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> the state of society is horrible and teens care about the world they'll be living in. I grew up with (the after effects of) an oil crisis, an economic crisis

by tgv 4y ago

> the state of society is horrible and teens care about the world they'll be living in. I grew up with (the after effects of) an oil crisis, an economic crisis and a cold war. If you needed more doom, you could read the The Limits to Growth by the Club of Rome. We were called "the lost generation" because of the high unemployment rate. And I'd argue there have been situations which were considerably worse to grow up in. I've heard first-hand stories about growing up in the final days of the Soviet Union, which were tough to even listen to. So no, that's not a change that can account for the effect.

BoxOfRain 4y ago
I was on a course last year and one of my fellow pupils was a Russian man who'd moved to the UK a decade or so prior. When we were in the pub after one of the day's sessions he told me something that's stuck with me since: > People in the UK vote like their lives couldn't get any worse, but as someone who lived through the fall of the Soviet Union and Russia in the 1990s things can get so much worse than you realise.
whstl 4y ago
Half of my friends were born inside a city walled by a Warsaw-Pact state. I myself was born in a military dictatorship and we knew some houses were locked because the people there "disappeared" a few years before. The more I think about it, the more it feels like the 90s were an anomaly in history.
arp242 4y ago
I remember a (Dutch) programme about teens in the 80s; the motto among the youth was "no future". Programme in question (in Dutch only): https://anderetijden.nl/aflevering/286/No-Future https://anderetijden.nl/aflevering/286/No-Future TraumaZone ("What It Felt Like to Live Through The Collapse of Communism and Democracy") is a pretty good film about the final days of the USSR and 90s Russia by the way.
makeitdouble 4y ago
Didn't these dark period also come with a pretty significant amount of diagnozed or not mental health issues, teen bullying and suicide, and overall deep impact on people ? I also have elder relatives who lived a decent part of their life in a third world country during the cold war and their stories are sprinkled with people dying early. I think that yes, the current generation probably doesn't have it the absolute worse (depending on where they live), but it's also not a contest. Which generation had it worse doesn't really matter much IMHO.
- AbrahamParangi 4y ago
  Well, if this generation has it better in absolute terms but feels worse we should look for reasons not related to the actual state of the world, no?
  - makeitdouble 4y ago
    I hear you, but trying to evaluate if a generation feels worse while having it better in absolute terms feels like a pretty hard challenge. For instance the article focuses on teen suicide rate raising with the uptake of modern smartphones, but of course there’s other peaks in the past, especially for males between 1980 and 1995 for instance. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6630a6.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6630a6.htm Did these specific boys have it worse at that time ? I genuinely have no idea how we’d evaluate that, I wouldn’t be checking how much money they had to judge that, and it would be probably tough to compare to girls today.
- tgv 4y ago
  It's not a contest, but it does mean that it shouldn't be seen as a dominant factor in the explanation of today's teens' mental health.

by tgv 4y ago

BoxOfRain 4y ago

I was on a course last year and one of my fellow pupils was a Russian man who'd moved to the UK a decade or so prior. When we were in the pub after one of the day's sessions he told me something that's stuck with me since: > People in the UK vote like their lives couldn't get any worse, but as someone who lived through the fall of the Soviet Union and Russia in the 1990s things can get so much worse than you realise.

whstl 4y ago

Half of my friends were born inside a city walled by a Warsaw-Pact state. I myself was born in a military dictatorship and we knew some houses were locked because the people there "disappeared" a few years before. The more I think about it, the more it feels like the 90s were an anomaly in history.

arp242 4y ago

I remember a (Dutch) programme about teens in the 80s; the motto among the youth was "no future". Programme in question (in Dutch only): https://anderetijden.nl/aflevering/286/No-Future https://anderetijden.nl/aflevering/286/No-Future TraumaZone ("What It Felt Like to Live Through The Collapse of Communism and Democracy") is a pretty good film about the final days of the USSR and 90s Russia by the way.

makeitdouble 4y ago

Didn't these dark period also come with a pretty significant amount of diagnozed or not mental health issues, teen bullying and suicide, and overall deep impact on people ? I also have elder relatives who lived a decent part of their life in a third world country during the cold war and their stories are sprinkled with people dying early. I think that yes, the current generation probably doesn't have it the absolute worse (depending on where they live), but it's also not a contest. Which generation had it worse doesn't really matter much IMHO.

AbrahamParangi 4y ago
Well, if this generation has it better in absolute terms but feels worse we should look for reasons not related to the actual state of the world, no?
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  I hear you, but trying to evaluate if a generation feels worse while having it better in absolute terms feels like a pretty hard challenge. For instance the article focuses on teen suicide rate raising with the uptake of modern smartphones, but of course there’s other peaks in the past, especially for males between 1980 and 1995 for instance. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6630a6.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6630a6.htm Did these specific boys have it worse at that time ? I genuinely have no idea how we’d evaluate that, I wouldn’t be checking how much money they had to judge that, and it would be probably tough to compare to girls today.
tgv 4y ago
It's not a contest, but it does mean that it shouldn't be seen as a dominant factor in the explanation of today's teens' mental health.