4 ms·

Do teens have much to look forward to? Climate change is already causing severe weather events, which are very likely to ramp quickly. Careers are a thing of

by grecy 3y ago

Do teens have much to look forward to? Climate change is already causing severe weather events, which are very likely to ramp quickly. Careers are a thing of the past, and it seems like no matter how hard you work you'll never "get ahead" and will be lucky not to spend your life living paycheck to paycheck. Life expectancy has gone down, markedly. Debt is up. New wars.

gedy 3y ago
> Do teens have much to look forward to? Life has always been kinda shitty in every generation, but I think the difference is a lot of negative/apocalyptic messaging from all types of media surrounds people, and the positive/optimistic messages we used to get are lacking or treated as "cringe", eye rolls, etc. Pop music has a lot less positive love songs, all existing power structures are suspect, etc, etc. Whether true or realistic or not, it's not helpful to kids to hear all this crap. The downer types are offering no realistic and/or hopeful alternative.
graemep 3y ago
If any of those were the explanation, you would find correlations between people with worsening mental health and those factors. Is it worse in countries at most risk from climate change? No. Is it worse where financial security is worse? Possibly those with expectations of stable careers do better, but not at the national level from the numbers in the article. Life expectancy is not usually teens main concern, nor is debt. Which new wars correlate with the timing?
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  > Is it worse in countries at most risk from climate change? It doesn't have to be that. I would try and spot correlations between mental health and bombardment of this in the news.
merek 3y ago
> Life expectancy has gone down, markedly. Do you have a source for this? I'm curious in which country and by how much.
- grecy 3y ago
  Checkout the graph https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-life-expectancy-compare-countries/#Life%20expectancy%20at%20birth,%20in%20years,%201980-2021 https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-lif...
- defrost 3y ago
  US and UK life expenctancy both dipped by ~ a year whereas, say, Australia | Japan | China | Canada have all continued to rise. Put that down to a complete dogs breakfast response to handling an epidemic.
  - nradov 3y ago
    The recent pandemic had minimal impact on US life expectancy. Opioid poisoning and motor vehicle crashes have been a larger factor since before 2019 because they typically kill much younger people. This magnifies the impact on life expectancy. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/the-opioid-crisis-is-driving-down-u-s-life-expectancy-new-data-shows https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/the-opioid-crisis-is-dri...
    - defrost 3y ago
      That may have been the case in 2017, the date of your article, certainly then opiod deaths outweighed the nonexistant deaths from COVID. Today, in 2024, looking back, there's a sharp decline in US life expectancy figures after 2019 that, according to the CDC and other epidemiologists, had little to do with opiods: In 1980, life expectancy at birth in the U.S. and in comparably large and wealthy countries was similar, but over recent decades, life expectancy has improved by much more in peer nations than it has in the U.S. The COVID-19 pandemic has increased mortality and premature death rates in the U.S. by more than it did in most peer countries, widening a gap that already existed before the pandemic. Life expectancy in the U.S. fell by 2.4 years from 2019 to 2021, whereas in peer countries’ life expectancies fell by an average of just 0.3 years in this period. COVID-19 has erased two decades of life expectancy growth in the U.S., whereas the average life expectancy for comparable countries has decreased only marginally, to 2018 levels. - from [1], and In 2021, 9 of the 10 leading causes of death remained the same as in 2020. The top leading cause in 2021 was heart disease, followed by cancer and COVID-19 (Figure 4). Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis became the 9th leading cause of death in 2021, while influenza and pneumonia dropped from the list of 10 leading causes. The remaining leading causes in 2021 (unintentional injuries, stroke, chronic lower respiratory diseases, Alzheimer disease, diabetes, and kidney disease) remained at the same ranks as in 2020. - from [2]. Note than in [2] opiod deaths do not feature in the the ten leading causes of death in the USofA. What does stand out is that OECD | G20 countries in general have steadily improved quality of life and expectancy whereas the USofA has been relative flat since 2012 (opiods and other reasons) and sharply dropped post COVID (poor community health responses). [1] https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-life-expectancy-compare-countries https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-lif... [2] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db456.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db456.pdf
swader999 3y ago
[flagged]
bee_rider 3y ago
I’m amazed that I had to read so many comments complaining about social media before I hit this one. How have so few failed to consider the idea that young people might be correctly anxious and worried about the future which looks, in many ways, pretty grim.
- chasd00 3y ago
  virtually all of that fear and anxiety is generated from consuming click-bait doomer social media.
  - wvenable 3y ago
    That seems like a denial of reality. You believe if they don't have social media to tell them that they're working 2 dead end jobs and can't afford to place to live while choking on smoke all summer that they wouldn't notice and just be happy?
  - tonetheman 3y ago
    [dead]
  - bee_rider 3y ago
    Yes, similarly, I don’t understand why people keep looking at their credit card balances. If you don’t engage with bad news, everybody knows it ceases to impact the real world.
- deanCommie 3y ago
  You're absolutely right - they're correctly anxious because the future LOOKS grim. But the world has always been pretty grim: For most of humanity your existence was focused on sustenance. Then, once starving was taken care of, of not dying of some preventable disease. The privilege of self-actualization and even having to consider what the future of the earth could be is relatively new. We can certainly then look at the 50's and say well that was prosperity, and even ignoring the unique economic circumstances of the aftermath of the deadliest war in human history, everyone who grew up in this "prosperity" certainly wasn't very optimistic about the world. They were constantly living under the terror of global nuclear annihilation. Except...they weren't. AHA, and here we come to the truth: To survive, and because doom gloom and anxiety were not to be tolerated, everyone bought into the propaganda. People did "duck and cover" drills and expected to survive a nuclear blast. People genuinely believed (in the West, and in the East) that eventually their side would prevail, and there'd be nothing to worry about. People built, people invested in the future, because they HAD to. And then did the hard work of arms talks, detente, etc. What am I trying to say? I think every generation had the right to be CORRECTLY anxious about the future being pretty grim. And this generation is the first one that is being told that it's valid to feel anxiety and to not just stifle away feelings. And yet....I can't help but wonder if the only way humanity can get itself out of trouble is actually with some blind and empty optimism. Climate Doomerism is even infecting the left, and sites like this. "Why should I have children if the world is going to melt? Why should I reduce my carbon footprint if Exxon won't?" (btw. your carbon footprint stimulates demand for fossil fuel products that Exxon then provides. anyways) To fix giant humanity-scale problems you must believe and have an optimistic outlook on the future of humanity. That doesn't mean sticking your head in the sand sand saying "everything will turn out fine", but it does mean saying "Yes, we CAN decarbonize. Yes we CAN create a more fair and equitable world for all. Yes we CAN maintain balance with our ecosystems and not wipe our species or every other one out." And the teenagers need to hear it cuz buddy THEY'RE the ones who have to do it. It doesn't matter if it's hard. WHAT OTHER CHOICE DO YOU HAVE. Well, I suppose Suicide is one answer. I suppose I have heard that when depressed people kill themselves it's because the pain of existence is worse. I never understood it. I care too much about my mortality. I don't believe it. I think the increase in THOSE numbers is just based on more accurate reporting. I don't think teens are killing themselves because they're anxious about the economy or climate change. Of course it's not the teens that should be held responsible for finding that optimism. It needs to be generated and nurtured by the adults around them, and in the media. And I don't mean consumerist influencer optimism, I mean people like Carl Sagan and Neil de Grasse Tyson, and educators, and influencers who can get people truly excited about changing the world for the better. We must all do our part, especially if you're educated and prosperous. Have a child. Raise them well. Inspire them. Challenge them to be hopeful about the future, and being a part of shaping it.
Aunche 3y ago
If small regressions in broad metrics are causing mental illness, that sounds like a social media problem to me.
bongodongobob 3y ago
I think this has to be a huge chunk of it. I'm 40, have an established career, make the most money I've made in my life, live in a smaller city and I can barely afford to get by. I can't afford to take a vacation. I can't afford to buy land or a boat or something. Retirement situation looks grim, likely a bullet to the head. I have literally nothing to look forward to and every day gets harder and harder to tell myself "better things are coming" because I know they're not. Short of a violent revolution in the US, the screws are going to continue to tighten. Like, this is it. This is the culmination of my life's work, barely getting by. I can't imagine being a teen in today's world. I guess the benefit is that they probably don't understand just how fucked they are.
- nickd2001 3y ago
  Sorry to hear this. If you're now making the most you ever have, and continue to do so, hopefully if you live somewhat frugally and save, you ought to be OK in the long-term? Speaking as someone who for various reasons, mostly the need to support family members, doesn't have the big bucks a lot of tech workers have. I've no prospect of owning land or a boat. ;) Or a fancy car. But I don't really care. :) Vacations - well ours are fine, we go to nice countryside, but doesn't involve flights, hotels, eating out or anything fancy. Seems to me in the West, many expect a high standard of living and feel a failure if we don't achieve that. But people in poorer countries are happy with much less. When I worked in the USA, I noticed many immigrants lived very happy lives on a fraction of resources of their American coworkers/ peers. They hadn't got used to expecting that standard of living. Possibly their kids would be more "American" and feel like that had to have more. * Caveat : US healthcare system is a mess and can cause huge bills , for some people frugality and saving is outweighed by health costs. This system needs fixing IMHO
  - oldpersonintx 3y ago
    [dead]
fasterik 3y ago
These are definitely problems, but here are some positive points to balance the negative: The price of renewable energy has fallen 99.8% since 1975 [1] and power generation from renewables has increased 800% since 1965 and doubled since 2010 [2] GDP per capita is 5-20 times higher than in 1820 [3] Life expectancy has more than doubled since 1770 [4] Armed conflict causes just 0.2% of global deaths [5] and relations between nations have become more peaceful since 1945 [6] 5 billion people own smartphones [7], which are orders of magnitude more powerful than a supercomputer of 50 years ago, and which they can use to access the entirety of human knowledge in the form of books, articles, and free lectures from top universities, plus instant communication and collaboration with people across the globe. These are all things that the richest people in the world didn't have access to for most of human history. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-pv-prices https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-pv-prices [2] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/modern-renewable-energy-consumption https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/modern-renewable-energy-c... [3] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison?tab=chart https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison?t... [4] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy [5] https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace?insight=armed-conflict-is-a-rare-cause-of-death-in-most-years-and-countries#key-insights https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace?insight=armed-confl... [6] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/peaceful-and-hostile-relationships-between-states https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/peaceful-and-hostile-rela... [7] https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/02/05/smartphone-ownership-is-growing-rapidly-around-the-world-but-not-always-equally/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/02/05/smartphone-own...
- daltont 3y ago
  The ironic thing with increase in GDP is that life becomes almost too easy. In the past the difficulty of life didn't require a person to have use as much willpower. Easier life with things like plentiful food and entertainment options requires willpower to not over-indulge. A factory worker or subsistence farmer didn't have force themselves to exercise or worry about spending to much time watching TV. They had to work to not starve.
oldpersonintx 3y ago
[dead]

by grecy 3y ago

gedy 3y ago

> Do teens have much to look forward to? Life has always been kinda shitty in every generation, but I think the difference is a lot of negative/apocalyptic messaging from all types of media surrounds people, and the positive/optimistic messages we used to get are lacking or treated as "cringe", eye rolls, etc. Pop music has a lot less positive love songs, all existing power structures are suspect, etc, etc. Whether true or realistic or not, it's not helpful to kids to hear all this crap. The downer types are offering no realistic and/or hopeful alternative.

graemep 3y ago

If any of those were the explanation, you would find correlations between people with worsening mental health and those factors. Is it worse in countries at most risk from climate change? No. Is it worse where financial security is worse? Possibly those with expectations of stable careers do better, but not at the national level from the numbers in the article. Life expectancy is not usually teens main concern, nor is debt. Which new wars correlate with the timing?

robertlagrant 3y ago
> Is it worse in countries at most risk from climate change? It doesn't have to be that. I would try and spot correlations between mental health and bombardment of this in the news.

merek 3y ago

> Life expectancy has gone down, markedly. Do you have a source for this? I'm curious in which country and by how much.

grecy 3y ago
Checkout the graph https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-life-expectancy-compare-countries/#Life%20expectancy%20at%20birth,%20in%20years,%201980-2021 https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-lif...
defrost 3y ago
US and UK life expenctancy both dipped by ~ a year whereas, say, Australia | Japan | China | Canada have all continued to rise. Put that down to a complete dogs breakfast response to handling an epidemic.
- nradov 3y ago
  The recent pandemic had minimal impact on US life expectancy. Opioid poisoning and motor vehicle crashes have been a larger factor since before 2019 because they typically kill much younger people. This magnifies the impact on life expectancy. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/the-opioid-crisis-is-driving-down-u-s-life-expectancy-new-data-shows https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/the-opioid-crisis-is-dri...
  - defrost 3y ago
    That may have been the case in 2017, the date of your article, certainly then opiod deaths outweighed the nonexistant deaths from COVID. Today, in 2024, looking back, there's a sharp decline in US life expectancy figures after 2019 that, according to the CDC and other epidemiologists, had little to do with opiods: In 1980, life expectancy at birth in the U.S. and in comparably large and wealthy countries was similar, but over recent decades, life expectancy has improved by much more in peer nations than it has in the U.S. The COVID-19 pandemic has increased mortality and premature death rates in the U.S. by more than it did in most peer countries, widening a gap that already existed before the pandemic. Life expectancy in the U.S. fell by 2.4 years from 2019 to 2021, whereas in peer countries’ life expectancies fell by an average of just 0.3 years in this period. COVID-19 has erased two decades of life expectancy growth in the U.S., whereas the average life expectancy for comparable countries has decreased only marginally, to 2018 levels. - from [1], and In 2021, 9 of the 10 leading causes of death remained the same as in 2020. The top leading cause in 2021 was heart disease, followed by cancer and COVID-19 (Figure 4). Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis became the 9th leading cause of death in 2021, while influenza and pneumonia dropped from the list of 10 leading causes. The remaining leading causes in 2021 (unintentional injuries, stroke, chronic lower respiratory diseases, Alzheimer disease, diabetes, and kidney disease) remained at the same ranks as in 2020. - from [2]. Note than in [2] opiod deaths do not feature in the the ten leading causes of death in the USofA. What does stand out is that OECD | G20 countries in general have steadily improved quality of life and expectancy whereas the USofA has been relative flat since 2012 (opiods and other reasons) and sharply dropped post COVID (poor community health responses). [1] https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-life-expectancy-compare-countries https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-lif... [2] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db456.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db456.pdf

swader999 3y ago

[flagged]

bee_rider 3y ago

I’m amazed that I had to read so many comments complaining about social media before I hit this one. How have so few failed to consider the idea that young people might be correctly anxious and worried about the future which looks, in many ways, pretty grim.

chasd00 3y ago
virtually all of that fear and anxiety is generated from consuming click-bait doomer social media.
- wvenable 3y ago
  That seems like a denial of reality. You believe if they don't have social media to tell them that they're working 2 dead end jobs and can't afford to place to live while choking on smoke all summer that they wouldn't notice and just be happy?
- tonetheman 3y ago
  [dead]
- bee_rider 3y ago
  Yes, similarly, I don’t understand why people keep looking at their credit card balances. If you don’t engage with bad news, everybody knows it ceases to impact the real world.
deanCommie 3y ago
You're absolutely right - they're correctly anxious because the future LOOKS grim. But the world has always been pretty grim: For most of humanity your existence was focused on sustenance. Then, once starving was taken care of, of not dying of some preventable disease. The privilege of self-actualization and even having to consider what the future of the earth could be is relatively new. We can certainly then look at the 50's and say well that was prosperity, and even ignoring the unique economic circumstances of the aftermath of the deadliest war in human history, everyone who grew up in this "prosperity" certainly wasn't very optimistic about the world. They were constantly living under the terror of global nuclear annihilation. Except...they weren't. AHA, and here we come to the truth: To survive, and because doom gloom and anxiety were not to be tolerated, everyone bought into the propaganda. People did "duck and cover" drills and expected to survive a nuclear blast. People genuinely believed (in the West, and in the East) that eventually their side would prevail, and there'd be nothing to worry about. People built, people invested in the future, because they HAD to. And then did the hard work of arms talks, detente, etc. What am I trying to say? I think every generation had the right to be CORRECTLY anxious about the future being pretty grim. And this generation is the first one that is being told that it's valid to feel anxiety and to not just stifle away feelings. And yet....I can't help but wonder if the only way humanity can get itself out of trouble is actually with some blind and empty optimism. Climate Doomerism is even infecting the left, and sites like this. "Why should I have children if the world is going to melt? Why should I reduce my carbon footprint if Exxon won't?" (btw. your carbon footprint stimulates demand for fossil fuel products that Exxon then provides. anyways) To fix giant humanity-scale problems you must believe and have an optimistic outlook on the future of humanity. That doesn't mean sticking your head in the sand sand saying "everything will turn out fine", but it does mean saying "Yes, we CAN decarbonize. Yes we CAN create a more fair and equitable world for all. Yes we CAN maintain balance with our ecosystems and not wipe our species or every other one out." And the teenagers need to hear it cuz buddy THEY'RE the ones who have to do it. It doesn't matter if it's hard. WHAT OTHER CHOICE DO YOU HAVE. Well, I suppose Suicide is one answer. I suppose I have heard that when depressed people kill themselves it's because the pain of existence is worse. I never understood it. I care too much about my mortality. I don't believe it. I think the increase in THOSE numbers is just based on more accurate reporting. I don't think teens are killing themselves because they're anxious about the economy or climate change. Of course it's not the teens that should be held responsible for finding that optimism. It needs to be generated and nurtured by the adults around them, and in the media. And I don't mean consumerist influencer optimism, I mean people like Carl Sagan and Neil de Grasse Tyson, and educators, and influencers who can get people truly excited about changing the world for the better. We must all do our part, especially if you're educated and prosperous. Have a child. Raise them well. Inspire them. Challenge them to be hopeful about the future, and being a part of shaping it.

Aunche 3y ago

If small regressions in broad metrics are causing mental illness, that sounds like a social media problem to me.

bongodongobob 3y ago

I think this has to be a huge chunk of it. I'm 40, have an established career, make the most money I've made in my life, live in a smaller city and I can barely afford to get by. I can't afford to take a vacation. I can't afford to buy land or a boat or something. Retirement situation looks grim, likely a bullet to the head. I have literally nothing to look forward to and every day gets harder and harder to tell myself "better things are coming" because I know they're not. Short of a violent revolution in the US, the screws are going to continue to tighten. Like, this is it. This is the culmination of my life's work, barely getting by. I can't imagine being a teen in today's world. I guess the benefit is that they probably don't understand just how fucked they are.

nickd2001 3y ago
Sorry to hear this. If you're now making the most you ever have, and continue to do so, hopefully if you live somewhat frugally and save, you ought to be OK in the long-term? Speaking as someone who for various reasons, mostly the need to support family members, doesn't have the big bucks a lot of tech workers have. I've no prospect of owning land or a boat. ;) Or a fancy car. But I don't really care. :) Vacations - well ours are fine, we go to nice countryside, but doesn't involve flights, hotels, eating out or anything fancy. Seems to me in the West, many expect a high standard of living and feel a failure if we don't achieve that. But people in poorer countries are happy with much less. When I worked in the USA, I noticed many immigrants lived very happy lives on a fraction of resources of their American coworkers/ peers. They hadn't got used to expecting that standard of living. Possibly their kids would be more "American" and feel like that had to have more. * Caveat : US healthcare system is a mess and can cause huge bills , for some people frugality and saving is outweighed by health costs. This system needs fixing IMHO
- oldpersonintx 3y ago
  [dead]

fasterik 3y ago

These are definitely problems, but here are some positive points to balance the negative: The price of renewable energy has fallen 99.8% since 1975 [1] and power generation from renewables has increased 800% since 1965 and doubled since 2010 [2] GDP per capita is 5-20 times higher than in 1820 [3] Life expectancy has more than doubled since 1770 [4] Armed conflict causes just 0.2% of global deaths [5] and relations between nations have become more peaceful since 1945 [6] 5 billion people own smartphones [7], which are orders of magnitude more powerful than a supercomputer of 50 years ago, and which they can use to access the entirety of human knowledge in the form of books, articles, and free lectures from top universities, plus instant communication and collaboration with people across the globe. These are all things that the richest people in the world didn't have access to for most of human history. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-pv-prices https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-pv-prices [2] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/modern-renewable-energy-consumption https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/modern-renewable-energy-c... [3] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison?tab=chart https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison?t... [4] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy [5] https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace?insight=armed-conflict-is-a-rare-cause-of-death-in-most-years-and-countries#key-insights https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace?insight=armed-confl... [6] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/peaceful-and-hostile-relationships-between-states https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/peaceful-and-hostile-rela... [7] https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/02/05/smartphone-ownership-is-growing-rapidly-around-the-world-but-not-always-equally/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/02/05/smartphone-own...

daltont 3y ago
The ironic thing with increase in GDP is that life becomes almost too easy. In the past the difficulty of life didn't require a person to have use as much willpower. Easier life with things like plentiful food and entertainment options requires willpower to not over-indulge. A factory worker or subsistence farmer didn't have force themselves to exercise or worry about spending to much time watching TV. They had to work to not starve.

oldpersonintx 3y ago

[dead]