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> Sheltered young people never learn to cope with challenges they may face You can't 'cope' with chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

Ancalagon 4y ago
Yeah I don't understand this post. There's large amounts of evidence that contact sports, especially football, even in middle school & high school can cause long lasting brain damage. I'm all for team sports and free-range kids but not at the expense of my kid's neurological function. Let them choose literally any other sport.
- poulsbohemian 4y ago
  I hesitated to mention football in my original post, because I know it is controversial here on HN. I'm not ignorant to the risks. The key things that I think are relevant to this discussion on teens are: -- Playing sports or other group participative activities is so good for them on every level. As the article points out, declining participation is a concern. -- Every activity has risk. Helping kids learn to assess that risk and not be afraid of the world is important in their emotional and mental growth, IE: learning to overcome fears and take calculated risks.
honkycat 4y ago
Lol I picked this out as well. Classic "well city folk just don't get it. Here in the country..." People from the country have this bizarre narcissistic need to prove the superiority of the town vs the city, and nothing you tell them about the city can be positive. This for example! City people hate football?? News to me! Better tell the Bears and the Giants to pack it in, the liberal city slickers aren't interested. And I spent the first 20 years of my life in a town of less than 2k people, 5 hours away from the nearest large city, so I say this from experience.
- the_only_law 4y ago
  This is just the level of quality to expect from arguments here now.
- poulsbohemian 4y ago
  I initiated that conversation because I notice that there are differences between kids raised in urban vs rural areas. I did not intend to insinuate that there is a "better" or "worse" so much as that if we are going to have a discussion on teen mental health, we should do so with an eye toward environmental conditions that create significant differences in outcomes.
torstenvl 4y ago
Mild cases of CTE (like those found in high school football players), if and when they are symptomatic, typically cause symptoms like... anxiety and depression. Which is worse: a risk of anxiety and depression among ~20% of the subset of young people who choose to play football, or fully realized anxiety and depression among ~44% of all young people? Safetyism is a cure that is literally worse than the disease.
- honkycat 4y ago
  So you are arguing that if football doesn't exist, 44% of all young people will be depressed? And that is why safetyism is bad? To be clear: they are talking about american football, not world football.
  - torstenvl 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. It's literally in the first paragraph of the OP. It is a fact that anxiety and depression are increasing, not decreasing, as adults become more overprotective about things like letting kids play football.
    - blep_ 4y ago
      It is a fact that anxiety and depression are increasing, not decreasing, as the number of emoji in Unicode increases. Clearly we should ban emoji.

Ancalagon 4y ago

Yeah I don't understand this post. There's large amounts of evidence that contact sports, especially football, even in middle school & high school can cause long lasting brain damage. I'm all for team sports and free-range kids but not at the expense of my kid's neurological function. Let them choose literally any other sport.

poulsbohemian 4y ago
I hesitated to mention football in my original post, because I know it is controversial here on HN. I'm not ignorant to the risks. The key things that I think are relevant to this discussion on teens are: -- Playing sports or other group participative activities is so good for them on every level. As the article points out, declining participation is a concern. -- Every activity has risk. Helping kids learn to assess that risk and not be afraid of the world is important in their emotional and mental growth, IE: learning to overcome fears and take calculated risks.

honkycat 4y ago

Lol I picked this out as well. Classic "well city folk just don't get it. Here in the country..." People from the country have this bizarre narcissistic need to prove the superiority of the town vs the city, and nothing you tell them about the city can be positive. This for example! City people hate football?? News to me! Better tell the Bears and the Giants to pack it in, the liberal city slickers aren't interested. And I spent the first 20 years of my life in a town of less than 2k people, 5 hours away from the nearest large city, so I say this from experience.

the_only_law 4y ago
This is just the level of quality to expect from arguments here now.
poulsbohemian 4y ago
I initiated that conversation because I notice that there are differences between kids raised in urban vs rural areas. I did not intend to insinuate that there is a "better" or "worse" so much as that if we are going to have a discussion on teen mental health, we should do so with an eye toward environmental conditions that create significant differences in outcomes.

torstenvl 4y ago

Mild cases of CTE (like those found in high school football players), if and when they are symptomatic, typically cause symptoms like... anxiety and depression. Which is worse: a risk of anxiety and depression among ~20% of the subset of young people who choose to play football, or fully realized anxiety and depression among ~44% of all young people? Safetyism is a cure that is literally worse than the disease.

honkycat 4y ago
So you are arguing that if football doesn't exist, 44% of all young people will be depressed? And that is why safetyism is bad? To be clear: they are talking about american football, not world football.
- torstenvl 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. It's literally in the first paragraph of the OP. It is a fact that anxiety and depression are increasing, not decreasing, as adults become more overprotective about things like letting kids play football.
  - blep_ 4y ago
    It is a fact that anxiety and depression are increasing, not decreasing, as the number of emoji in Unicode increases. Clearly we should ban emoji.