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Anxiety and burnout: why kids are consumed with worry
- osrec 8y agoSummary: the anxiety is driven by pressure to do well in life, amplified by technology constantly reminding kids of this.
- GoodJokes 8y agoSo it is social media?
- yters 8y agoIt's such high stakes at such a young age. It seems like we've a very narrow definition of success, and so kids burn out trying to walk such a narrow path and not feel like a failure.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoOr there's less success to go around so people have to start competing for it at younger ages. Compare the possible career and life paths of a middle of the road person born in the US in 1930 vs 1960 vs 1990. An average non high achiever had much better prospects in 1930 than 1960 and better prospects in 1960 than 1990. If born in 1930 you could get a high school diploma and then buy a house and raise a family on your factory worker salary. You could just go through life with no strategic planning and do well enough and live comfortably. Someone born in 1960 would do well to get a degree and a white collar job if they want that life. Strategic planning is nice but not necessary, you can probably do ok without it. Someone born in 1990 needs to have a 4yr degree in something lucrative (STEM) and even then buying a house and starting a family is not a given. To succeed you need to have figured out your strategic plan by about age 15 and then execute on it in order to have the same life that someone born in 1930 could just happen into without much thought.
- ams6110 8y ago> Someone born in 1990 needs to have a 4yr degree in something lucrative (STEM) and even then buying a house and starting a family is not a given. To succeed you need to have figured out your strategic plan by about age 15 and then execute on it in order to have the same life that someone born in 1930 could just happen into without much thought. This is not remotely true, but I grant that it's the currently popular narrative.
- thisiszilff 8y agoYes, and it's the fact that it's the popular narrative that drives this anxiety and ends up being a sell fulfillkng prophecy. Everyone says this is the case and then a kid gets filled with anxiety when they think about doing something else and boom, there you have it, stress addled and burned out at the age of 25.
- yters 8y agoI have STEM degrees, but barely any strategy, and have done alright for myself and my family. My childhood was homeschool until high school, and pretty free range. Did zero extra curricular activities except ROTC in college, which got me my first job right out of college in the Air Force. It seems like there are plenty of non STEM blue collar jobs that afford a nice life, but the problem is they are looked down on. I think part of the problem is that everyone is optimizing for the same niche, which makes that niche very crowded and requires extreme amounts of optimization to succeed.
- alexashka 8y agoKids are fine. It's the idiotic parents that need to relax a little.
- Loughla 8y agoIt's different than the pressure to do well in life. It's the pressure that a child is made aware that if they choose to sleep in instead of volunteer on Saturday, or if they choose to play a pick-up game of baseball instead of join a competitive traveling league, that they are behind. It's so sad.
- ticmasta 8y agoTo mitigate this (though not sure it's the right mitigation), if your kid doesn't specialize incredibly early and show promise they'll be kicked out of the performance stream into the recreational stream. Example: sports start splitting kids at ages 5 and 6. They call it "assessment" but it's really try-outs for the competitive teams. From this point on the majority of effort and resources go to the predictable audience. Better hope your preschooler is coordinated for their age. Growing a foot in middle school will no longer get you on the basketball team as everyone else has 10 years of club ball. Arts and academics is no different. Our local gifted school screens per-kindergarten and you won't even be considered without a private (read: $$$) assessment as part of your application.
- Loughla 8y agoThat's the system here, and it seems to favor only individuals who are either purposefully held back a year (in the case of athletics) or whose parents have wealth and connections (in the case of athletics and the arts). Not sure it's a great system, is what I'm saying.
- kenmicklas 8y agoI think that's an incomplete summary; a major driver of this is the difference in availability of success (at least according to older generation's standards) between older and younger generations.
- osrec 8y agoNot sure I understand the above - would you ELI5 please?
- claudiulodro 8y agoI believe they are saying that the American Dream of owning a house and having a good job all one's life is much more difficult now that it used to be.
- osrec 8y agoAh, well that's certainly true. I'm from the UK, and it's been more or less impossible for young people to buy their first home before they're 30.
- hmiedema 8y agoThanks for summary. Appreciated
- jpm_sd 8y agoI have 3 kids in elementary school. So far my career advice plan for them is as follows: Pick something and try to get really good at it. If that doesn't work, pick something else. (Privileged, top 5%-er) parenting in 2019 is a constant battle against the temptations of over-scheduling and over-enrichment. Kids need time to relax and goof around without being under pressure.
- ticmasta 8y agoI too have 3 in elementary, and offer similar advice, adding: Don't look to me to tell you what you should do; the hottest vocations of my generation will likely not even exist for yours (example: petroleum engineer). Look externally, experiment, measure, iterate. (essentially your first point) * Make lots of mistakes, because mistakes mean you're trying new things, but with 2 caveats: 1/ try not to make any fatal mistakes 2/ don't repeat the same mistakes * You have the resources of multiple generations of lucky & hard-working people at your disposal; don't waste them but make sure you use them (meaning educated families, diverse experiences and money) * Your overall goal is to do your best to leave the environment you were born into better-off than it was when you started, meaning you've worked to improve the position of your family, community and the broader world.
- rchaud 8y ago> * Make lots of mistakes, because mistakes mean you're trying new things, but with 2 caveats: This is all well and good when they're in school and still dependent on your financial support. Once they're on their own (say, at age 22), and start making mistakes, the stakes are a lot higher and the margin for error a low narrower. Let's say you majored in something but did poorly overall. That's mistake #1. You won't have as wide of a berth for mistake #2, because you are likely still suffering the consequences of #1.
- sjg007 8y agoMy 5 year old kid is really good at the iPad. I don't see that as a negative at all. All of these runner games. Better than me at them.
- pandemic_region 8y agoExcellent summary, but can you somehow put the word 'parents' in it ? Because they play a significant part in all this as well.
- naravara 8y ago>Summary: the anxiety is driven by pressure to do well in life, amplified by technology constantly reminding kids of this. And by the shredding of the safety net, meaning that failure will result in a lifetime of indignity and struggle that you will likely never claw your way out of.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoThere never was a "safety net." It was just that times were good and there was other opportunity. If you failed out of college in 1950 you could still get a good job in a factory without being crushed by debt. If you committed a crime you could move across the country and not tell anyone.
- thisiszilff 8y agoThat's the biggest difference between now and then. Back then if you needed to you could easily get a job doing something that paid decently and work your way up. Taking a risk is a lot easier if you have a reasonable plan for getting back on your feet should your fail. Nowadays it's all about not having gaps on your resume, making sure your involved in clubs, in open source, or that you're blogging and we'll known. Kids, I think, feel as if they need to have a plan for their lives at a young he and that they need to execute on it. It's not enough to just live this days.
- Loughla 8y agoA bit of a rant here - Having worked in education both here in the States and in Korea, this makes a ton of sense. We all lauded the accomplishments of Asian countries in measures of math, science, and English. We sought to replicate their success. And we have started. One thing about the US student was that we used to be behind in math and science, but our creativity was our strength. And we're educating that out of the system, in the pursuit of standardized objectives (standardized objectives that encourage the development of things like remind to constantly keep kids on track, career clusters for focus, and the pressure to decide a career in 6th, 7th, or 8th grade).
- yters 8y agoIronically, Asian countries tend to copy the creative Western countries with all their STEM abilities.
- kccqzy 8y agoAnd it's perhaps a good thing to copy each other! Ideally we would want our kids to be both creative and knowledgeable in science, math, reading, and other skills.
- yters 8y agoOr perhaps reclaim our education standard that created STEM in the first place? The Asian method seems to be mostly good for sucking up existing content and spitting it back out, but not producing anything new. Additionally, the "Asian method" is not actually Asian, as is the case of most practices we attribute to China. These practices (rote mass education, communism, state birth control) are all originated by Westerners, who were unable to sell their ideas to the western countries, and so went east. In other words, we outsourced all our bad ideas to perform massive social experiments with other civilizations. Pretty reprehensible, if you ask me.
- tathougies 8y agoDo you have any basis on which to claim that Asian students are less creative than your idealized American one? Standardized education in Asia has a very long history, and given the many achievements of Asian civilization, it seems quite fantastical to claim Asians are less creative than <insert culture here>. If anything, the countries of Asia must necessarily be more creative, because they often have less to work with. Countries like Singapore and Japan have very few natural resources but can still hold their own economically against America or any other Western power. Meanwhile, without diminishing the amount of hard work undertaken, America's economic success historically is due in large part to the wealth of geographic resources and the successful extraction and marketing of those resources. While lucrative, and a great example of what the American work ethic can accomplish, I'm not sure I'd label this as particularly creative. Ultimately, the drive to label Americans as creative and Asians as non-creative is simply moral positioning in order to maintain some kind of perceived superiority over cultures rather than admit they may have a better system.
- educationdata 8y ago1) ctrl+F: find no "social media", "facebook", "snapchat", etc. in the article. 2) "I work with kids" is not good evidence. 3) "Here’s why they’re consumed with anxiety." - probably true, but it does not rule out other explanations.
- pandemic_region 8y agohonestly i think kids are better at coping with social media than most adults, they are able to put it into perspective most of the time regardless of how afraid we are they are not.
- gwbas1c 8y agoRead the article, the tie-in to social media is clearly explained near the beginning.
- tomsthumb 8y agoAuthor claims it isn’t social media, then proceeds to describe the use of what is effectively social media applications where students communicate with their school and teachers. The apps are noted as a problem due to their notifications and because it’s more difficult to leave school at school since the app is on their phone. Curiously, this is similar to what Jonathan Haidt points out as one of the big negatives of social media.
- sowbug 8y agoI don't think the author is being inconsistent; rather, you've gotten the exact point the article was trying to make. One assumes the problem is social media, but the deeper problem is that the engagement tactics of social-media apps are more widespread than adults might realize. I'm not sure why anyone's surprised, either. Getting a reply to a critical work email is a little like getting a report-card grade, and it can arrive at any time of day.
- tomsthumb 8y agoHow can social media be a subset of the more widespread problem and the title of the article be correct? The article also does a poor job of framing the school apps as part of a wider problem with those technological behaviors. Looking back over the piece, I can’t find it. The argument appears much more to be “no, not social media, it’s school” without the framing.
- hadsed 8y agoThe assumption when people say X is the problem is that it's the ROOT problem. So if you take it that way then everything is consistent including this author's title.
- sowbug 8y agoYeah, that's basically it. Not that we need analogies (yet) in this discussion, but if someone dies in a plane crash, their autopsy report will probably say something like "blunt-force trauma to the brain" as cause of death. That is absolutely correct, but it's also absolutely true that the person would still be dead even if the Flying Spaghetti Monster had intervened and prevented the blunt-force trauma to the person's brain. Delete Facebook/Instagram from the world, and kids will still be anxious.
- JamesBarney 8y agoThis seems to resonate with me. My little sister who is graduated highschool in 2014 had a very different experience than I did graduating in 2004. I'd stay up late finishing homework in highschool but usually it'd be a rare occurrence caused by my own procrastination. She'd routinely stay up past my parents because she just genuinely had 6-10 hrs of homework a night.
- woolvalley 8y agoSo your saying your sister had a 12-14 hour 'work' day on average and the parents didn't revolt in response?
- cordonbleu 8y agoin my opinion school is the place for schoolwork. extending into the home and personal time of students seems like training to accept a future employers hueristics of extending work hours for free by constantly ringing up employees after thier day at the job is supposed to be done. if its not possible to teach the subject in the alloted time,there is a problem with the educational system that needs redevelopment.
- possum1234 8y agoYou'd be surprised how few parents care about mental health if a school is prestigious.
- rb808 8y agoDude my elementary school daughter often stays up past one of her parents as she has genuinely had 6-10 hrs of homework many nights.
- ddingus 8y agoThat is too much homework.
- SystemOut 8y agoOur elementary schools have specifically dialed it back to at most 30-40 minutes of homework and that includes the 20 minutes of reading they want them to do. I say this without it being critical of you but you really need to get your daughter into a different school or district. It's not healthy and research has shown it doesn't help.
- donaldknuth123 8y agoThis is dubious. If you polled kids with actual anxiety issues, depression or suicide notes I would be absolutely stunned if they quote Test Reminders or Grades and not online bullying and social media as the source of their problems.
- pat2man 8y agoMy hypothesis: people are either consciously or unconsciously afraid that most jobs will disappear in the near to medium future. This is manifesting itself in many ways (nationalism, etc.). Adults feel it, children feel it. Our leaders are doing their best to make us feel like they have it under control but no one has a good solution, and until we come up with something these problems are just going to get worse and worse.
- dv_dt 8y agoIneffective action on climate change is a big part of it too...
- ams6110 8y agoWell a few decades ago it was nuclear annihilation. I was a teen then, and it was more scary than climate change if you were the sort of kid who worried about stuff.
- dv_dt 8y agoWith the Cold War, you might worry about being attacked, but could feel that your own nation was clearly taking action to protect your tribe. That's not the case with climate change.
- sevensor 8y agoBut that's the thing about nuclear annihilation. Nothing can protect you from it. All your leaders can promise is that the entire planet will be unlivable, and not just our side of it. Cold comfort for a cold war. Different apocalypse than climate change, but just as bad.
- dv_dt 8y agoRight or wrong, it was very visible that the US blockaded navies, invaded nations, formed alliances - fought in every way against the primary threat of the USSR. I lived through the same time, it was very obvious the government did things frequently and in many levels to fight the Cold war. Doing something, even if it doesn't reduce the core risk, reduces anxiety. (And I'm sure many people would say that many cold war actions actually did reduce the core risk too..) I suppose we're still invading nations, but now it's for little apparent benefit, and certainly not connected to climate change. What has the US done at the national level, especially recently, that's even easily within reach against climate change? People know - they feel it.
- clairity 8y agoon one hand, it would be easy to dismiss the issues noted in the article as first-world problems, but it lays bare the intersection of technology-induced anxiety and economic realism affecting not just kids, but the larger culture in the US. as an economy, we are prosperous, but to achieve even a meager share in any of that prosperity feels increasingly hopeless. the future depends on making uncomfortable changes, opposed by the rich and powerful, that lead to a little more just and equitable world.
- GauntletWizard 8y agoFeedback on learning has a very long feedback cycle. With the speed of which we are making changes to society, education has tried to keep up, but it was off the rails before we entered our modern technology Accelerando. The additional speed has only hurt it further.
- randomdata 8y agoI would suggest that it fundamentally cannot keep up. In the olden days you would start working on the family farm as soon as you were old enough to walk. This is where the life lessons were learned. Schooling was meant only to broaden horizons into more theoretical subjects that were not directly applicable to every day life. But with our newfound fear of having children work every so often (to the point that is illegal for most children to work; children of farmers working on the family farm remaining one of the few exceptions), they no longer have a place to learn about everyday life. They only get the theoretical, and it ends there. Then, in their 20s, they're spit out into the real world and all of a sudden have to figure out the life lessons that were once given over the span of decades under the guidance of a caregiver. We have attempted to try to bring practical lessons to school, but as anyone who is an adult knows, there is simply no replacement for actual experience. Everything you think you have learned about it ends up being completely different once you live it.
- watwut 8y agoI think that you are idealzing a bit outcomes of children in the past. They had their own set if problems - including higher violence and criminality rates and alcoholism etc.
- randomdata 8y agoViolence and crime rates are down due to the reduce use of lead in gasoline. Alcoholism seems to be down due to much greater difficulty in being able to drink (can't drive the bar anymore without fear of stiff penalties) and greater information. But I don't think I am idealizing anything. The benefits of having a job when you are young are abundantly clear, and remain abundantly clear for those who still do so today. There is no reason why children cannot work and also have pursuits that are useful in other areas. It is not an either-or situation. They do not need to be full-time jobs. There is plenty of time for other pursuits.
- gwbas1c 8y agoThe article describes the problems with getting a notification, at any point in the day, about grades. Probably one of my biggest disappointments with Android is that it's still hard to regulate notifications. One of my bigger disappointments with modern American culture is that we don't push back on interruptions enough.
- rchaud 8y agoYou may want to look into an Android phone that has "Do Not Disturb" on. It will hide notifications from showing on the statusbar. So unless you explicitly open that app, you won't know if there's a notification to be had. I have a Nokia 6.1 with Android 9.0. The other day, I actually missed some important messages because I had DND turned on, thinking it was the same thing as silent mode.
- i_cant_speel 8y agoCan the title be changed to something that's more descriptive and not click bait?
- jf 8y agoI can relate to this article on a personal level. Even though I was homeschooled, I grew up in the Silicon Valley during the late '90s and early '00s and felt a lot of pressure from my peers and their parents to "succeed" Two clear memories stick with me from those times: - A visual image of my education as a Saturn-V type rocket, but with no destination in mind. - A strong desire to make myself a shirt with a picture of a Golden Calf that was simply labeled "Education"
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- giacaglia 8y agohttp://southpark.cc.com/clips/nr2bie/everyone-has-anxiety http://southpark.cc.com/clips/nr2bie/everyone-has-anxiety
- jancsika 8y ago> They’re constantly stressed, and they’re growing aware that there’s no payoff for it all. If that's true then one would expect to see lots of misbehavior, insubordination, and absurdist pranks. At least that the usual escape valve for that age and that problem. Do we see those kinds of problems with this generation?
- kaitai 8y agoWith this generation, pranks and insubordination are often dealt with by the school police officer! When I was in high school, I got a talking-to at most, or a blind eye because I was a "good kid". Now my old high school has a lot more law enforcement presence.
- jancsika 8y agoI'm thinking more along the lines of christmas-treeing the state administered IQ test. I remember a classmate doing that in high school. It was as if a bunch of ostensible gang members met a real gang member who showed them they were only ever singing and dancing in a musical about gangs.
- almost_usual 8y agoTechnology is only the reminder of the stress. Kids are dealing with: 1.) A constant reminder that rapid climate change on Earth is going to drastically change the quality of their life in the near future. 2.) Less jobs, automation will inevitably consume more jobs for the next generation resulting in more service level work or careers that feel empty without much opportunity. The pressure to do compete for a desirable job will continue at an increasing rate. 3.) Extreme competition to live where you grew up or where desirable jobs are. The youth suicide rate in the Bay Area Peninsula (specifically Palo Alto) is the highest in the country. Kids need to compete at a world class level to get into a world class university to gain entry to a career where they _might_ have the ability to afford a home in their neighborhood. Anything less will be seen as failure to their friends or family. Similarly children who didn't grow up in the area face a life of trying to break in to a major metropolitan area where the highly skilled desirable jobs are.
- refurb 8y agoYouth suicide rates in the peninsula don't seem all that much higher than outside-the-bay-area counties and are lower than some other states.[1] [1]https://www.kidsdata.org/topic/213/youthsuicide-rate https://www.kidsdata.org/topic/213/youthsuicide-rate
- cordonbleu 8y agoi think we will see a spike when the current cohort of kids reach early twenties, and real life things screw up, serving to confirm all the imagined problems manufacured by what really amounts to a coincidental "gaslighting" by an badly implemented system.
- almost_usual 8y agoYour link is giving me a 404. I was referencing this https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/12/the-silicon-valley-suicides/413140/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/12/the-sil... in my comment.
- makerofspoons 8y agoI agree, especially with point one. Who would not be anxious when it looks increasingly like there is no future worth living in?
- ergothus 8y agoI watched Stranger Things for the first time a few months ago (I know, I know, but at least I did). I cried. Not at the scenes I think most people might. I cried because there was a scene where it was so obvious that the older brother was being treated as the "Man of the House". I'm over 40, and grew up as the older-by-5 years sibling with a single mom. I had no idea I had all of this repressed trauma from being old enough to understand I was being given all of this responsibility, but no way to actually achieve it, or even a way to know if I was doing well enough. So I could never DO well enough, despite always wanting to. Despite this, I grew up considered a pretty laid back, Zen guy. Until I got married. Now I'm a constant ball of stress. I'm unhealthy, and my sleep is so messed up that "good" nights are those that are less bad. Doctors tell me I should exercise more. All of this despite being financially successful and very happily married. I constantly feel like disaster looms around every corner. I'm aware of how lucky I am and how I screw this up (or just have it screwed up for me) at any moment, and I feel like I can't every fully relax because _I have to be responsible_. Another poster here generalized beyond this article to say that we as a nation (and perhaps world) are at a high level of anxiety, and we reflect it in everything and kids pick up on that. I think they're very, very right. I find myself reflecting way too often that I'm glad I don't have kids - they won't have to live with the mess society is generating that I can't fix. Because no matter what I'm doing, I can never do enough to fix it. And I'm very, very tired.
- radicalbyte 8y agoI had that when I had kids. I'm an older brother but grew up in a stable family. The lack of sleep combined with working hard full time is the cause. If you can take a few months off of work (doing 20 hrs work a week works too), get to the gym and sort your diet out (cut down on fat and try to remove red meat and sugars) you'll feel much better. It's working for me :)
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- abc_lisper 8y agoYou are my doppelgänger. I live in US, am not an American, and feel exactly like this. I don't know if my parents (not in US) felt like this when they were my age, or it is only an American problem, or only an American problem of this generation. People used to think for their kids and grand-kids financial future. That seems so out of the window now.
- fromthestart 8y ago>All of them said they voluntarily get their grades pushed to their phones through notifications. It took me a minute to realize just how annoying and agonizing that must feel. It means that at any moment, they could find out they bombed a test or missed an assignment. Instead of having the time to mentally prepare to receive a bad grade Our lives have gotten so easy that we now write articles about how push notifications of grades "consumes" children with anxiety. Here's an idea. Maybe kids are more anxious these days because instead of, especially in the case of faux adversity like going to school, teaching them to be strong, we legitimize their anxiety, and worse, take them to doctors who prescribe them with unnecessary drugs for what amounts to normal and healthy teenage angst. Here's another idea. It's normal for life to get a little scary when you're starting puberty. And giving young kids terrifying materials like "43 pages long" course registration manuals (the horror!) is an opportunity to teach young teens the value in planning ahead and taking control of one's life. We shouldn't normalize their anxiety over making decisions and commitments - it's a year of schoolwork! Big deal! Just wait until real life! What's the problem? If we don't expose these kids to stress and teach them to accept it as part of normal life, they'll grow into helpless, anxiety ridden adults, as I seem to see among many of my contemporaries, perpetual children in their late 20s who do not understand commitment or forsight. Given that this is from vox, I can't help but notice themes in common with nonsense like toxic masculinity - this is all opportunity to begin on a path of success from an earlier age, and instead of celebrating it, vox predictably avoids the celebration of achievement and complains that it's too hard and we're scaring our poor children with talk of futures and grades! The rift in our country starts here. At the divide between collectivism and individualism. But what vox et al. fail to understand is that when you vehemently shun individualism and achievement, instead focusing excessively on minimizing difficulty, your collective will fail, as those that exist within it become increasingly incompetent.
- kaitai 8y agoIt's interesting that I agree with you at a few key points, but utterly disagree with your post in a few other places. Agree: "The rift in our country starts here. At the divide between collectivism and individualism." Interestingly, I think the problems described in the article are entirely from the whole-hearted embrace of individualism that America has fallen into. There is not communal or collective effort at all; these kids are told that they need to be fighting each other in the stack ranking of life for the next 18-65 years. No one will take care of them if they get sick or injured -- they need to save for that, and saving requires a good-paying job, which requires the right career path, which requires optimizing your class schedule in 8th grade and not accruing a police record for tipping cows or outhouses or, God forbid, spreading a little nitrogen triiodide in the high school hallway as a prank. That'll get you a terrorism charge. In some sense I again agree with your first paragraph: "Our lives have gotten so easy that..." and the note about "faux adversity". I think we'd all be more mentally healthy if we spent more time in the woods or desert, where Nature doesn't care about your GPA or your career cluster, but you can truly test yourself against physical reality. Heck, even weightlifting can provide a touch of that. But again, it's not faux adversity when you see your parents missing mortgage payments because of the government shutdown and you realize that they went to college & did everything "right" and yet because they're not 5%-ers in the US your life in the good school district is precarious. It's not faux adversity when you see your parents get the $24,000 bill (after insurance!) for a broken arm from Zuckerberg Hospital. This is created adversity. We have created a system in which there is no floor and no escape from debts. All rests on the individual, and if you get old, or sick before you're old, you're f*(&ed.
- rrggrr 8y agoThe data does not support OP's article. Here's a good synopsis of what the data does say courtesy of Joe Rogan's show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CI6rX96oYnY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CI6rX96oYnY
- alehul 8y agoThis doesn't address OP's article's main point, aside from the backhand comment of "it's not social media," which is meant more so as clickbait and doesn't pertain much to the article's point of what does cause the anxiety.
- gumby 8y agoI was appalled by the idea that kids in grade 9 are supposed to be taking clusters of classes for career preparation. What happened to getting a broad education (especially in high school!) so that you can think about a variety of topics and participate as a member of civic society and have a foundation to be able to learn to do whatever job is useful in the 2030s or 2040s? Kids in the 80s didn't take classes to help them become web developers, but hopefully they got the necessary skills to do that job when it eventually arrived. == I went the opposite way with my own kid (do as well as you can in a bunch of subjects, think about which ones you like) to try to prepare him better and spare him a lot of the execution optimization anxiety. As a result: high school was much better for him...but he now has these "what the hell will be my career" and "am I taking the right classes" anxieties in college :-(. At least he didn't jump in front of a train like a disturbing number of other Palo Alto high schoolers did.
- mrguyorama 8y agoThere is this seemingly comprehensive belief here in America that is utterly embedded in culture and common assumptions that the only value a human life has is to increase the GDP and enrich someone else
- gumby 8y agoThis belief is relatively new (becoming widespread/popular roughly in the early 80s) so could evolve the other way too. I agree it's a corrosive and widespread belief.
- FiveSquared25 8y ago“Greed is good!” - Gordon Gecko
- nugget 8y agoMiddle class American kids are raised to have certain expectations about quality of life - that if they pursue a decent education then they can work 40 hours a week and afford a comfortable house in a safe neighborhood, resources to attract a spouse and build a family, good schools for their kids, and so on. Most wake up in their mid 20s and realize that they have a pile of student loan debt and housing in desirable areas is beyond reach. It's the fundamental disconnect between what society (parents, media, culture) led them to expect and the reality they are confronted with that causes confusion, despair, and anger. Reactions are varied. Some give up, some dig in. The American dream is still alive and well it's just accessed differently than it used to be and we don't talk about that enough with young people. Personally I'm surprised the youngest generations aren't even greedier, more ruthless, and more focused on economic value than they seem to be, based on the structure and incentives of the world into which they were born.
- HellDunkel 8y agoquite shocked those kids receive their grades by an app. here in germany we have this discussion on whether to have computers/phones in classrooms. i’d say no to all of that- except for computer programming classes.
- sdinsn 8y agoHow is getting grades with an app different than getting grades via paper?
- HellDunkel 8y agofirst, there should be a teacher to personally tell you if you messed up and why. second there is a time and place for these kind of things. imagine the teacher decides to check tests at night. do you really want your kids to constantly check their phones instead of gettibg sleep? we have a long way to go with that tech...
- themacguffinman 8y agoGiving feedback on what you messed up and why is pretty straightforward to do electronically. It's also unlikely (or at least unnecessary) that electronic grades are released immediately after the teacher marks a test.
- germinalphrase 8y agoI am a teacher. Our marks are immediately available once I have entered them in the online grade book.
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- burfog 8y agoI prefer things old-style. The time and place: as soon as you show up, you check the bulletin board to see the list of names with grades. I gather that this is now frowned upon, but real publicly observable competition is a huge incentive to do well. It also relieves a bit of anxiety for those who would otherwise unjustly think they are doing badly. If you want to impress fellow classmates, perhaps especially those you find attractive, getting to be the best on that list does wonders.
- peterwwillis 8y agoIf we could stop telling kids they need to go to school, and instead tell them why they should want to, that might reduce the stress of having to perform well. If you don't go to school, you will not die in a gutter. But if you do go to school, you will be very well prepared for life. Tell this to your kids.
- mrguyorama 8y ago>If you don't go to school, you will not die in a gutter. America does not have a sufficient safety net for this to be true
- DATACOMMANDER 8y agoCare to provide an example of someone (literally or figuratively) dying in a gutter in the US within the last few years? I’m talking about someone dying of hunger or exposure here, not overdosing.
- eli_gottlieb 8y agoThis happened just last year: https://www.necn.com/news/new-england/Mans-Death-Spotlights-Winter-Struggles-of-Homeless-469823853.html https://www.necn.com/news/new-england/Mans-Death-Spotlights-...
- DATACOMMANDER 8y agoThe article says that the man’s drinking “played a significant role” in his death. I don’t buy the idea that he slept outside only because there literally wasn’t enough room for him in the shelter. If that were truly the case, more than one homeless person would have died in that area for the same reason, and it would have been a major national story.
- eli_gottlieb 8y agoWe had a bunch of people die in Boston during that same cold snap for lack of space in shelters. What makes you think the nation was or will be so scandalized by a bunch of homeless nobodies dying of exposure?
- munificent 8y agoI imagine success like a little island, a hill surrounded by ocean. You're born wherever on the hill your parents happen to live. Your effort plus a lot of luck determines how high up that hill you're able to climb. The higher you reach, the better the view and the fresher the coconuts. But more importantly, the farther you are from the sea. The next cyclone that rolls by chance sometimes washes anyone living too close to shore out to sea. For generations, Americans took for granted that the hill was getting bigger, the slope was gentle, and each batch of kids could take a couple of easy steps forward and comfortably land somewhere safer and more prosperous than Mom and Dad. But the last forty years or so of increasing economic disparity mean the peak of the hill gets higher and the slope up to it steeper every year. Harder and harder to climb, and easier to slip down, or get knocked down by a rival. Meanwhile, outsourcing, offshoring and automation mean there is less and less shore near the bottom where you can start from. The sea is rising and if you can't at least reach the elevation marked "skilled worker", you better hope you're a good swimmer. (On top of this, the seas literally are rising, which will disproportionately harm the poor, just like Hurricane Katrina took out the lowest-elevation neighborhoods the worst.) It is clear that many of the rich in power in this country don't give a damn about this. As far as they're concerned, the more people that get washed out to sea, the more coconuts there are left for them. They're so high up now, they can barely see the rest down there scrabbling to stay dry. My hope is that a new wave of elected officials will change the direction we're heading. But right now, the future looks grim, and our childrens' anxiety is entirely rational.
- refurb 8y agoThis is nothing new. There have always been threats to the livelihood of the next generation - economic depression, world wars, nuclear holocaust. I think we look back at prior generations with rose colored glasses if we somehow think our current existence is dramatically worse than theirs.
- jpatokal 8y agoThis. Growing up in the fifties meant your school days were punctuated with drills where you'd cowee under your desk in case nuclear Armageddon had arrived and the world was going to end.
- robbrit 8y agoSeems to me like we've gone too far down the "add more schooling" solution to a changing world. This approach tries to anticipate what will be in demand for the 40-50 years after these kids graduate from high school and enter the work force; that is a pipe dream. A shift to different skills would be more preferable: skills like creativity, adaptability, ability to learn new things. A worker who can adapt easily to a new world will be much better suited to navigate life than one who is educated in a single career path. These skills are not new, nor is economic and technological change. My grandpa developed these skills early on and used them to great advantage through all the recessions and technological change of the 1970's and 80's. He did quite well for himself, despite not doing anything related to his formal education.
- JDiculous 8y agoWhat a sad country the U.S. has become. I wonder if this state of anxiety is also the norm in European countries? It seems to be a lot more sane in countries like Germany, Finland, etc where university doesn't require $60-150k+ in student loan debt, healthcare is free, you actually have job stability and can't get fired without good reason, you can work any job and support yourself, housing isn't obscenely expensive, 1.5-2 months vacation. Not to paint these countries as a paradise because of course they have their problems too, but I wonder what Europeans think when they read articles like this?
- CalRobert 8y agoAs someone who moved from the US to Europe, I agree with you wholeheartedly. Unfortunately Europe seems to be trying to become more like the US, and my adopted home (Ireland) is an eager student. I can't imagine going back to less than a month of PTO a year, and even that feels skimpy.
- motohagiography 8y agoGlobalization means kids are now competing globally even for local social mobility and they can sense it. The consequences of failure are worse than they were, and they are running to stand still. They'll figure things out, but it's not going to look like the past.
- danielor 8y agoAs a related aside, kids can often reflect their parents anxiety. Adults are super stressed and anxious about the future, and I am sure that is having a noticeable effect on children.
- abledon 8y agoHarvard Psychologist on Joe Rogan commented on this phenomenon in the past couple days, social media was definitely part of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CI6rX96oYnY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CI6rX96oYnY
- fallingfrog 8y agoI feel like this author of this article is this close to developing a working class consciousness..
- fallingfrog 8y agoI mean, teenage angst, midlife crisis, and elder depression are not separate disorders, or really disorders at all. They are natural reactions to an insane world.
- fallingfrog 8y agoAlso see another article today titled “US is an oligarchy, not a democracy”. Let’s put 2 and 2 together folks
- 40acres 8y agoThis article goes very well with the recent NYT "Relentless Parenting" story [0]. If you live in America, its not surprising that once you reach the age where you can think in-depth about your future and the consequences of "failing" that an existential sense of dread may loom over you. School age kids have to worry about the pressures related to school and getting into a good college, college students have the pressure of college and debt. Millennials are dealing with high college debt, a substandard labor market overall, and high rent. Middle aged folks are dealing with rising healthcare costs for their children and parents, along with debt and other issues. It just goes on and on. There might have been an idea in the 50s that by the turn of the century most Americans could escape the rat race, but it's probably just gotten worse. 0: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/25/upshot/the-relentlessness-of-modern-parenting.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/25/upshot/the-relentlessness...
- rdiddly 8y agoThe irony of the "career clusters" in the one kid's course registration manual (that are supposed to help you get a high-skill/high-wage/high-demand job), is that they are the usual well-meaning suggestions by people who have no idea how to get a high-skill, high-wage, or high-demand job. Mind you I'm not taking a pot-shot at educators here (though you could read it that way); I'm just saying, nobody has an accurate idea what the landscape will look like in 6 or 8 years (which is when this kid will be out in the job market), much less how best to prepare for it. There is doubt attached to both the forecast and the preparation methods.
- ismail 8y agoQuestion: 1. Anyone considering or practicing unschooling/self directed education [0] for your children? 2. Were you home schooled/unschooled/practiced self directed education ? What’s your story? I am Considering this approach. Just finished reading free to learn [1] and Peter gray makes a compelling case for this approach. Also the documentary “schooling the world” covers some of the chilling effects of compulsory schooling. [2] it has made me seriously question our current education system. Thoughts? [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unschooling https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unschooling [1] https://www.amazon.com/Free-Learn-Unleashing-Instinct-Self-Reliant/dp/0465025994 https://www.amazon.com/Free-Learn-Unleashing-Instinct-Self-R... [2] https://schoolingtheworld.org https://schoolingtheworld.org https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XLSIgZWNR9M https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XLSIgZWNR9M
- goodoldboys 8y agoI'm considering it. I went to public school my entire life but I've spent the better part of the last decade with self-directed learning (programming). I think it's that combined with my belief that our current educational model is broken and inefficient (as well as articles like these) that makes me want to explore unschooling more. Thanks for sharing these links.
- ismail 8y agothanks. What do you think is broken with the current model? Added an Ask Hn for the question. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18878153 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18878153
- mmierz 8y agoMy parents did something like this. My near-total isolation prior to college resulted in terrible social skills. I hurt a lot of people and experienced crushing loneliness. In my 30s, I'm starting to feel like I can pass as a "normal" person and have human relationships. On the plus side I do still know a tremendous amount of trivia about topics that I was interested in as a child, I'm not particularly interested in following rules, and I'm not afraid to be alone or to learn things from a book without anyone to help. These qualities have served me in good stead. On the balance, I'm not sure I would change anything, but you should be aware of what your kids might be in for.
- robohoe 8y agoThis thread is making me depressed about the future.
- superphil0 8y agosorry for the self promotion, but because it fits so well: This is exactly what we are trying to solve with Pocketcoach: https://www.pocketcoach.co/ https://www.pocketcoach.co/
- bg4 8y agoA great book, imho, on this very subject is: How to Raise an Adult by Julie Lythcott-Haims. I can't believe the level of material and amount of work for my poor 4th grader. She's doing hours and hours of homework every night and she's 10. Talk about diminishing returns! https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23168823-how-to-raise-an-adult https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23168823-how-to-raise-an...
- SirLJ 8y agoFrankly, I wish my college kid is at least a bit worried for his future... to me him and his friends are all spoiled, wanting for nothing, happy go lucky, with no clear idea what the real life looks like...
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- Jedd 8y ago> While on a youth retreat with my church... For a secular person - the proverbial outside looking in - this sounds like a significant conflating factor. Kids are especially vulnerable to suggestion, and any group that preaches the likelihood of eternal unpleasantness is not likely to engender mental tranquility.
- AtlasBarfed 8y agoIt's the boomers. Especially the ultra-rich boomers. A generation that has bankrupted the nation, destroyed its foundations, disenfranchised entire following generations, vastly inflated the relative cost of housing, education, and healthcare and leaving a massive debt.
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- the_jeremy 8y agoYou might be right, but given that they didn't set out to do this, that they want their children and grandchildren to grow up and lead happy, successful lives, and that they weren't just some generational error where everyone was a selfish bastard but were mostly well-meaning people, how does this attribution help? It doesn't appear that we're learning from their mistakes with our current political climate or policies.
- NeoBasilisk 8y agoOur current political climate is due to their voting patterns over the last 30 years.
- DyslexicAtheist 8y agoI think kids absorb a lot of the pressure their parents are in. people today deal with a lot more insecurity (jobs/financial etc) than in the 80ies or before, while the leisure / off-time now is reduced to being on a screen. Add the screen time the kids themselves are exposed to (minus the exercise they used to have before the "digital revolution") got to add up. Looking at what many eat today (fast or pre-cooked stuff rather than home-cooked and more sugar is gotta have some effect). Hyper-connectivity is killing us I think.
- djnnskja 8y agoThis is very worrying because, according to Dr. Gabor Mate, there is strong evidence that stress in kids impacts brain development and leads to conditions like ADD and addiction. Dr. Mate's claims resonate with my personal experience (stress and lack of emotional support as a kid leading to ADD and other psychological problems). I recently found out about Dr. Mate's work, and if you are familiar with this work I would be interested in hearing your opinion on it.
- bluntfang 8y ago"Cutting down on fat" is not sound diet advice and is rooted in the "fat macro-nutrient = fat on my body" falsehood. I'm glad you are seeing success, but please don't post about things you don't know enough about.
- Aeolun 8y agoPlease don’t post ‘you are wrong’ without supplying the correct information either. I’m now left wondering what the actual situation around fat is.
- mandelbrotwurst 8y agoThe short version is that your body needs a balance of all three macronutrients - protein, fats, and carbohydrates, and that starving it of any is unhealthy. Parent would probably suggest focusing on calories in / out rather than minimizing fats.
- lenocinor 8y agoAlthough it's also worth mentioning that, while what you say is true, most diets will not work for most people (statistically speaking, from studies). Focusing on calories in / calories out is less important, in my book, than finding a diet that will work for you, because most won't.
- mandelbrotwurst 8y agoI would agree with that. I was kind of just trying to guess what I thought parent _might_ have thought based on some things I've heard a lot of people say about nutrition in recent years.
- barry-cotter 8y agoThis is also untrue. You can live in perfect health on fat and protein alone. Humans can’t make the essential amino acids necessary for making some proteins so we need to eat protein, and there are a number of vitamins that are fat/oil but not water soluble so we need at least some fat but a no carbohydrate diet with sufficient fat is fine as long as you get enough fat. If you only eat lean meat that will be bad for you. http://www.diagnosisdiet.com/all-meat-diets/ http://www.diagnosisdiet.com/all-meat-diets/ > To my mind, examples of real people eating mostly-meat diets for long periods of time gives us much more powerful information about meat and health than conventional scientific studies conducted over short periods of time in which one group of people eats a little more meat or a few extra servings of vegetables than another group of people. > Meet the Meat Mongers > The Inuit of the Canadian Arctic thrived on fish, seal, walrus and whale meat. The Chukotka of the Russian Arctic lived on caribou meat, marine animals and fish. The Masai, Samburu, and Rendille warriors of East Africa survived on diets consisting primarily of milk and meat. The steppe nomads of Mongolia ate mostly meat and dairy products. The Sioux of South Dakota enjoyed a diet of buffalo meat. The Brazilian Gauchos nourished themselves with beef. https://swizec.com/blog/week-17-what-happens-when-you-only-eat-meat-for-a-year/swizec/6534 https://swizec.com/blog/week-17-what-happens-when-you-only-e... http://m.jbc.org/content/87/3/651.full.pdf http://m.jbc.org/content/87/3/651.full.pdf
- NoPicklez 8y agoI saw this growing up as a millenial absolutely, I saw it throughout years 10-12 considerably as we were doing mock job interviews and planning our year 11-12 subjects based on our proposed career prospects. You feel pressure from your peers that if you don't know exactly what career you want and know exactly how you are going to get there, that it's a problem. You are pushed to plan early and to do well, it's only when push comes to shove when you are neck deep in year 12 exams and the prospects of your University entry scores are near, that the school insists that University isn't the only option, and that you shouldn't be stressed because your results don't define you as a person. It's only then do they say that. For me the stress comes down to this, we are told to plan as early as possible. So that if I do these subjects for years 11 & 12, and I get X mark, I will most likely get into X University, to then graduate and get a career in X, which will provide me with a fulfilling career/life of achievement and success. This is the baseline, this isn't just the overachievers, everyone has this idea. Any hiccup along the way in this process and you feel immense stress and anxiety that you will not be successful and happy. Because your entire schooling/education has led up to this moment, and as a teenager you are none the wiser that it isn't the end of the world, because it can sure feel like it. I should say off the back of this that I was lucky and I was able to achieve a successful career, through the path of University.
- Gibbon1 8y ago> For me the stress comes down to this, we are told to plan as early as possible. So that if I do these subjects for years 11 & 12, and I get X mark, I will most likely get into X University, to then graduate and get a career in X, which will provide me with a fulfilling career/life of achievement and success. This is the baseline, this isn't just the overachievers, everyone is fed this idea. I have a friend that got a CS degree from Princeton. Went to work, found he hated it, spent 10 years working to pay off his student loans. Paid them off and quit. Basically blew 15 years of his life doing what everyone told him was the 'right thing'
- germinalphrase 8y agoSure - but how can you know? I don't dread my job, but I believe I could better my life in some ways by changing careers to make more money. I would have specific kinds of freedom and security for my family that we don't have right now, but there's a lot of feel fulfilled about in my current line of work that might be lost in the change. If I knew the right path, I would have taken it already.
- dudewhodoesmath 8y agoI sometimes feel skeptical about `privilege' and `white privilege' and I think of them as over applied twitter concepts. But then I read articles like this and I am reminded of the meaning of privilege. I'm basically not stressed. I am very happy with my financial outlook. I'm about to lift weights. I bake my own bread. I have a supportive and kind partner. I do math. Biases go in my favor. The narrative in this article basically doesn't jive with my lived experience. Each year my life has basically monotonically improved. My one interaction with a peace officer was scrubbed from my record because of a nice apology letter I wrote. I guess that is privilege and it is real.
- b_tterc_p 8y agoI think it’s largely constant reinforcement that kids aren’t especially great. 90% of people are in the bottom 90%. A lot of our culture is pushing people to think that it’s either best or worst. A lot of of young adult stuff commiserates in this, celebrating the tacit knowledge that you’ll eventually fail. So many memes are about feeling how you secretly suck. Or how they can do one relevant task well but fail at basic fundamentals. I also think this is mostly a mindset issue caused by worrying parents constantly demonstrating why you need to be better.
- gene_vache 8y ago“why kids are consumed with worry” .. too much social media?
- dickmoves 8y agoSo, just a quick forecast (my personal hypothesis) of what this will lead to, short term: really bad, profoundly ugly drug epidemics. And we have seen bad. We’re in the middle of a bad one. But ten years down the line, we’ll see a new generation show up, pent up and ready to explode. And drug dealers will be there, ready to harvest some cash. Every tightly wound miserable kid you see today is going to find a way to lash out or somehow escape tomorrow, and most of the time, with regular people, that takes the shape of getting annihilated as quickly and easily as possible. In part, self destruction as revenge for vicarious ambition on the part of authority figures. In part to literally render demanded performance an impossibility, whether for spite or not. Probably nothing can fix this. The die is cast. Public schools in the United States are on a collision course with a transformative upheaval not unlike what we’ve witnessed with the decaying husk of the formerly behemoth United States Postal Service. Actually, on second thought, we’ve been standing face to face with it, if you consider how school shootings mirror “disgruntled postal workers” “going postal” in the 1990’s, just prior to the sensational media coverage of school shootings in particular. No end in sight. C’est la vie.
- netwanderer3 8y agoIt sounds like parents are really the ones who need to be treated, not those kids.
- bigmit37 8y agoI seem to have this fleeting anxiety with me all the time that gets triggered very easily. It seems as if part of me mind is always focused on my body sensations and goes off when I try to focus my mind off my body. I’m also triggered by any thoughts of illness or falling sick. Just reading about how anxiety can cause problems in this thread triggered me. I’ve tried myriad of medications and therapy such as CBT, talk therapy, hypnosis , yoga, Chinese herbal medicine , accupuncture, Ayurvedic treatments, SSRIs, benzos, Xanax, remeron, risperdol etc. Even exercise doesn’t really help. I’m currently on a very low dose of Prozac for sleep. Most medications help with sleep at the very least. I still need to try a SNRI but after that I need may try some hallucinogens as I’ve never done so, and people seem to be responding well to it. I’m currently late 30s and don’t have any physical problems but in the back of my mind I’m always afraid I’m going to get sick soon. I eat bowl of veggies with every meal now, I do yoga prayanamic exercises in the morning and I try to walk daily or almost daily. As for anxiety , I’m not sure if it’s due to my childhood (Dad was abusive and very angry ) or if it’s genetic. My dad has cooled down now so my relationship with him is okay. I don’t have any flashbacks or anything so I’m assuming my problem is genetic? Nonetheless, I want to feel some what normal. Part of me wants to go into the health field just to understand what’s going on in the body and have more control. I also want to reverse aging as I feel like I missed out a lot of my earlier years due to anxiety. I only started programming a couple of years ago and would need to become much better at data mining , machine learning to be of help to researchers. Though I’m really curious about lab work as well and really would like more biochemistry, microbiology etc. Ideally I would to get I knowledge in both. It seems most researchers have decades a of knowledge though and not sure if I can be of any help. I’m very curious about these science fields and like to watch moocs to build my knowledge.
- rconti 8y agoTraining kids to be Sysadmins, smart.