6 ms·

Why are American teenagers so sad and anxious?

20 points by laurex 4y ago

lioeters 4y ago
> From 2009 to 2021, the share of American high-school students who say they feel “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness” rose from 26 percent to 44 percent, according to a new CDC study. This is the highest level of teenage sadness ever recorded. The article (and the interviewee) seems to blame social media, but maybe, just maybe, the teenagers are reacting naturally to American society becoming truly sad and hopeless in the past decades. I mean, look at what a mess the adults have made of this blessed world.
- jollyllama 4y ago
  Agreed. I would add that the adolescent experience has become so much less carefree since then. Academic competition is more intense, which means that you're staring down a much more competitive economic future as well. Schools have become less free and more regimented. This has all happened during my lifetime.
- Amezarak 4y ago
  Past teenagers had to deal with things like the threat of imminent nuclear war. Or the World Wars. Or the threat of being drafted into Vietnam after graduation. There’s much deeper social ills than “the world sucks now.” In purely material comfort terms, they’ve got it better than ever. It’s the social environment that’s deteriorated - and social media is part of that picture.
  - watwut 4y ago
    Neither of those happened in 2009. And world war situation went with higher suicides and mental health issues and such, especially as things got bad. Terrible things happened in the past, but people in the past were not happy about them. They worried, they were depressed, they abused alcohol to feel better, they got violent toward weaker people to blow the steam.
    - Amezarak 4y ago
      I’m not arguing that people in the past didn’t get depressed. They certainly did. But the rate of depressions and anxiety vs the material comfort level is exceptional. Suicide rates are the highest they’ve been since WWII and the Great Depression in the US and that’s with nearly a fifth of the population on psychiatric drugs.
      - watwut 4y ago
        Suicides were lowest in 2000 and quite similar in 1950 and 2019. Age adjusted suicide levels are pretty similar now with 1986. Suicide levels during great depression were much higher then now. I just don't see your claim in those data. They go up last 20 years, from the point when they were lowest.
  - yunwal 4y ago
    > In purely material comfort terms, they’ve got it better than ever. This is news to young adults, because as far as we can tell, we won't ever be able to afford a home, and those of us who got conned into college will spend a lifetime of indentured servitude paying off student debt.
    - Amezarak 4y ago
      Young adults used to be literal indentured servants, and largely did not experience depression and anxiety as a result even if they hoped for better times.
      - yunwal 4y ago
        Do you, umm, have data backing up that indentured servants don't experience higher rates of anxiety? Seems unlikely
        tcmart14 4y ago
        The data probably doesnt exist because no one was studying people under indentured servitude. The best you get is the slave owners or holder of the servitude contract going "its great, they love it! Look at my paternalism! Hey slave! Get back to work before I tear skin off bone with a lash!"
        Amezarak 4y ago
        Indentured servants were largely literate. [NB: Even under slavery, American slaveowners frequently completely disregarded late-stage laws passed against slave literacy in a bout of political hysteria because not only were slaves commonly traditionally taught to read and write, slaves were much more useful if they could read and write. So you can find firsthand accounts from slaves throughout American history as well.] You can read what they thought for yourself. I have been long thinking about how to address comments in this general style. You can see how they happen - we all agree indentured servitude and certainly slavery are fundamental moral wrongs, so grand historical narratives get crafted where each individual as part of the collective suffers all the worst wrongs of the institutional system, rather than accurately representing the average life. "Read more primary sources" is obviously not a feasible solution for a general audience. But briefly, I would say that people can suffer, be unhappy, and feel and be terribly wronged without anxiety and depression, which become more common when basic social needs aren't met. It isn't surprising that anxiety and depression are on the rise when fewer and fewer people live consistently in the same household with the same people embedded in the same community with strong real-world social networks. People can thrive in crushing poverty of the likes the average American has never imagined when those conditions are met. If you aren't satisfied by that, take this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r... and compare it with: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi... In terms of material comforts and opportunities, it seems doubtful that the average American is worse off than the average Congolese, but the American is more likely to kill himself. Some of these countries with lower suicide rates have de facto slavery. And again...a fifth of Americans are also on psychiatric medications that a lot of people can't afford and we're still killing ourselves at this rate.
  - imtringued 4y ago
    Capitalism hates prosperity and abundance, if there is no growth it would rather destroy everything and start growing from a lower base. The crises of capitalism usually begin when everything is going too well, as if it was bad karma to have a properly functioning economy. Every time you hear people complain about too much debt, they are actually complaining that people are saving too much money.
  - mycall 4y ago
    > Past teenagers had to deal with things like the threat of imminent nuclear war That's back on the timeline again.
- tayo42 4y ago
  Social media puts all that stuff right in front of you constantly. Is the world really worse? Or do we just have to hear about how bad it is all the time? Even like this headline, more bad news?
lostgame 4y ago
Their parents didn’t have to worry about getting shot in their classrooms, for one…
bern4444 4y ago
Nearly everything about the forward looking future feels worse off. Health, education, and rent costs seem to never find a ceiling let alone a reason to go down. Home ownership appears unattainable. The climate crisis plagues the world as we are still recovering from an actual plague. Democracy took a hard right turn and while there's been a little progress lately, protections and freedoms once thought inalienable have disappeared. The ability to do as well as previous generations has evaporated. Gun violence and shootings have become expected. In the face of all this - its more of a surprise kids are able to have a positive vision of the future at all.
- whateveracct 4y ago
  Teens said this exact same thing over a decade ago when I was in high school as a millennial. Line-by-line actually. It's all a bit overdramatic. I didn't do anything special and I ended up okay and happy. My wife and I both went to in-state schools in a red state. Had in the 10s of thousands of debt between us but that wasn't undue burden by any means (It was worth the investment actually!) Not saying everything is amazing but it reads to me like excuses. For instance, "I'm in debt with a degree that I can't get a job for." Who cares? Most people get their next job due to their last few, not their original degree. You wouldn't be the first person to pivot your career. But it's easier to have an excuse.
  - watwut 4y ago
    Those issues objectively got worst, actually? Climate issues are more acute then decade ago and college debt problem is larger. Also, the biggest college debt issue is among people who did not managed to finish their degrees. It is simply not true that they can just pivot career and all will be cool. Even among people who did finished, pivot toward something well paid is not easy or feasible. I had it easy, you had it easy. I graduated into pretty good economy and was not actually stressed about my ability to prosper. That does not mean it was so for everyone ever since.
    - whateveracct 4y ago
      > Those issues objectively got worst, actually? Climate issues are more acute then decade ago and college debt problem is larger. Climate issues are worse because time passed without large action. But I'd say public opinion is even stronger in favor of fixing it. And the US just passed a giant bill about it. On social issues, yes Roe was just overturned, but the endgame of that is still in flux. Marijuana legalization is becoming near commonplace. Gay marriage was on the fringe when I was in high school. I was out of college by the time it was fully legalized. Of course, that is now under threat. But just because it's under threat doesn't mean the future is borked. Teens catastrophize - always have. > Also, the biggest college debt issue is among people who did not managed to finish their degrees. If people don't have useful degrees anyways, isn't it best to not waste the extra money to finish? Also, people use this college debt in-the-large as an excuse in-the-small. Most people made boneheaded financial decisions as teenagers and then continued them as adults (which they are from their first year onward). I wasn't dumb enough to fork out 100s of thousands to go to the prestigious private school I got into. My in-state school was clearly superior on paper. All it took was for me to not be status-seeking. I don't even think I had it especially easy. I switched my major a few times in college - I could've been a chemical engineer, which I don't think I'd enjoy (personally or professionally) as much as where I ended up in computing. My wife switched from a non-lucrative degree to computing because she thought about what her life would be like in 5 years either way.
xchip 4y ago
To be anxious has always been part of being a teenager. School, friendships, relationships, reputation, responsibilities, power, expectations.... It's normal to be worried/anxious! We should filter this sort of posts, along with the "things very smart people do".
- yunwal 4y ago
  > From 2009 to 2021, the share of American high-school students who say they feel “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness” rose from 26 percent to 44 percent, according to a new CDC study This quote seems to suggest that being anxious has not always been part of being a teenager. What evidence do you have otherwise?
- plonk 4y ago
  > School, friendships, relationships, reputation, responsibilities, power, expectations.... It's normal to be worried/anxious! You say that like today's teens live in some dull high school drama. There's a loneliness epidemic, the environment is getting destroyed, money gets more concentrated each year, and house prices will be out of reach of most of today's teens for at least several decades, or possibly their whole lives. If you think all that is "the normal stress of being a teen", you're burying your head in the sand. Calling declining mental health "normal" and attributing it to "growing up" is a patronising perspective that implies teens are too dumb to be impacted by actual political and environmental problems, or alternatively, that these problems don't exist. I think we could do with less of that and more young influence in politics.
bergenty 4y ago
Because the only realistic course of correction left to American parents is to hurt their feelings by “reasoning” with them. I believe physical correction is so much simpler and long term effects free if done correctly.
notacoward 4y ago
> kids need millions of experiences of conflict, getting lost, struggling with something, failing in a low-stakes environment Does Jonathan Haidt (who is very close to my own age BTW) not get that most of these things can happen with video games too? There might be a lot of other benefits to being outdoors, and drawbacks to video games, but in terms of these specific things that are core to his thesis, the contrast is nowhere near as great as he makes it out to be.
- mountainriver 4y ago
  He talked about the video games on a recent podcast with Lex Friedman, I guess they don’t have the same detrimental effect as social media because they aren’t likes based
bmitc 4y ago
Social media, the environment, education, the realization that adults have no idea what they're doing, everything being increasingly expensive, lack of social cohesion, political instability and extremism. I'd almost be worried if teenagers weren't sad and anxious. (I'm not saying it's good, but rather a normal response to just how shit it is out there.)
- plonk 4y ago
  > the realization that adults have no idea what they're doing I think that's the worst one. You grow up having to obey the "grown-ups" and not being allowed to question anything they do, then progressively realise most of them are just idiots who are running your world into a wall.
whateveracct 4y ago
I highly recommend "The Coddling of the American Mind" on this topic.
- gsk22 4y ago
  How is that related? That book is about educational policy, not student mental health?
  - eftychis 4y ago
    Not the commenter, but related on the perception and the unique "features" applied to U.S. teenagers.
softsound 4y ago
I would say society doesn't paint a happy picture of the future. It's hard to find positive stories of things working out well where we win against climate change, and we stop shootings in school etc. I also feel it's very hard to have real connection in a lot of modern culture, with phones and internet and tech sometimes just talking to your neighbor seems strange. I think society itself doesn't really really feel that healthy so I can imagine a lot of teenagers with mood swings and anxiety/ depression and facing sad news feel like they don't have much to look forward to. Especially if they can't be as perfect as their peers can come across. It was way easier to not compare your life pre-internet. Also health is generally lower, and that will affect your mood too.
jdlyga 4y ago
Being indoors and isolated everyday can make you sad and anxious. I struggled with this when I was a teenager in the 90s, but it's so much more common nowadays.
abalashov 4y ago
Some will find this view tendentious, but as an immigrant (been here since age 6) having had a lifetime to ponder why life in America in general is so depressing and anxious, I lay a lot of the blame at the foot of the automobile-sprawl built environment that predominates in much of the US. I really do. To be sure, it's braided with other trends in the breakdown of societal institutions, civic engagement, etc. in ways where cause and effect can be difficult to disentangle. I was fortunate to spend my elementary school years in one of the small number of places in the US that isn't just shopping strips, stroads and subdivisions--though I was intellectually aware that a lot of the country was precisely and more or less exclusively those things. But then, around the beginning of high school, we moved to a place that much more resembles how much of Middle America lives. The mental-emotional health contrast was very stark. The car sprawl affects teenagers especially strongly, since they are dependent either on access to an automobile (or a willing chauffeur) for absolutely everything. The lack of anything describable as a public realm in most of the US, the overpowering but unarticulated sense of not really having anywhere to 'go', a world largely without consequential destinations, interesting architecture, intimations of human activity, a social space in which to comprehend seeing and being seen, and healthy spontaneous interactions seems to me to lie at the root of a lot of other pathologies. That's the single biggest societal ill that stands out to me, based on my life experience, at least.
- musicale 4y ago
  > subdivisions I think a Canadian rock band once wrote a song about that.
- plonk 4y ago
  > the overpowering but unarticulated sense of not really having anywhere to 'go' I live in a place like this and it's awful. All you can reach by foot is kilometers of insanely polluted 4-lane roads and and shopping malls. If you don't know someone with a large flat, nowhere is welcoming besides your own studio. How anybody can last here for more than a couple years is beyond me.
  - abalashov 4y ago
8bitsrule 4y ago
IMO it's not about the net, that's a deliberate distraction, teens are smarter than that media BS ... They're looking at: college debt vs. likely incomes, cost of housing, burgeoning political madness, and most of all Greta Thunberg. If I was a teen ... my future'd look bleak.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

20 points by laurex 4y ago

> From 2009 to 2021, the share of American high-school students who say they feel “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness” rose from 26 percent to 44 percent, according to a new CDC study. This is the highest level of teenage sadness ever recorded. The article (and the interviewee) seems to blame social media, but maybe, just maybe, the teenagers are reacting naturally to American society becoming truly sad and hopeless in the past decades. I mean, look at what a mess the adults have made of this blessed world.

jollyllama 4y ago
Agreed. I would add that the adolescent experience has become so much less carefree since then. Academic competition is more intense, which means that you're staring down a much more competitive economic future as well. Schools have become less free and more regimented. This has all happened during my lifetime.
Amezarak 4y ago
Past teenagers had to deal with things like the threat of imminent nuclear war. Or the World Wars. Or the threat of being drafted into Vietnam after graduation. There’s much deeper social ills than “the world sucks now.” In purely material comfort terms, they’ve got it better than ever. It’s the social environment that’s deteriorated - and social media is part of that picture.
- watwut 4y ago
  Neither of those happened in 2009. And world war situation went with higher suicides and mental health issues and such, especially as things got bad. Terrible things happened in the past, but people in the past were not happy about them. They worried, they were depressed, they abused alcohol to feel better, they got violent toward weaker people to blow the steam.
  - Amezarak 4y ago
    I’m not arguing that people in the past didn’t get depressed. They certainly did. But the rate of depressions and anxiety vs the material comfort level is exceptional. Suicide rates are the highest they’ve been since WWII and the Great Depression in the US and that’s with nearly a fifth of the population on psychiatric drugs.
    - watwut 4y ago
      Suicides were lowest in 2000 and quite similar in 1950 and 2019. Age adjusted suicide levels are pretty similar now with 1986. Suicide levels during great depression were much higher then now. I just don't see your claim in those data. They go up last 20 years, from the point when they were lowest.
- yunwal 4y ago
  > In purely material comfort terms, they’ve got it better than ever. This is news to young adults, because as far as we can tell, we won't ever be able to afford a home, and those of us who got conned into college will spend a lifetime of indentured servitude paying off student debt.
  - Amezarak 4y ago
    Young adults used to be literal indentured servants, and largely did not experience depression and anxiety as a result even if they hoped for better times.
    - yunwal 4y ago
      Do you, umm, have data backing up that indentured servants don't experience higher rates of anxiety? Seems unlikely
      - tcmart14 4y ago
        The data probably doesnt exist because no one was studying people under indentured servitude. The best you get is the slave owners or holder of the servitude contract going "its great, they love it! Look at my paternalism! Hey slave! Get back to work before I tear skin off bone with a lash!"
        Amezarak 4y ago
        Indentured servants were largely literate. [NB: Even under slavery, American slaveowners frequently completely disregarded late-stage laws passed against slave literacy in a bout of political hysteria because not only were slaves commonly traditionally taught to read and write, slaves were much more useful if they could read and write. So you can find firsthand accounts from slaves throughout American history as well.] You can read what they thought for yourself. I have been long thinking about how to address comments in this general style. You can see how they happen - we all agree indentured servitude and certainly slavery are fundamental moral wrongs, so grand historical narratives get crafted where each individual as part of the collective suffers all the worst wrongs of the institutional system, rather than accurately representing the average life. "Read more primary sources" is obviously not a feasible solution for a general audience. But briefly, I would say that people can suffer, be unhappy, and feel and be terribly wronged without anxiety and depression, which become more common when basic social needs aren't met. It isn't surprising that anxiety and depression are on the rise when fewer and fewer people live consistently in the same household with the same people embedded in the same community with strong real-world social networks. People can thrive in crushing poverty of the likes the average American has never imagined when those conditions are met. If you aren't satisfied by that, take this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r... and compare it with: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi... In terms of material comforts and opportunities, it seems doubtful that the average American is worse off than the average Congolese, but the American is more likely to kill himself. Some of these countries with lower suicide rates have de facto slavery. And again...a fifth of Americans are also on psychiatric medications that a lot of people can't afford and we're still killing ourselves at this rate.
- imtringued 4y ago
  Capitalism hates prosperity and abundance, if there is no growth it would rather destroy everything and start growing from a lower base. The crises of capitalism usually begin when everything is going too well, as if it was bad karma to have a properly functioning economy. Every time you hear people complain about too much debt, they are actually complaining that people are saving too much money.
- mycall 4y ago
  > Past teenagers had to deal with things like the threat of imminent nuclear war That's back on the timeline again.
tayo42 4y ago
Social media puts all that stuff right in front of you constantly. Is the world really worse? Or do we just have to hear about how bad it is all the time? Even like this headline, more bad news?

lostgame 4y ago

Their parents didn’t have to worry about getting shot in their classrooms, for one…

bern4444 4y ago

Nearly everything about the forward looking future feels worse off. Health, education, and rent costs seem to never find a ceiling let alone a reason to go down. Home ownership appears unattainable. The climate crisis plagues the world as we are still recovering from an actual plague. Democracy took a hard right turn and while there's been a little progress lately, protections and freedoms once thought inalienable have disappeared. The ability to do as well as previous generations has evaporated. Gun violence and shootings have become expected. In the face of all this - its more of a surprise kids are able to have a positive vision of the future at all.

whateveracct 4y ago
Teens said this exact same thing over a decade ago when I was in high school as a millennial. Line-by-line actually. It's all a bit overdramatic. I didn't do anything special and I ended up okay and happy. My wife and I both went to in-state schools in a red state. Had in the 10s of thousands of debt between us but that wasn't undue burden by any means (It was worth the investment actually!) Not saying everything is amazing but it reads to me like excuses. For instance, "I'm in debt with a degree that I can't get a job for." Who cares? Most people get their next job due to their last few, not their original degree. You wouldn't be the first person to pivot your career. But it's easier to have an excuse.
- watwut 4y ago
  Those issues objectively got worst, actually? Climate issues are more acute then decade ago and college debt problem is larger. Also, the biggest college debt issue is among people who did not managed to finish their degrees. It is simply not true that they can just pivot career and all will be cool. Even among people who did finished, pivot toward something well paid is not easy or feasible. I had it easy, you had it easy. I graduated into pretty good economy and was not actually stressed about my ability to prosper. That does not mean it was so for everyone ever since.
  - whateveracct 4y ago
    > Those issues objectively got worst, actually? Climate issues are more acute then decade ago and college debt problem is larger. Climate issues are worse because time passed without large action. But I'd say public opinion is even stronger in favor of fixing it. And the US just passed a giant bill about it. On social issues, yes Roe was just overturned, but the endgame of that is still in flux. Marijuana legalization is becoming near commonplace. Gay marriage was on the fringe when I was in high school. I was out of college by the time it was fully legalized. Of course, that is now under threat. But just because it's under threat doesn't mean the future is borked. Teens catastrophize - always have. > Also, the biggest college debt issue is among people who did not managed to finish their degrees. If people don't have useful degrees anyways, isn't it best to not waste the extra money to finish? Also, people use this college debt in-the-large as an excuse in-the-small. Most people made boneheaded financial decisions as teenagers and then continued them as adults (which they are from their first year onward). I wasn't dumb enough to fork out 100s of thousands to go to the prestigious private school I got into. My in-state school was clearly superior on paper. All it took was for me to not be status-seeking. I don't even think I had it especially easy. I switched my major a few times in college - I could've been a chemical engineer, which I don't think I'd enjoy (personally or professionally) as much as where I ended up in computing. My wife switched from a non-lucrative degree to computing because she thought about what her life would be like in 5 years either way.

xchip 4y ago

To be anxious has always been part of being a teenager. School, friendships, relationships, reputation, responsibilities, power, expectations.... It's normal to be worried/anxious! We should filter this sort of posts, along with the "things very smart people do".

yunwal 4y ago
> From 2009 to 2021, the share of American high-school students who say they feel “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness” rose from 26 percent to 44 percent, according to a new CDC study This quote seems to suggest that being anxious has not always been part of being a teenager. What evidence do you have otherwise?
plonk 4y ago
> School, friendships, relationships, reputation, responsibilities, power, expectations.... It's normal to be worried/anxious! You say that like today's teens live in some dull high school drama. There's a loneliness epidemic, the environment is getting destroyed, money gets more concentrated each year, and house prices will be out of reach of most of today's teens for at least several decades, or possibly their whole lives. If you think all that is "the normal stress of being a teen", you're burying your head in the sand. Calling declining mental health "normal" and attributing it to "growing up" is a patronising perspective that implies teens are too dumb to be impacted by actual political and environmental problems, or alternatively, that these problems don't exist. I think we could do with less of that and more young influence in politics.

bergenty 4y ago

Because the only realistic course of correction left to American parents is to hurt their feelings by “reasoning” with them. I believe physical correction is so much simpler and long term effects free if done correctly.

notacoward 4y ago

> kids need millions of experiences of conflict, getting lost, struggling with something, failing in a low-stakes environment Does Jonathan Haidt (who is very close to my own age BTW) not get that most of these things can happen with video games too? There might be a lot of other benefits to being outdoors, and drawbacks to video games, but in terms of these specific things that are core to his thesis, the contrast is nowhere near as great as he makes it out to be.

mountainriver 4y ago
He talked about the video games on a recent podcast with Lex Friedman, I guess they don’t have the same detrimental effect as social media because they aren’t likes based

bmitc 4y ago

Social media, the environment, education, the realization that adults have no idea what they're doing, everything being increasingly expensive, lack of social cohesion, political instability and extremism. I'd almost be worried if teenagers weren't sad and anxious. (I'm not saying it's good, but rather a normal response to just how shit it is out there.)

plonk 4y ago
> the realization that adults have no idea what they're doing I think that's the worst one. You grow up having to obey the "grown-ups" and not being allowed to question anything they do, then progressively realise most of them are just idiots who are running your world into a wall.

whateveracct 4y ago

I highly recommend "The Coddling of the American Mind" on this topic.

gsk22 4y ago
How is that related? That book is about educational policy, not student mental health?
- eftychis 4y ago
  Not the commenter, but related on the perception and the unique "features" applied to U.S. teenagers.

softsound 4y ago

I would say society doesn't paint a happy picture of the future. It's hard to find positive stories of things working out well where we win against climate change, and we stop shootings in school etc. I also feel it's very hard to have real connection in a lot of modern culture, with phones and internet and tech sometimes just talking to your neighbor seems strange. I think society itself doesn't really really feel that healthy so I can imagine a lot of teenagers with mood swings and anxiety/ depression and facing sad news feel like they don't have much to look forward to. Especially if they can't be as perfect as their peers can come across. It was way easier to not compare your life pre-internet. Also health is generally lower, and that will affect your mood too.

jdlyga 4y ago

Being indoors and isolated everyday can make you sad and anxious. I struggled with this when I was a teenager in the 90s, but it's so much more common nowadays.

abalashov 4y ago

Some will find this view tendentious, but as an immigrant (been here since age 6) having had a lifetime to ponder why life in America in general is so depressing and anxious, I lay a lot of the blame at the foot of the automobile-sprawl built environment that predominates in much of the US. I really do. To be sure, it's braided with other trends in the breakdown of societal institutions, civic engagement, etc. in ways where cause and effect can be difficult to disentangle. I was fortunate to spend my elementary school years in one of the small number of places in the US that isn't just shopping strips, stroads and subdivisions--though I was intellectually aware that a lot of the country was precisely and more or less exclusively those things. But then, around the beginning of high school, we moved to a place that much more resembles how much of Middle America lives. The mental-emotional health contrast was very stark. The car sprawl affects teenagers especially strongly, since they are dependent either on access to an automobile (or a willing chauffeur) for absolutely everything. The lack of anything describable as a public realm in most of the US, the overpowering but unarticulated sense of not really having anywhere to 'go', a world largely without consequential destinations, interesting architecture, intimations of human activity, a social space in which to comprehend seeing and being seen, and healthy spontaneous interactions seems to me to lie at the root of a lot of other pathologies. That's the single biggest societal ill that stands out to me, based on my life experience, at least.

musicale 4y ago
> subdivisions I think a Canadian rock band once wrote a song about that.
plonk 4y ago
> the overpowering but unarticulated sense of not really having anywhere to 'go' I live in a place like this and it's awful. All you can reach by foot is kilometers of insanely polluted 4-lane roads and and shopping malls. If you don't know someone with a large flat, nowhere is welcoming besides your own studio. How anybody can last here for more than a couple years is beyond me.
- abalashov 4y ago

8bitsrule 4y ago

IMO it's not about the net, that's a deliberate distraction, teens are smarter than that media BS ... They're looking at: college debt vs. likely incomes, cost of housing, burgeoning political madness, and most of all Greta Thunberg. If I was a teen ... my future'd look bleak.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]