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This article/researcher makes claims that: a) there is a mental health crisis among teenagers which is not parallel to other comparable generations, and b) that

This article/researcher makes claims that: a) there is a mental health crisis among teenagers which is not parallel to other comparable generations, and b) that crisis is linked to mobile phones. I'm not convinced by either claim. In my experience of working with teenagers over the last couple of decades, there is a general trend that they are now better at communicating their emotional needs and emotional state. If teens are more able to clearly and openly express the fact that they are sad, does that mean they are more sad? I think not. Teenagers face far greater economic insecurity than before, and are more acutely aware of it. What will the workforce look like when they graduate highschool? Jobs that teenagers would have been invited to do are being replaced with automated checkouts and computer vision algorithms. Teenagers are required to go into more debt than ever, to escape this lack of opportunities via education. The article identifies that today's teenagers: get in less car accidents, have less risky sex, have a lower rate of teenage pregnancy, ingest less risky substances, are generally less violent - and presents this all as bad because it is different than what came before. Is it bad? Would people 20 years ago have thought this was bad? The author expresses great surprise that people sleep with their phones beside their bed - whereas, it is a great surprise to me that she doesn't. It has an extremely useful function as an alarm clock. I suspect that she would find that a vast majority of her generation of 47-year olds also sleeps with their phone within an arm's reach.

pojzon 7y ago
What a great summary. Tho I think the part about issues our society faces is a lot bigger than those few examples. Educated people have more than ever reasons to be depressed now: - pollution - economic stagnation - inflation - antibiotics failing - global warming - debt - automation and artifical intelligence - politics failing to tackle those issues (its a circus in some countries) - issues like Brexit - natural disasters - hard manipulation via mass-media - addiction algorithms in modern games/medias/programs - goverments cutting expenses on healthcare and education And many more. Im surprised young ppl still have hope, thats very brave of them.
- gorio 7y ago
  I wouldn't overemphasis the troubles of the world. The main issues is that people don't get to enjoy progress to the extent necessary to create a sustainable prosperous society. Decommodifying housing, education and health care would solve 90% of the issue. Almost anything else can then be dealt with. Automation for example isn't a bad thing unless you also have accelerating inequality. Climate change isn't bad unless building a more energy effective society affects some people disproportionally. Etc. That people don't understand this is what will cost them.
  - vaguesortof 7y ago
    Curious what the housing solution your calling for there would be. How do you decomodditize (?) real estate?
    - gorio 7y ago
      It isn't technically hard. What is hard is making it a priority. Many countries have exchanged long term competitiveness for short term gains. Decommodifying housing would impact those who made it their business. The process itself would be a range of options. From removing undue leverage that make people buy things they can't (or don't want to) really afford so they are reliant on rising property values, to absolute government intervention. Of course the most likely would be somewhere in between. Where the government by allocating resource (whether that is building permits, land or directly with construction) competes with the market. And this isn't really the market not functioning as such. The market is accurately pricing things like housing high because of its importance. The problem is that eventually the market will also reflect the decreased competitiveness of important things being expensive.
- roenxi 7y ago
  Most of those things aren't really worth getting depressed over however. Economic stagnation? Civilisation was economically stagnant for more than 2,000 years and it wasn't a reason to get depressed. Ditto many other things Anyone who gets depressed because of Brexit is just looking for a reason to be depressed. It is the lowest-stakes political crisis I could imagine. Maybe people are getting depressed about those issues; but the solution is read less news and need to get better at filtering out things they can't control. If you consider all the things that can go wrong there never has and never will be an era that isn't depressing. The only things on the list that are problems are antibiotics, global warming and healthcare - all of which are risks of falling out of the golden age of the last century back towards something that could be considered the normal human condition through most of history. They are also all completely solvable problems.
gorio 7y ago
I do think smart phones affect people. However what people don't ask when the speculate about the young is whether you are better off otherwise. It isn't really a smart phone, college debt or even housing crisis. It is an opportunity crisis. The prospects for people who don't engage in these activities are generally worse. People >40 don't generally understand this because they are already established, so forgoing these things doesn't have much of an impact on them.
nabla9 7y ago
Finland has mandatory military service for males so the Finnish army gets sample of approximately 25,000 people in year and they are tested in all sorts of ways. It's a good way to get an idea what is happening. It confirms what you suspect. Clear and statistically significant trends among young males: * Younger generations have significantly better communication skills and ability to express themselves. * More mental problems are reported and they cause more releases, but they are not necessarily increasing. Doctors are better trained to specially seek mental problems and take them more seriously. Other studies support this theory. * On average young men are 7 kg heavier than in the 90's. Aerobic fitness is in rapid decline. Muscle strength has declined but only a little. * IQ peaked in 1997 and has been decline but decline seems to plateau. Negative Flynn effect has ben observed in other countries as well (Norway, Denmark,Australia, Britain, Sweden and the Netherlands).
dTal 7y ago
> ...today's teenagers: get in less car accidents, have less risky sex, have a lower rate of teenage pregnancy, ingest less risky substances, are generally less violent - and presents this all as bad because it is different than what came before. Is it bad? It might well be, depending on the reason. We'd also probably see those effects if there was mass depression. Or if we simply locked up all teens at all times. What other "teen stuff" aren't they doing? Socializing (in person)? Exercising?
- learnstats2 7y ago
  There is a known strong relationship between risky behaviour and depression - a positive one. If people were more depressed, we would normally expect to see MORE of these risk-taking behaviours, not less.
newsgremlin 7y ago
My crucial concern is whether the newer generations are expressing themselves in meaningful ways. Social media is ok for talking about ones emotions and sharing experiences through it. But what about expression through music, art, literature? Are they being hampered by consuming media instead of creating or are we just unaware of the vast creative talents that go unnoticed? Given uncertain economic times I'd expect authority figures are still pushing them to follow paths for lucrative careers.
- crakhamster01 7y ago
  If anything, social media has enabled newer generations to express themselves in "meaningful" ways more than ever. It may not be as a full-time profession, but plenty of people create for hobby. See: the hundreds of thousands of IG/Youtube accounts for musicians, designers, artists, and amateur poets.
  - newsgremlin 7y ago
    Ofcourse we see so many creative people on IG/Youtube I subscribe to those who make meaningful content that inspires me, but there are many more who consume that content, but not create their own, and that's the trap I think a lot of people fall in. That's where people realise they don't actually have any real hobbies. And that's another thing, we shouldn't need social media to feel validated or to compare, people should feel accomplishment in solace of their hobby. Sometimes the expectations of having a huge following online can even have a negative effect on the mental health of online artists. I see many talk about their own struggles and the pressures of being creative (especially the ones who start to make a living off it).
naasking 7y ago
> This article/researcher makes claims that: a) there is a mental health crisis among teenagers which is not parallel to other comparable generations, and b) that crisis is linked to mobile phones. I'm not convinced by either claim. You probably should be, because there are objective markers that don't depend on communication: https://twitter.com/JonHaidt/status/1083015453151318016 https://twitter.com/JonHaidt/status/1083015453151318016 > The article identifies that today's teenagers: get in less car accidents, have less risky sex, have a lower rate of teenage pregnancy, ingest less risky substances, are generally less violent - and presents this all as bad because it is different than what came before. If teens are avoiding risk-seeking behaviour due to an increase in underlying anxieties, then yes, it quite literally is a problem and not just because it's different. Maybe you should give the psychologist who wrote the article the benefit of the doubt.
- watwut 7y ago
  > less car accidents, have less risky sex, have a lower rate of teenage pregnancy, ingest less risky substances, are generally less violent These are positive changes. All of them. These were literally something bad about older generation. All these things have negative consequences on not just risk accepting person, but also to other people around. If you are more anxious but less violent, then it is a good trade off.
  - naasking 7y ago
    Merely repeating something does not make it fact. It's shortsighted to evaluate good and bad purely by outcome. Plenty of psychological and physiological pathologies drive reduced violence, less risk taking, etc. For instance, are you going to suggest people should become more psychopathic because it's correlated with success? Are you going to suggest all men take testosterone suppressants because that would reduce violence, risk taking and teenage pregnancy? If the outcome is all that matters, then why not right?
    - watwut 7y ago
      I would strongly prefer anxious person in the same room over violent one. It is that simple. If what you need is testosterone suppressant to not hit me, yes I strongly prefer you taking it over me being beaten or me doing things I did not wanted to for fear of your aggression. It is better for you too, assuming cops and courts will do the thing they are supposed to - putting you in prison. Fortunately, men generally don't need testosterone suppressant to not be violent. Adult men violence is choice and occasionally mental problem. Teen pregnancy rates are again result largely of sexual education, girls better able to resist pressure to have unprotected sex and boys better knowing it causes problems to them too. There is literally nothing to gain by not using a condom in that situation. All of these are kids making better choices. That absolutely should count for something.
zeropnc 7y ago
> Teenagers face far greater economic insecurity than before, and are more acutely aware of it. What will the workforce look like when they graduate highschool? Jobs that teenagers would have been invited to do are being replaced with automated checkouts and computer vision algorithms. Teenagers are required to go into more debt than ever, to escape this lack of opportunities via education. Sometimes it blows my mind that even in "educated circles" of the west there's such a blatant lack of perspective on the rest of the world. We still live in a world where 3 million people a year die of diarrhea - and you think economic insecurity is the reason Western kids are depressed? No, this is not why teenagers are depressed. If that were even remotely true every teenager on Earth not from a G8 or Scandanavian country would be jumping off a ledge by the time they're 14.
- watwut 7y ago
  People in area where their friends die of diarrhea are depressive too. They get sad, they suicide, they have traumas and mental problems. They self medicate with alcohol, drugs, excessive risk and what not to make pain go away. That does not make it impossible for rich countries people to be depressed due to economy going down relatively.
merpnderp 7y ago
I’d say that since teen suicides are significantly up, yes they are sadder today. And by far the biggest change in young people’s lives today versus previous generations is being constantly connected to the Internet via their phones, more specifically social media.
- boomboomsubban 7y ago
  The suicide rate is a horrible judge of sadness among a generation. The rate is never very stable, and the "three times increase" described for girls is going from 2/100000 to 6/100000. And constant internet access could also cause a change in methods, accounting for some amount of that rise.
- tapland 7y ago
  Suicide rates among young people are down about 1/3 in Sweden since the 90s. If they are up in the US it might be another cultural issue.
g00s3_caLL_x2 7y ago
One curiosity on your comment I noticed: You claim 'working with teenagers over the last couple of decades' while making the delineation of 'her generation of 47-year olds'. Even if you began working with teens at 20, 'decades' would put you in your 40's as well? If that is the case, why try and separate your self from the same demographic?
- learnstats2 7y ago
  Well... I'm just gonna have to quote the article: "In earlier eras, kids worked in great numbers, eager to finance their freedom or prodded by their parents to learn the value of a dollar."
  - g00s3_caLL_x2 7y ago
    I'm sorry but I don't follow. That is no way answers my question.
apatters 7y ago
> get in less car accidents They're driving less in the first place: https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/05/teen-car-culture/561290/ https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/05/teen-car-... > have less risky sex, have a lower rate of teenage pregnancy They (along with 20-somethings) also have less sex period: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/12/the-sex-recession/573949/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/12/the-sex... > ingest less risky substances, are generally less violent Drug use and getting into fights typically happen in social settings. Teens are socializing in person less often: https://qz.com/1320344/americans-are-socializing-less-and-playing-more-games/ https://qz.com/1320344/americans-are-socializing-less-and-pl... It makes you wonder, what the heck _are_ they doing with their time? Well, playing video games, using their phones, and feeling lonely: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/10/01/loneliness-felt-intensely-young-people-study-finds-turning-facebook/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/10/01/loneliness-felt-... As well as reporting more depression and anxiety, and committing suicide in record numbers: http://theconversation.com/the-mental-health-crisis-among-americas-youth-is-real-and-staggering-113239 http://theconversation.com/the-mental-health-crisis-among-am... Is it as simple as "phone bad, sunshine good?" No probably not, but there are studies out there linking social media to depression, and many studies linking loneliness to poor mental health.
SignalsFromBob 7y ago
> The author expresses great surprise that people sleep with their phones beside their bed - whereas, it is a great surprise to me that she doesn't. It has an extremely useful function as an alarm clock. You misread the article. Not beside their bed, but in the bed with them.
VvR-Ox 7y ago
Very interesting. When I was working with young people I noticed something completely different (in europe). They tend to be better at communication with technologies but a lot worse in real face-to-face communication. They stand some meters apart and rather text each other than standing up in front of a group of other people to just talk to the other person. I also see greater economic insecurities but I don't understand how this is connected to less or later gains in self-sufficiency. Shouldn't it be reversed? In my time it was so important to get some extra bucks to spend on more/better clubs, booze and gas that we did nearly every shitty job to earn some. What I think the article got right is the risks involved with this tendency towards less risk taking. Many activities we took part in our youth forced us to deal with unknown situations and people and we learned to cope with things. We spent hours at the riverside, in the forests etc. getting wasted, building stuff and doing nasty things that teenagers do - I think it was for the better of our development and a friend of mine who works with young people professionally supports this hypothesis. When there are no insecurities and problems to tackle you don't learn to stand on your own feet. Learning to cope with stressful and strange situations and people at least helped me to find ways out of trouble instead of ending my life or get killed. When we were bullied at school we met the bullies at the yard and beat the sh*t out of them instead of being overwhelmed by pseudo-anonymous groups of people on the net. I think that was easier as a mechanism of coping and at least you could do something about it. I wouldn't underestimate the psychological stress they have to deal with nowadays and I think I also wouldn't want to switch positions. I'm happy I grew up before this digital revolution just early enough to know the differences.

pojzon 7y ago

What a great summary. Tho I think the part about issues our society faces is a lot bigger than those few examples. Educated people have more than ever reasons to be depressed now: - pollution - economic stagnation - inflation - antibiotics failing - global warming - debt - automation and artifical intelligence - politics failing to tackle those issues (its a circus in some countries) - issues like Brexit - natural disasters - hard manipulation via mass-media - addiction algorithms in modern games/medias/programs - goverments cutting expenses on healthcare and education And many more. Im surprised young ppl still have hope, thats very brave of them.

gorio 7y ago
I wouldn't overemphasis the troubles of the world. The main issues is that people don't get to enjoy progress to the extent necessary to create a sustainable prosperous society. Decommodifying housing, education and health care would solve 90% of the issue. Almost anything else can then be dealt with. Automation for example isn't a bad thing unless you also have accelerating inequality. Climate change isn't bad unless building a more energy effective society affects some people disproportionally. Etc. That people don't understand this is what will cost them.
- vaguesortof 7y ago
  Curious what the housing solution your calling for there would be. How do you decomodditize (?) real estate?
  - gorio 7y ago
    It isn't technically hard. What is hard is making it a priority. Many countries have exchanged long term competitiveness for short term gains. Decommodifying housing would impact those who made it their business. The process itself would be a range of options. From removing undue leverage that make people buy things they can't (or don't want to) really afford so they are reliant on rising property values, to absolute government intervention. Of course the most likely would be somewhere in between. Where the government by allocating resource (whether that is building permits, land or directly with construction) competes with the market. And this isn't really the market not functioning as such. The market is accurately pricing things like housing high because of its importance. The problem is that eventually the market will also reflect the decreased competitiveness of important things being expensive.
roenxi 7y ago
Most of those things aren't really worth getting depressed over however. Economic stagnation? Civilisation was economically stagnant for more than 2,000 years and it wasn't a reason to get depressed. Ditto many other things Anyone who gets depressed because of Brexit is just looking for a reason to be depressed. It is the lowest-stakes political crisis I could imagine. Maybe people are getting depressed about those issues; but the solution is read less news and need to get better at filtering out things they can't control. If you consider all the things that can go wrong there never has and never will be an era that isn't depressing. The only things on the list that are problems are antibiotics, global warming and healthcare - all of which are risks of falling out of the golden age of the last century back towards something that could be considered the normal human condition through most of history. They are also all completely solvable problems.

gorio 7y ago

I do think smart phones affect people. However what people don't ask when the speculate about the young is whether you are better off otherwise. It isn't really a smart phone, college debt or even housing crisis. It is an opportunity crisis. The prospects for people who don't engage in these activities are generally worse. People >40 don't generally understand this because they are already established, so forgoing these things doesn't have much of an impact on them.

nabla9 7y ago

Finland has mandatory military service for males so the Finnish army gets sample of approximately 25,000 people in year and they are tested in all sorts of ways. It's a good way to get an idea what is happening. It confirms what you suspect. Clear and statistically significant trends among young males: * Younger generations have significantly better communication skills and ability to express themselves. * More mental problems are reported and they cause more releases, but they are not necessarily increasing. Doctors are better trained to specially seek mental problems and take them more seriously. Other studies support this theory. * On average young men are 7 kg heavier than in the 90's. Aerobic fitness is in rapid decline. Muscle strength has declined but only a little. * IQ peaked in 1997 and has been decline but decline seems to plateau. Negative Flynn effect has ben observed in other countries as well (Norway, Denmark,Australia, Britain, Sweden and the Netherlands).

dTal 7y ago

> ...today's teenagers: get in less car accidents, have less risky sex, have a lower rate of teenage pregnancy, ingest less risky substances, are generally less violent - and presents this all as bad because it is different than what came before. Is it bad? It might well be, depending on the reason. We'd also probably see those effects if there was mass depression. Or if we simply locked up all teens at all times. What other "teen stuff" aren't they doing? Socializing (in person)? Exercising?

learnstats2 7y ago
There is a known strong relationship between risky behaviour and depression - a positive one. If people were more depressed, we would normally expect to see MORE of these risk-taking behaviours, not less.

newsgremlin 7y ago

My crucial concern is whether the newer generations are expressing themselves in meaningful ways. Social media is ok for talking about ones emotions and sharing experiences through it. But what about expression through music, art, literature? Are they being hampered by consuming media instead of creating or are we just unaware of the vast creative talents that go unnoticed? Given uncertain economic times I'd expect authority figures are still pushing them to follow paths for lucrative careers.

crakhamster01 7y ago
If anything, social media has enabled newer generations to express themselves in "meaningful" ways more than ever. It may not be as a full-time profession, but plenty of people create for hobby. See: the hundreds of thousands of IG/Youtube accounts for musicians, designers, artists, and amateur poets.
- newsgremlin 7y ago
  Ofcourse we see so many creative people on IG/Youtube I subscribe to those who make meaningful content that inspires me, but there are many more who consume that content, but not create their own, and that's the trap I think a lot of people fall in. That's where people realise they don't actually have any real hobbies. And that's another thing, we shouldn't need social media to feel validated or to compare, people should feel accomplishment in solace of their hobby. Sometimes the expectations of having a huge following online can even have a negative effect on the mental health of online artists. I see many talk about their own struggles and the pressures of being creative (especially the ones who start to make a living off it).

naasking 7y ago

> This article/researcher makes claims that: a) there is a mental health crisis among teenagers which is not parallel to other comparable generations, and b) that crisis is linked to mobile phones. I'm not convinced by either claim. You probably should be, because there are objective markers that don't depend on communication: https://twitter.com/JonHaidt/status/1083015453151318016 https://twitter.com/JonHaidt/status/1083015453151318016 > The article identifies that today's teenagers: get in less car accidents, have less risky sex, have a lower rate of teenage pregnancy, ingest less risky substances, are generally less violent - and presents this all as bad because it is different than what came before. If teens are avoiding risk-seeking behaviour due to an increase in underlying anxieties, then yes, it quite literally is a problem and not just because it's different. Maybe you should give the psychologist who wrote the article the benefit of the doubt.

watwut 7y ago
> less car accidents, have less risky sex, have a lower rate of teenage pregnancy, ingest less risky substances, are generally less violent These are positive changes. All of them. These were literally something bad about older generation. All these things have negative consequences on not just risk accepting person, but also to other people around. If you are more anxious but less violent, then it is a good trade off.
- naasking 7y ago
  Merely repeating something does not make it fact. It's shortsighted to evaluate good and bad purely by outcome. Plenty of psychological and physiological pathologies drive reduced violence, less risk taking, etc. For instance, are you going to suggest people should become more psychopathic because it's correlated with success? Are you going to suggest all men take testosterone suppressants because that would reduce violence, risk taking and teenage pregnancy? If the outcome is all that matters, then why not right?
  - watwut 7y ago
    I would strongly prefer anxious person in the same room over violent one. It is that simple. If what you need is testosterone suppressant to not hit me, yes I strongly prefer you taking it over me being beaten or me doing things I did not wanted to for fear of your aggression. It is better for you too, assuming cops and courts will do the thing they are supposed to - putting you in prison. Fortunately, men generally don't need testosterone suppressant to not be violent. Adult men violence is choice and occasionally mental problem. Teen pregnancy rates are again result largely of sexual education, girls better able to resist pressure to have unprotected sex and boys better knowing it causes problems to them too. There is literally nothing to gain by not using a condom in that situation. All of these are kids making better choices. That absolutely should count for something.

zeropnc 7y ago

> Teenagers face far greater economic insecurity than before, and are more acutely aware of it. What will the workforce look like when they graduate highschool? Jobs that teenagers would have been invited to do are being replaced with automated checkouts and computer vision algorithms. Teenagers are required to go into more debt than ever, to escape this lack of opportunities via education. Sometimes it blows my mind that even in "educated circles" of the west there's such a blatant lack of perspective on the rest of the world. We still live in a world where 3 million people a year die of diarrhea - and you think economic insecurity is the reason Western kids are depressed? No, this is not why teenagers are depressed. If that were even remotely true every teenager on Earth not from a G8 or Scandanavian country would be jumping off a ledge by the time they're 14.

watwut 7y ago
People in area where their friends die of diarrhea are depressive too. They get sad, they suicide, they have traumas and mental problems. They self medicate with alcohol, drugs, excessive risk and what not to make pain go away. That does not make it impossible for rich countries people to be depressed due to economy going down relatively.

merpnderp 7y ago

I’d say that since teen suicides are significantly up, yes they are sadder today. And by far the biggest change in young people’s lives today versus previous generations is being constantly connected to the Internet via their phones, more specifically social media.

boomboomsubban 7y ago
The suicide rate is a horrible judge of sadness among a generation. The rate is never very stable, and the "three times increase" described for girls is going from 2/100000 to 6/100000. And constant internet access could also cause a change in methods, accounting for some amount of that rise.
tapland 7y ago
Suicide rates among young people are down about 1/3 in Sweden since the 90s. If they are up in the US it might be another cultural issue.

g00s3_caLL_x2 7y ago

One curiosity on your comment I noticed: You claim 'working with teenagers over the last couple of decades' while making the delineation of 'her generation of 47-year olds'. Even if you began working with teens at 20, 'decades' would put you in your 40's as well? If that is the case, why try and separate your self from the same demographic?

learnstats2 7y ago
Well... I'm just gonna have to quote the article: "In earlier eras, kids worked in great numbers, eager to finance their freedom or prodded by their parents to learn the value of a dollar."
- g00s3_caLL_x2 7y ago
  I'm sorry but I don't follow. That is no way answers my question.

apatters 7y ago

> get in less car accidents They're driving less in the first place: https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/05/teen-car-culture/561290/ https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/05/teen-car-... > have less risky sex, have a lower rate of teenage pregnancy They (along with 20-somethings) also have less sex period: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/12/the-sex-recession/573949/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/12/the-sex... > ingest less risky substances, are generally less violent Drug use and getting into fights typically happen in social settings. Teens are socializing in person less often: https://qz.com/1320344/americans-are-socializing-less-and-playing-more-games/ https://qz.com/1320344/americans-are-socializing-less-and-pl... It makes you wonder, what the heck _are_ they doing with their time? Well, playing video games, using their phones, and feeling lonely: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/10/01/loneliness-felt-intensely-young-people-study-finds-turning-facebook/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/10/01/loneliness-felt-... As well as reporting more depression and anxiety, and committing suicide in record numbers: http://theconversation.com/the-mental-health-crisis-among-americas-youth-is-real-and-staggering-113239 http://theconversation.com/the-mental-health-crisis-among-am... Is it as simple as "phone bad, sunshine good?" No probably not, but there are studies out there linking social media to depression, and many studies linking loneliness to poor mental health.

SignalsFromBob 7y ago

> The author expresses great surprise that people sleep with their phones beside their bed - whereas, it is a great surprise to me that she doesn't. It has an extremely useful function as an alarm clock. You misread the article. Not beside their bed, but in the bed with them.

VvR-Ox 7y ago

Very interesting. When I was working with young people I noticed something completely different (in europe). They tend to be better at communication with technologies but a lot worse in real face-to-face communication. They stand some meters apart and rather text each other than standing up in front of a group of other people to just talk to the other person. I also see greater economic insecurities but I don't understand how this is connected to less or later gains in self-sufficiency. Shouldn't it be reversed? In my time it was so important to get some extra bucks to spend on more/better clubs, booze and gas that we did nearly every shitty job to earn some. What I think the article got right is the risks involved with this tendency towards less risk taking. Many activities we took part in our youth forced us to deal with unknown situations and people and we learned to cope with things. We spent hours at the riverside, in the forests etc. getting wasted, building stuff and doing nasty things that teenagers do - I think it was for the better of our development and a friend of mine who works with young people professionally supports this hypothesis. When there are no insecurities and problems to tackle you don't learn to stand on your own feet. Learning to cope with stressful and strange situations and people at least helped me to find ways out of trouble instead of ending my life or get killed. When we were bullied at school we met the bullies at the yard and beat the sh*t out of them instead of being overwhelmed by pseudo-anonymous groups of people on the net. I think that was easier as a mechanism of coping and at least you could do something about it. I wouldn't underestimate the psychological stress they have to deal with nowadays and I think I also wouldn't want to switch positions. I'm happy I grew up before this digital revolution just early enough to know the differences.