing for the next day, and and finally spend another 10-16 hours on the weekend learning more about my job I would be job hunting before the door closed behind me. Oh, and those mandatory activities? They cannot really be minimum wage jobs. They don’t seem to do a whole lot to impress the colleges. All told, to get into a decent state shool you are looking at ~82 hours a week! Why is that at all acceptable? That is two 40 hour work weeks! We are also at the point where kids have zero room for screwups. I have a family friend who is ~10 years younger than me. They had a C+/B- average freshman year. Became B+/A- into sophomore and junior year. They didn’t get into Pitt or PSU main campus (those are the in state schools) despite having solid extra cuticular activities for all the years. Essentially, an average semester at the start of their HS career sunk them getting into the main campus of the big state schools. 20-25 years ago, they are accepted to Pitt/PSU main campus without a second thought. So, between the absurd amount of work/time it takes to get into a decent school and the utter lack of room to be anything but the best, no wonder teens aren’t doing anything with the very limited free time they have. IMO, teens would be much better off with less homework, less demand on what it takes to get into a decent school, more time to work jobs, and more opportunity to be the odd kid/adult hybrids they are.

tremendulo 9y ago

The weird thing for me is that instead of partying people are watching Netflix videos of fictional people partying. Which makes those people fictional indeed. Are we going to eventually have movies about watching movies, about playing video games, and so on?

dragonwriter 9y ago
> Are we going to eventually have movies about watching movies MST3K and it's descendants already exist. > about playing video games, Again, it's been done.
- tremendulo 9y ago
  >MST3K Thanks. Must check that out. What I ought to have said: we've have had movies where movies or video games are part of the adventure e.g. Wargames (1983). But an adventure takes place against a background of people living ordinary lives, which used to consist mainly of communal office work, socialising, chatting, families at the breakfast table and whatnot. Whereas now ordinary lives consist more and more of digital interaction. So the background will have to change too.

otakucode 9y ago

I disagree with their conclusion. Yes, teens are certainly partying less. But they're also increasingly unwilling to get driver's licenses or jobs as well. Basically, the overly controlling atmosphere of schooling and helicopter parenting has worked - it has broken them. They are successfully being prevented from experiencing the natural maturation process of growing independence. We can only hope that the neurological development which supports independence and the ability to form and maintain complex human relationships is not like other aspects of neurological development which is impossible to compensate for if the critical period of development is missed.

nofilter 9y ago

Umm, 25 here. All my friends are in the same age-group (21-29) and every other weekend we party like crazy. Sure, it's no longer the drink-until-you-puke type of party that we had when we were 18 (yes, in Europe you don't need be 21 to buy alcohol, 18 will suffice). It might be due to the fact that I also live in Barcelona, which is known for its parties. As far as how I was raised - umm, mom gave me a beer to try when I was 16, I spit it out because it tasted awfully (I to this day don't drink beer, do not understand the appeal), but when I got 18 I bought some cuba libre and realized that not all alcohol tastes bad. I've never had exactly strict parenting, more-so "learn through your own mistakes" with guidance provided by my parents. I think I turned out alright.

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electricslpnsld 9y ago
> All my friends are in the same age-group (21-29) Your friend group is millennials. This article is about Gen Z, a decade younger than most millennials.
- karthikb 9y ago
  At a decade younger, you're talking a range of 11-19. At the lower end, hopefully not partying much. At 19, probably very similar to the 21 year old crowd.

cyen 9y ago

The Atlantic did a long-form article about this, if anyone is interested in further reading (with survey results!): https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the...

blaisio 9y ago

I can personally assure everyone that plenty of people are still partying and have no problem with social interaction. This is an article that's practically targeted towards the hacker news audience of older introverted people who feel like they don't understand younger generations. One difference that might be real is people might be a little more responsible, because our education system is better and parents are more careful and have more support. But plenty of people still love going out, even when they can't legally drink.

moretai 9y ago

I remember me and a friend(same age as me) went to a concert with my brother and his friend(same age as him). We offered them drinks and things, and they declined. After the concert, I was in a state of paranoia and my friend was puking in the toilet. My brother and his friend were just sitting quietly in a separate room, chilling, watching netflix on their own computers. It was odd.

MaxLeiter 9y ago

Totally anecdotal, but I'm a 17 year old in the Bay Area, and teens are partying more than they were when my older siblings (early and late 20's) grew up in the same area. My point is that my experience isn't true for all, and I can't prove that it isn't true for the majority. This article is the same way - not enough statistical evidence to support it. Like yes, teens get together with friends less often on a day-to-day basis. But what teens party on a day to day basis?

gibbiv 9y ago

Is it just me or was this article very thin on sources of information and in general? It ended very abruptly and was not that convincing.