7 ms·

The kids are not okay

85 points by imgabe 4y ago

breezingfast 4y ago
[flagged]
- litiholofan 4y ago
  based
- emodendroket 4y ago
  An interesting thing about this post is that it's not obvious which political faction (either in Syria or in the US) this hectoring is even pointed at, let alone what relationship the two problems have.
warrenmiller 4y ago
Does anyone have any information about how this looks in other countries? Is this an American issue or worldwide?
- jeffrallen 4y ago
  Anecdotally, Switzerland's kids are doing ok, but I haven't checked the public health stats. One thing that helps is having a stable future ready for them to inherit. They can see the investments our generation is making for them (windmills, car chargers, trains), they have guaranteed education and apprenticeship to bring them into adulthood and independence, and they have a social safety net ready to catch them (I suspect they don't really understand the value of that though). My point is, it is easy to say "you've got a bright future" and get them to believe it when the entire society is actually organized around making it actually true.
- dragoncrab 4y ago
  The article claims this is a common problem in the developed countries, not just in the USA.
- bigbacaloa 4y ago
  It varies tremendously by country and within subpopulations.
- defrost 4y ago
  Suicide in Australia: 1907 - present https://www.aihw.gov.au/suicide-self-harm-monitoring/data/deaths-by-suicide-in-australia/suicide-deaths-over-time https://www.aihw.gov.au/suicide-self-harm-monitoring/data/de... Male rate consistantly ~ > 4x female rate (particularly so pre WWII) - save for WWII years. Youth suicide in Australia: 2001 - present (ungendered) https://www.aihw.gov.au/suicide-self-harm-monitoring/data/populations-age-groups/suicide-among-young-people https://www.aihw.gov.au/suicide-self-harm-monitoring/data/po... Ages 18-24 are peak ages for suicide, ~ 2x rate @15-17 Indigenous suicide in Australia: 2001 - present https://www.aihw.gov.au/suicide-self-harm-monitoring/data/populations-age-groups/suicide-indigenous-australians https://www.aihw.gov.au/suicide-self-harm-monitoring/data/po... approx 1.5-2.5x non-indigenous. There's more to be gleaned from the actual full M&M tables, these are just the web tables available re: suicide. NOTE WELL!! In AU, UK, USofA etc reporting customs have changed with respect to cause of death and suicide over the years, some dips and peaks may be more related to the culture of reporting rather than rates of actual suicide.
lostlogin 4y ago
The title immediately had me hearing The Kids Aren't Alright - by The Offspring. The lyrics mostly fit too. https://genius.com/The-offspring-the-kids-arent-alright-lyrics https://genius.com/The-offspring-the-kids-arent-alright-lyri...
- codetrotter 4y ago
  It’s intentional for sure
- hjkl0 4y ago
  I think it might be earlier than that https://youtu.be/afam2nIae4o https://youtu.be/afam2nIae4o (The offspring song, as well as many others, references this)
tux 4y ago
I'm sure daily disaster/apocalyptic news don't help.
- rhaway84773 4y ago
  Except daily disaster news has existed for decades. At least since the first gulf war, and probably hit its peak post 9/11. This was a time where most news broadcasts led with a freaking color coded terror alert, as if it was the weather. And yet the 2000s, which saw 9/11 as well as the biggest financial crisis since WW2, didn’t see the rapid increase in suicidal thoughts in teens, especially girls, that we saw in the past decade.
  - tux 4y ago
    Yes but I think internet population [1] changed all this. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/209117/us-internet-penetration/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/209117/us-internet-penet...
  - Barrin92 4y ago
    Science supports this. There is an observable decline of suicides during wars. https://academic.oup.com/book/24371/chapter-abstract/187259261 https://academic.oup.com/book/24371/chapter-abstract/1872592... Some of the most common phrases occuring in communication by men have committed suicide are "useless" and "worthless". I think you can go quite a bit further and say that not only is disaster not the reason for the bad mental situation but potentially the opposite, there isn't enough of it. Mental health issues and suicide rates around the world are persistently high in affluent and safe societies. South Korea ranks fourth highest, Syria 7th lowest. the USA, Germany, Finland, Sweden rank way above countries in the MENA region.
  - noahtallen 4y ago
    Totally, but this is about what news and media teens are accessing and looking at constantly. In the 2000s, was that really a thing? Even so, reading the paper, watching news on TV, reading website on your desktop or laptop… these don’t follow you into your other activities. And you don’t do that for four hours a day as a teenager. I bet most teens would flip the channel if they sat down and the news was on. But you can’t just flip the channel like that any more. Now, you’re consuming media feeds which are algorithmically designed to keep them engaged for hours on end, which in turn means feeding them rage-inducing topics. It doesn’t seem like the negative media itself is the problem, but the fact that phones and social media make it a prevalent part of daily life.
rhaway84773 4y ago
This post goes on a very weird tangent. If you read any discourse about teenage suicide over at least the past 2 decades (since I started reading the news), it was always focused on the disproportionately high number of boys who died of suicide vs girls. In fact, the disproportionately number of high attempts by girls was rarely even mentioned in most discussions, unless it was in the context of gun regulation because it has been quite clear for a while that more boys died because they tried to commit suicide by guns. The reason the media is focusing on girls in the context of suicide right now is simply because the recently released CDC numbers show a huge increase in girls attempting suicide in the past, an effect which hasn’t been as large in boys. For decades the focus has indeed been on the disproportionate number of boys who died of suicide. But the huge jump in girls feeling depressed and having suicidal thoughts is new. Hence, it’s being covered more in the news right now. The ability of some people to turn everything into us vs them grievances is mind boggling to me.
- emodendroket 4y ago
  My understanding is that males tend to choose methods of suicide with higher rates of success and therefore actually die in their suicide attempts more often.
  - renewiltord 4y ago
    I've heard that boys use a more likely to succeed method and that's why there are more male suicides.
    - emodendroket 4y ago
      Yes... that's exactly what I just said. Am I missing something?
      - renewiltord 4y ago
        [flagged]
Beaver117 4y ago
First of all, TLDR. I'll give my opinion though. It's not that social media apps are the ones hurting us, they are merely exposing us to the nasty nature of humans. Closing your eyes and not using social media doesn't mean the flow of likes and comments will stop. And likewise shutting down social media doesn't mean we will forget what we had before. The cat is out of the bag, humans will now chase to be the top 1% at everything, money, attractiveness, power, etc. Even without their phones they still have permanently changed their worldview. I don't see a solution other than perhaps shut down the internet completely. And invest in better mental health coping strategies
- pedrosorio 4y ago
  > The cat is out of the bag, humans will now chase to be the top 1% at everything, money, attractiveness, power, etc. Why? And what does this have to do with social media and “the nasty nature of humans”?
  - Beaver117 4y ago
    That's what social media encourages. It glamourizes certain lifestyles not among celebrities, but among your own friends. I'm not sure how to put it but it's a lot easier to be a mean/nasty person online. Or it's just easier to hide that fact in real life.
- noahtallen 4y ago
  The post does touch on that. The big counterpoint is that while yes the world is terrible in many ways, your objective lived quality of life depends on what you observe and how you think about it. If you’re more constantly exposed to negativity (and it’s hard to get away from it), you’ll feel more negatively as well. So your quality of life and happiness can objectively be improved even while the world itself potentially gets worse.
illiarian 4y ago
> Then, actually, yes. Spoiler alert, I’m going to blame the phones and social media. We've deprived kids of the future, and we've removed most places where kids can be kids. Edit: the latter part is especially true in the US. I think Europe is a much better place for kids and teens. Let's blame phones and social media.
- CalRobert 4y ago
  Homes are prisons thanks to car dependent design.
  - Tade0 4y ago
    Car dependent design predates homes being prisons. The case of Lenore Skenazy aka "America's Worst Mom" shows that it's the mindset that's the problem. I don't have the link, but there's a study showing that Americans are split on whether 12-year-olds should be supervised when playing in a park.
    - imoverclocked 4y ago
      > Car dependent design predates homes being prisons Part of the home-as-prison is from fear of being outside/out of reach. That has existed in large pockets of our society for a very long time. Cars have not improved that reality for many people and have actually made it worse in many ways. eg: Predators now have as much range as they can drive in a day... or rich predators have as much range as they can fly in a day.
- tgv 4y ago
  The future was perhaps even bleaker 40 years ago. You had to be a grownup at the age of 18. Now, what is the difference with 40 years ago? I’m not saying the logical conclusion is phones and socials, but it isn’t a feeling of doom just by itself.
  - watwut 4y ago
    How was future bleaker in 1983? It was basically a beginning of long economic growth.
jeffbee 4y ago
One nice thing about Twitter is forcing people to tighten up their writing.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  With a 4K limit soon expanding to 10K, that is increasingly not the case, at least for the people that pay for Blue.
- favorited 4y ago
  Good thing Elon is giving us 10k character tweets soon. I'm sure that will make Twitter worth $44 billion. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1632524972588695553 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1632524972588695553
- raincole 4y ago
  Yeah, just like TikTok forcing people to tighten up their videos?
stonogo 4y ago
What is the point of this article? I made it two thirds of the way through before I realized it was all references and no content. Does this person just blog about tweets? I've never been so confused when reading an article this long. How are there so many words and no actual statements?
cat_plus_plus 4y ago
Strong and stable culture makes people happier. You can predict and trust what others are likely to do in a crisis. You can get along with your parents or your kids better. You can take comfort in doing the right thing even if things are not going well. It's not all rosy, lack of flexibility can also lead one to follow dictators, regard dissenters as less than human and forego opportunities. But there is got to be a balance and flat rejection that anything from the past is good and worth preserving is not it.
- kerpotgh 4y ago
  [dead]
TazeTSchnitzel 4y ago
I was born in the late 90's and so I grew up with social media existing: first MSN Messenger, then [pre-FB social network popular where I lived], later Facebook, and that's just the networks my classmates used. I had a smartphone in the last three years I was in highschool. The bit where the author reacts incredulously to cyberbullying not increasing with smartphones is… weird, to me. I am not convinced smartphones made social media more of a thing, they just shifted the mode of consumption. Social media was a thing at least five years before smartphones were. I think the moral panic about smartphones ruining kids' lives is looking in the wrong places. The internet gave me a safe place to discover myself and escape real-life bullying. If I hadn't had internet access I don't think I'd have been happier.
- worldsayshi 4y ago
  >The internet gave me a safe place Maybe the internet stopped being a safe place? Social media is increasingly feeling like a space designed for manipulation.
  - InCityDreams 4y ago
    I always taught my kids that the internet is like choosing a bar, or club. Some are great, there are thieves around, some of the customers are 'a bit rough', some will become your friends or only acquaintances, someone always wants your money, people will lie to you. Bars and clubs aren't inherently unsafe, but you just gotta be careful.
  - sundvor 4y ago
    That's a big part of TikTok, isn't it - it seems designed to make kids feel miserable and to have mental illnesses. (Not at all destabilizing society, of course. Because of all the positive things it offers. /s)
    - snozolli 4y ago
      60 Minutes piece on Douyin (domestic users) versus TikTok (foreign users): https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0j0xzuh-6rY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0j0xzuh-6rY tl;dw: Chinese users get more wholesome content, particularly children, along with usage limits.
lexandstuff 4y ago
The short-form video algorithms like TikTok, IG Stories, YouTube stories etc., seem to be masterfully tuned to figure out what you're insecure about and then harass you with content that reinforces that message. It would have been poisonous to my adolescent brain.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
jonahrd 4y ago
I notice in this article a pattern where the author makes some really detailed statistical analysis of a trend, including rebuttal to some theories that aren't backed up by the statistics in a useful, well-presented way -- And then immediately launches on a tangent based on a self proclaimed theory with no backup... But one of the major points he makes is that the economy isn't actually that notably worse, because we all have a roof or something? This point strikes me as very out of touch. There are a significant number of people who are in significantly more precarious economic situations. The gap is widening due to rising housing, healthcare, education, etc costs. He does mention this but somehow manages to also dismiss it...
- prawn 4y ago
  It's a very visible problem in the USA - homeless, tent cities, and a definite rise in people living in their vehicles. Housing affordability is a key issue (and here in Australia as well). Related is a sense that the situation is not improving. I imagine that would be seriously disheartening for people aged 15-25 and thinking about their prospects.
mort96 4y ago
I do not understand the introduction to this post. "Could the kids be depressed because we keep telling them (rightfully) that humanity is fucked and has no future and that they'll experience societal collapse in their lifetime due to entirely preventable causes? Heck no! It's the phones." I'll need something more convincing than a "heck no" and a South Park meme.
- ChatGTP 4y ago
  I’m so cynical I think society probably needs to collapse for humans not yo completely ruin the planet.
  - bheadmaster 4y ago
    The planet will be fine. It's the humans who are fucked.
- noahtallen 4y ago
  > I'll need something more convincing than a "heck no" and a South Park meme. Well, good for you, the post is real long! (I did find some good observations towards the middle, and appreciated the look at various other theories and statistics)
  - mort96 4y ago
    I'm not arguing against the point that phones and social media is part of the problem. I'm arguing against the idea that climate doomerism has no or a negligible effect.
- tigerlily 4y ago
  No, it is the phones. Every generation all through the 20th century has had its existential crises and they've all been alright. Until now, where it's the phones.
  - mort96 4y ago
    Most generations haven't grown up with the constant message of "all scientists agree that we are completely and utterly fucked" hanging over them, with constant messaging from the UN that we're blowing last point of no return after point of no return. I'm not trying to minimise the Cold War, it must've been terrifying. But it was always, "we'll be completely fucked if the war turns hot". But hey, maybe there's great studies which prove that the impending doom doesn't negatively impact people's emotional state. That would be nice. I'm just saying the article needs something more than a South Park reference to back that up.
the_gipsy 4y ago
> Young people in liberal peer group social circles – which is most young people, especially given the internet – were increasingly socially punished for not expressing the view that a lot of extremely depressing things were happening. Blaming the awareness instead of the actual depressing thing.
anovikov 4y ago
It's sad to read about "liberal children" and "conservative children". It's like Reformation era Catholics vs Huguenots lol? With either beliefs usually being irrational and imprinted in childhood, even electional politics is increasingly not about convincing liberals to the conservative side or vice versa, but about bringing in more "right" and pushing out more "wrong" voters, redistricting to skew results in "your" favour, or even bringing about conditions that are likely to increase birth rate of "right" electorate or death rate of "wrong" ones (a lot of Covid vaccination messaging done by Biden administration seemed to be tailored to stimulate liberals to vaccinate and conservatives, to avoid vaccination, apparently in hope that they will die and thus not vote in the midterms). Is this really the world we are heading to? SAD, as Trump would say.
deesep 4y ago
Yale university has a free course on coursera called "The Science of Well-being" The aim is to help teenagers feel better and build healthier habits. It's a very popular course, and you should share it with any teen you know. https://www.coursera.org/learn/the-science-of-well-being-for-teens https://www.coursera.org/learn/the-science-of-well-being-for...
c_prompt 4y ago
Because it couldn't possibly be more complex and attributable to other causes like, oh I don't know, kicking fathers out of their children's lives (with statistics from the US Census openly stating most all custodial parents are mothers and proportions are statistically unchanged over the years)? "In the spring of 2002, an estimated 13.4 million parents had custody of 21.5 million children under 21 years of age whose other parent lived somewhere else. About 5 of every 6 custodial parents were mothers (84.4 percent) and 1 in 6 were fathers (15.6 percent), proportions statistically unchanged since 1994 (Table A)." [1] "Custodial parents have become more likely to be fathers over the past 24 years, increasing from 16.0 percent in 1994 to 20.1 percent in 2018... The number of custodial parents has varied somewhat over the past 24 years, including the proportion of fathers who are custodial parents. In 1994, about 1 of every 6 custodial parents were fathers (16.0 percent). By 2018, that proportion reached 1 in 5 (20.1 percent) (Appendix Table 2)." [2] [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20211212183149/https://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/p60-225.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20211212183149/https://www.censu... [2] https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-269.pdf https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio...
snozolli 4y ago
Make it hide auto-delete or at least hide from everyone else by default after a while, viewable only by friends, illegal to consider in any school disciplinary action or admissions process or job interview. I guess he's talking specifically about children's posts here, but I definitely want to know if a kid is threatening to shoot up a school or engaging in online bullying. I also want to know if a potential hire is a Neo-Nazi or a Qtard.
D13Fd 4y ago
IMO one of the root causes of the issues kids have these days is the fear culture where it's no longer acceptable for parents to let younger kids do things on their own. When I was in grade school in the early 1990's, all of the grade-school-aged neighborhood kids walked to school, and roamed the streets freely after school and on the weekends. I used to walk to the library, the book store, the hobby shop, the park, the pool, etc. Now, I can't let my grade-school aged kids out to play or to go into a store without supervision. People literally call the police when they see a 9-year-old alone, and the police say it is unsafe. There are many stories of child protective services getting involved, and even threatening to remove children from homes, just because the parents allowed them go outside unsupervised. It's insane. There is no way that that doesn't have a big effect on people.

85 points by imgabe 4y ago

breezingfast 4y ago

[flagged]

litiholofan 4y ago
based
emodendroket 4y ago
An interesting thing about this post is that it's not obvious which political faction (either in Syria or in the US) this hectoring is even pointed at, let alone what relationship the two problems have.

warrenmiller 4y ago

Does anyone have any information about how this looks in other countries? Is this an American issue or worldwide?

jeffrallen 4y ago
Anecdotally, Switzerland's kids are doing ok, but I haven't checked the public health stats. One thing that helps is having a stable future ready for them to inherit. They can see the investments our generation is making for them (windmills, car chargers, trains), they have guaranteed education and apprenticeship to bring them into adulthood and independence, and they have a social safety net ready to catch them (I suspect they don't really understand the value of that though). My point is, it is easy to say "you've got a bright future" and get them to believe it when the entire society is actually organized around making it actually true.
dragoncrab 4y ago
The article claims this is a common problem in the developed countries, not just in the USA.
bigbacaloa 4y ago
It varies tremendously by country and within subpopulations.
defrost 4y ago
Suicide in Australia: 1907 - present https://www.aihw.gov.au/suicide-self-harm-monitoring/data/deaths-by-suicide-in-australia/suicide-deaths-over-time https://www.aihw.gov.au/suicide-self-harm-monitoring/data/de... Male rate consistantly ~ > 4x female rate (particularly so pre WWII) - save for WWII years. Youth suicide in Australia: 2001 - present (ungendered) https://www.aihw.gov.au/suicide-self-harm-monitoring/data/populations-age-groups/suicide-among-young-people https://www.aihw.gov.au/suicide-self-harm-monitoring/data/po... Ages 18-24 are peak ages for suicide, ~ 2x rate @15-17 Indigenous suicide in Australia: 2001 - present https://www.aihw.gov.au/suicide-self-harm-monitoring/data/populations-age-groups/suicide-indigenous-australians https://www.aihw.gov.au/suicide-self-harm-monitoring/data/po... approx 1.5-2.5x non-indigenous. There's more to be gleaned from the actual full M&M tables, these are just the web tables available re: suicide. NOTE WELL!! In AU, UK, USofA etc reporting customs have changed with respect to cause of death and suicide over the years, some dips and peaks may be more related to the culture of reporting rather than rates of actual suicide.

lostlogin 4y ago

The title immediately had me hearing The Kids Aren't Alright - by The Offspring. The lyrics mostly fit too. https://genius.com/The-offspring-the-kids-arent-alright-lyrics https://genius.com/The-offspring-the-kids-arent-alright-lyri...

codetrotter 4y ago
It’s intentional for sure
hjkl0 4y ago
I think it might be earlier than that https://youtu.be/afam2nIae4o https://youtu.be/afam2nIae4o (The offspring song, as well as many others, references this)

tux 4y ago

I'm sure daily disaster/apocalyptic news don't help.

rhaway84773 4y ago
Except daily disaster news has existed for decades. At least since the first gulf war, and probably hit its peak post 9/11. This was a time where most news broadcasts led with a freaking color coded terror alert, as if it was the weather. And yet the 2000s, which saw 9/11 as well as the biggest financial crisis since WW2, didn’t see the rapid increase in suicidal thoughts in teens, especially girls, that we saw in the past decade.
- tux 4y ago
  Yes but I think internet population [1] changed all this. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/209117/us-internet-penetration/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/209117/us-internet-penet...
- Barrin92 4y ago
  Science supports this. There is an observable decline of suicides during wars. https://academic.oup.com/book/24371/chapter-abstract/187259261 https://academic.oup.com/book/24371/chapter-abstract/1872592... Some of the most common phrases occuring in communication by men have committed suicide are "useless" and "worthless". I think you can go quite a bit further and say that not only is disaster not the reason for the bad mental situation but potentially the opposite, there isn't enough of it. Mental health issues and suicide rates around the world are persistently high in affluent and safe societies. South Korea ranks fourth highest, Syria 7th lowest. the USA, Germany, Finland, Sweden rank way above countries in the MENA region.
- noahtallen 4y ago
  Totally, but this is about what news and media teens are accessing and looking at constantly. In the 2000s, was that really a thing? Even so, reading the paper, watching news on TV, reading website on your desktop or laptop… these don’t follow you into your other activities. And you don’t do that for four hours a day as a teenager. I bet most teens would flip the channel if they sat down and the news was on. But you can’t just flip the channel like that any more. Now, you’re consuming media feeds which are algorithmically designed to keep them engaged for hours on end, which in turn means feeding them rage-inducing topics. It doesn’t seem like the negative media itself is the problem, but the fact that phones and social media make it a prevalent part of daily life.

rhaway84773 4y ago

This post goes on a very weird tangent. If you read any discourse about teenage suicide over at least the past 2 decades (since I started reading the news), it was always focused on the disproportionately high number of boys who died of suicide vs girls. In fact, the disproportionately number of high attempts by girls was rarely even mentioned in most discussions, unless it was in the context of gun regulation because it has been quite clear for a while that more boys died because they tried to commit suicide by guns. The reason the media is focusing on girls in the context of suicide right now is simply because the recently released CDC numbers show a huge increase in girls attempting suicide in the past, an effect which hasn’t been as large in boys. For decades the focus has indeed been on the disproportionate number of boys who died of suicide. But the huge jump in girls feeling depressed and having suicidal thoughts is new. Hence, it’s being covered more in the news right now. The ability of some people to turn everything into us vs them grievances is mind boggling to me.

emodendroket 4y ago
My understanding is that males tend to choose methods of suicide with higher rates of success and therefore actually die in their suicide attempts more often.
- renewiltord 4y ago
  I've heard that boys use a more likely to succeed method and that's why there are more male suicides.
  - emodendroket 4y ago
    Yes... that's exactly what I just said. Am I missing something?
    - renewiltord 4y ago
      [flagged]

Beaver117 4y ago

First of all, TLDR. I'll give my opinion though. It's not that social media apps are the ones hurting us, they are merely exposing us to the nasty nature of humans. Closing your eyes and not using social media doesn't mean the flow of likes and comments will stop. And likewise shutting down social media doesn't mean we will forget what we had before. The cat is out of the bag, humans will now chase to be the top 1% at everything, money, attractiveness, power, etc. Even without their phones they still have permanently changed their worldview. I don't see a solution other than perhaps shut down the internet completely. And invest in better mental health coping strategies

pedrosorio 4y ago
> The cat is out of the bag, humans will now chase to be the top 1% at everything, money, attractiveness, power, etc. Why? And what does this have to do with social media and “the nasty nature of humans”?
- Beaver117 4y ago
  That's what social media encourages. It glamourizes certain lifestyles not among celebrities, but among your own friends. I'm not sure how to put it but it's a lot easier to be a mean/nasty person online. Or it's just easier to hide that fact in real life.
noahtallen 4y ago
The post does touch on that. The big counterpoint is that while yes the world is terrible in many ways, your objective lived quality of life depends on what you observe and how you think about it. If you’re more constantly exposed to negativity (and it’s hard to get away from it), you’ll feel more negatively as well. So your quality of life and happiness can objectively be improved even while the world itself potentially gets worse.

illiarian 4y ago

> Then, actually, yes. Spoiler alert, I’m going to blame the phones and social media. We've deprived kids of the future, and we've removed most places where kids can be kids. Edit: the latter part is especially true in the US. I think Europe is a much better place for kids and teens. Let's blame phones and social media.

CalRobert 4y ago
Homes are prisons thanks to car dependent design.
- Tade0 4y ago
  Car dependent design predates homes being prisons. The case of Lenore Skenazy aka "America's Worst Mom" shows that it's the mindset that's the problem. I don't have the link, but there's a study showing that Americans are split on whether 12-year-olds should be supervised when playing in a park.
  - imoverclocked 4y ago
    > Car dependent design predates homes being prisons Part of the home-as-prison is from fear of being outside/out of reach. That has existed in large pockets of our society for a very long time. Cars have not improved that reality for many people and have actually made it worse in many ways. eg: Predators now have as much range as they can drive in a day... or rich predators have as much range as they can fly in a day.
tgv 4y ago
The future was perhaps even bleaker 40 years ago. You had to be a grownup at the age of 18. Now, what is the difference with 40 years ago? I’m not saying the logical conclusion is phones and socials, but it isn’t a feeling of doom just by itself.
- watwut 4y ago
  How was future bleaker in 1983? It was basically a beginning of long economic growth.

jeffbee 4y ago

One nice thing about Twitter is forcing people to tighten up their writing.

dragonwriter 4y ago
With a 4K limit soon expanding to 10K, that is increasingly not the case, at least for the people that pay for Blue.
favorited 4y ago
Good thing Elon is giving us 10k character tweets soon. I'm sure that will make Twitter worth $44 billion. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1632524972588695553 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1632524972588695553
raincole 4y ago
Yeah, just like TikTok forcing people to tighten up their videos?

stonogo 4y ago

What is the point of this article? I made it two thirds of the way through before I realized it was all references and no content. Does this person just blog about tweets? I've never been so confused when reading an article this long. How are there so many words and no actual statements?

cat_plus_plus 4y ago

Strong and stable culture makes people happier. You can predict and trust what others are likely to do in a crisis. You can get along with your parents or your kids better. You can take comfort in doing the right thing even if things are not going well. It's not all rosy, lack of flexibility can also lead one to follow dictators, regard dissenters as less than human and forego opportunities. But there is got to be a balance and flat rejection that anything from the past is good and worth preserving is not it.

kerpotgh 4y ago
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TazeTSchnitzel 4y ago

I was born in the late 90's and so I grew up with social media existing: first MSN Messenger, then [pre-FB social network popular where I lived], later Facebook, and that's just the networks my classmates used. I had a smartphone in the last three years I was in highschool. The bit where the author reacts incredulously to cyberbullying not increasing with smartphones is… weird, to me. I am not convinced smartphones made social media more of a thing, they just shifted the mode of consumption. Social media was a thing at least five years before smartphones were. I think the moral panic about smartphones ruining kids' lives is looking in the wrong places. The internet gave me a safe place to discover myself and escape real-life bullying. If I hadn't had internet access I don't think I'd have been happier.

worldsayshi 4y ago
>The internet gave me a safe place Maybe the internet stopped being a safe place? Social media is increasingly feeling like a space designed for manipulation.
- InCityDreams 4y ago
  I always taught my kids that the internet is like choosing a bar, or club. Some are great, there are thieves around, some of the customers are 'a bit rough', some will become your friends or only acquaintances, someone always wants your money, people will lie to you. Bars and clubs aren't inherently unsafe, but you just gotta be careful.
- sundvor 4y ago
  That's a big part of TikTok, isn't it - it seems designed to make kids feel miserable and to have mental illnesses. (Not at all destabilizing society, of course. Because of all the positive things it offers. /s)
  - snozolli 4y ago
    60 Minutes piece on Douyin (domestic users) versus TikTok (foreign users): https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0j0xzuh-6rY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0j0xzuh-6rY tl;dw: Chinese users get more wholesome content, particularly children, along with usage limits.

lexandstuff 4y ago

The short-form video algorithms like TikTok, IG Stories, YouTube stories etc., seem to be masterfully tuned to figure out what you're insecure about and then harass you with content that reinforces that message. It would have been poisonous to my adolescent brain.

deleted 4y ago
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jonahrd 4y ago

I notice in this article a pattern where the author makes some really detailed statistical analysis of a trend, including rebuttal to some theories that aren't backed up by the statistics in a useful, well-presented way -- And then immediately launches on a tangent based on a self proclaimed theory with no backup... But one of the major points he makes is that the economy isn't actually that notably worse, because we all have a roof or something? This point strikes me as very out of touch. There are a significant number of people who are in significantly more precarious economic situations. The gap is widening due to rising housing, healthcare, education, etc costs. He does mention this but somehow manages to also dismiss it...

prawn 4y ago
It's a very visible problem in the USA - homeless, tent cities, and a definite rise in people living in their vehicles. Housing affordability is a key issue (and here in Australia as well). Related is a sense that the situation is not improving. I imagine that would be seriously disheartening for people aged 15-25 and thinking about their prospects.

mort96 4y ago

I do not understand the introduction to this post. "Could the kids be depressed because we keep telling them (rightfully) that humanity is fucked and has no future and that they'll experience societal collapse in their lifetime due to entirely preventable causes? Heck no! It's the phones." I'll need something more convincing than a "heck no" and a South Park meme.

ChatGTP 4y ago
I’m so cynical I think society probably needs to collapse for humans not yo completely ruin the planet.
- bheadmaster 4y ago
  The planet will be fine. It's the humans who are fucked.
noahtallen 4y ago
> I'll need something more convincing than a "heck no" and a South Park meme. Well, good for you, the post is real long! (I did find some good observations towards the middle, and appreciated the look at various other theories and statistics)
- mort96 4y ago
  I'm not arguing against the point that phones and social media is part of the problem. I'm arguing against the idea that climate doomerism has no or a negligible effect.
tigerlily 4y ago
No, it is the phones. Every generation all through the 20th century has had its existential crises and they've all been alright. Until now, where it's the phones.
- mort96 4y ago
  Most generations haven't grown up with the constant message of "all scientists agree that we are completely and utterly fucked" hanging over them, with constant messaging from the UN that we're blowing last point of no return after point of no return. I'm not trying to minimise the Cold War, it must've been terrifying. But it was always, "we'll be completely fucked if the war turns hot". But hey, maybe there's great studies which prove that the impending doom doesn't negatively impact people's emotional state. That would be nice. I'm just saying the article needs something more than a South Park reference to back that up.

the_gipsy 4y ago

> Young people in liberal peer group social circles – which is most young people, especially given the internet – were increasingly socially punished for not expressing the view that a lot of extremely depressing things were happening. Blaming the awareness instead of the actual depressing thing.

anovikov 4y ago

It's sad to read about "liberal children" and "conservative children". It's like Reformation era Catholics vs Huguenots lol? With either beliefs usually being irrational and imprinted in childhood, even electional politics is increasingly not about convincing liberals to the conservative side or vice versa, but about bringing in more "right" and pushing out more "wrong" voters, redistricting to skew results in "your" favour, or even bringing about conditions that are likely to increase birth rate of "right" electorate or death rate of "wrong" ones (a lot of Covid vaccination messaging done by Biden administration seemed to be tailored to stimulate liberals to vaccinate and conservatives, to avoid vaccination, apparently in hope that they will die and thus not vote in the midterms). Is this really the world we are heading to? SAD, as Trump would say.

deesep 4y ago

Yale university has a free course on coursera called "The Science of Well-being" The aim is to help teenagers feel better and build healthier habits. It's a very popular course, and you should share it with any teen you know. https://www.coursera.org/learn/the-science-of-well-being-for-teens https://www.coursera.org/learn/the-science-of-well-being-for...

c_prompt 4y ago

Because it couldn't possibly be more complex and attributable to other causes like, oh I don't know, kicking fathers out of their children's lives (with statistics from the US Census openly stating most all custodial parents are mothers and proportions are statistically unchanged over the years)? "In the spring of 2002, an estimated 13.4 million parents had custody of 21.5 million children under 21 years of age whose other parent lived somewhere else. About 5 of every 6 custodial parents were mothers (84.4 percent) and 1 in 6 were fathers (15.6 percent), proportions statistically unchanged since 1994 (Table A)." [1] "Custodial parents have become more likely to be fathers over the past 24 years, increasing from 16.0 percent in 1994 to 20.1 percent in 2018... The number of custodial parents has varied somewhat over the past 24 years, including the proportion of fathers who are custodial parents. In 1994, about 1 of every 6 custodial parents were fathers (16.0 percent). By 2018, that proportion reached 1 in 5 (20.1 percent) (Appendix Table 2)." [2] [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20211212183149/https://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/p60-225.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20211212183149/https://www.censu... [2] https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-269.pdf https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio...

snozolli 4y ago

Make it hide auto-delete or at least hide from everyone else by default after a while, viewable only by friends, illegal to consider in any school disciplinary action or admissions process or job interview. I guess he's talking specifically about children's posts here, but I definitely want to know if a kid is threatening to shoot up a school or engaging in online bullying. I also want to know if a potential hire is a Neo-Nazi or a Qtard.

D13Fd 4y ago

IMO one of the root causes of the issues kids have these days is the fear culture where it's no longer acceptable for parents to let younger kids do things on their own. When I was in grade school in the early 1990's, all of the grade-school-aged neighborhood kids walked to school, and roamed the streets freely after school and on the weekends. I used to walk to the library, the book store, the hobby shop, the park, the pool, etc. Now, I can't let my grade-school aged kids out to play or to go into a store without supervision. People literally call the police when they see a 9-year-old alone, and the police say it is unsafe. There are many stories of child protective services getting involved, and even threatening to remove children from homes, just because the parents allowed them go outside unsupervised. It's insane. There is no way that that doesn't have a big effect on people.