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One argument I've enjoyed has been Elliot Sang on "The Loss of Third Places" and how that impacts teenagers: https://youtu.be/9Ku9csXhvJY https://youtu.be/9Ku9c

One argument I've enjoyed has been Elliot Sang on "The Loss of Third Places" and how that impacts teenagers: https://youtu.be/9Ku9csXhvJY https://youtu.be/9Ku9csXhvJY I would argue during these times we need those with wealth to fund third spaces and possible 'learning centers' embedded in nature, to help to "hold the complexity of rapid social change without freaking out.". (See https://youtu.be/TJa_6AHjLw0?t=3719 https://youtu.be/TJa_6AHjLw0?t=3719 )

micromacrofoot 3y ago
> hold the complexity of rapid social change without freaking out this kind of reminds me of the concept of a "social surplus" from a talk Clay Shirkey gave over a decade ago: https://gist.github.com/jm3/6724931 https://gist.github.com/jm3/6724931 The gist being that for a long time television was basically a "buffer" that people would sink extra time into, and this absorbs what otherwise might be social angst (or productivity) > If I had to pick the critical technology for the 20th century, the bit of social lubricant without which the wheels would've come off the whole enterprise, I'd say it was the sitcom. Starting with the Second World War a whole series of things happened--rising GDP per capita, rising educational attainment, rising life expectancy and, critically, a rising number of people who were working five-day work weeks. For the first time, society forced onto an enormous number of its citizens the requirement to manage something they had never had to manage before -- free time. so extending this thought, teens have lost this "third place" where much of the time they were sinking time and energy... now we've got this pent up energy that has no where to go. It's no wonder why a lot of kids are producing content for youtube or tiktok... but this has a lot of problems as a replacement, it's essentially replacing socialization and idle time with something that looks more like a job.
- mschuster91 3y ago
  > For the first time, society forced onto an enormous number of its citizens the requirement to manage something they had never had to manage before -- free time. Medieval (and earlier!) peasants also had ample free time, much more in fact than we have today once you account for the many months of various holidays and festivities [1]. It was industrial capitalism that completely turned over the equation. [1] https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_workweek.html https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_...
- eszed 3y ago
  > we've got this pent up energy that has no where to go. It's no wonder why a lot of kids are producing content for youtube or tiktok... but this has a lot of problems as a replacement. No argument there, but it has advantages, too. TV is entirely passive, whilst creating for TikTok, or wherever, is well, creating. Not, perhaps, an ideal medium - and algorithmically controlled by sinister others - but the collaborative joy I see youngsters bring to their efforts to create the perfect [whatever] is lovely. I'm old enough to remember 'zines, and Geocities, and Flash games, and I wish they were still doing that, because that was great, right? But our elders didn't "get" our youth culture, either, and so I think it's probably OK that I don't totally get most of what they're up to now. They're excited by it, and they're doing it together, and it brings them joy, and (apart from my concern about the algorithmic gods) it's just fine.
  - micromacrofoot 3y ago
    > it's just fine yes and no, the basics are pretty good... but as you mentioned there are some insidious effects from the centralized platforms themselves that weren't as broad reaching in earlier technologies; instagram promoting content that makes teens girls spiral into feeling terrible about themselves, youtube radicalizing incels, etc then there's the monetization aspect that's leading kids to say things like they want to aspire to become youtubers when they grow up
    - eszed 3y ago
      Thanks for fleshing out my point a bit. I completely agree. Centralized platforms always drove culture, but when that was broadcast (emphasis on the first syllable), it was a) visible to, (potentially!) comprehensible, and able to be influenced by outside observers, and b) sub-cultures developed outside the opticon's view. Now the vast majority of social activity belongs to a few opaque platforms, with consequences we don't yet know, but already seem sinister. I'm honestly more worried about how that affects adults than kids! Young people, mainly because they go to school, have more (albeit enforced) opportunities for offline socialization. As a parent, I know I'll have at least some control over my kid's online activity for a while (and once he finds a way around my router rules he'll be a journeyman hacker, so that's cool too), but there's no brake on twenty-somethings (or thirty- or forty-somethings) being pulled down the dark paths you mention. As for kids aspiring to be YouTubers or whatever? Eh, they're just chasing the high-prestige choices within their cultural ambit. It's no different than wanting to be an athlete or rock star once was. They'll find (as we all did) that actually doing so takes a ton of hard work, and a bit of luck; some will dedicate themselves to it, and learn plenty (through either success or failure); most will drift towards different dreams.
jeffbee 3y ago
The first one is a very good video, both factually and philosophically. I do think it's a bit odd that near the end the speaker concludes that only smashing the capitalist system can restore third spaces, though, since all of the examples of useful third places earlier in the video were consequences of the first waves of industrial capitalism. Pubs, bars, soda fountains, coffeehouses, skating rinks, bowling alleys etc.
- seltzered_ 3y ago
  Thanks, I thought about this topic a fair amount. To digress a bit a few other links are: - attention restoration design ( Designing Restoration: Protecting and Restoring Our Attention Through Participatory Design , Beck Tench, 2022 ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4swGe2OFJ4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4swGe2OFJ4 - Daniel Christian Wahl's [more urban or town-centre] idea around museums as bioregional learning centres ( https://designforsustainability.medium.com/museums-as-bioregional-learning-centres-in-a-glocal-world-a-precedence-981842e21e53 https://designforsustainability.medium.com/museums-as-bioreg... ) Bioregional Learning Centre (Ecoversities) Donnella Meadows - History of the Ideas Underlying the Balaton Group(1982) https://donellameadows.org/archives/history-of-the-ideas-underlying-the-balaton-group/ https://donellameadows.org/archives/history-of-the-ideas-und... Will likely be rambling about this more on https://transition-er.mn.co https://transition-er.mn.co . (Originally aggregated this stuff on https://earth-regenerators.mn.co/posts/the-design-pathway-book-study-ch-14-additional-resources https://earth-regenerators.mn.co/posts/the-design-pathway-bo... )

micromacrofoot 3y ago

> hold the complexity of rapid social change without freaking out this kind of reminds me of the concept of a "social surplus" from a talk Clay Shirkey gave over a decade ago: https://gist.github.com/jm3/6724931 https://gist.github.com/jm3/6724931 The gist being that for a long time television was basically a "buffer" that people would sink extra time into, and this absorbs what otherwise might be social angst (or productivity) > If I had to pick the critical technology for the 20th century, the bit of social lubricant without which the wheels would've come off the whole enterprise, I'd say it was the sitcom. Starting with the Second World War a whole series of things happened--rising GDP per capita, rising educational attainment, rising life expectancy and, critically, a rising number of people who were working five-day work weeks. For the first time, society forced onto an enormous number of its citizens the requirement to manage something they had never had to manage before -- free time. so extending this thought, teens have lost this "third place" where much of the time they were sinking time and energy... now we've got this pent up energy that has no where to go. It's no wonder why a lot of kids are producing content for youtube or tiktok... but this has a lot of problems as a replacement, it's essentially replacing socialization and idle time with something that looks more like a job.

mschuster91 3y ago
> For the first time, society forced onto an enormous number of its citizens the requirement to manage something they had never had to manage before -- free time. Medieval (and earlier!) peasants also had ample free time, much more in fact than we have today once you account for the many months of various holidays and festivities [1]. It was industrial capitalism that completely turned over the equation. [1] https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_workweek.html https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_...
eszed 3y ago
> we've got this pent up energy that has no where to go. It's no wonder why a lot of kids are producing content for youtube or tiktok... but this has a lot of problems as a replacement. No argument there, but it has advantages, too. TV is entirely passive, whilst creating for TikTok, or wherever, is well, creating. Not, perhaps, an ideal medium - and algorithmically controlled by sinister others - but the collaborative joy I see youngsters bring to their efforts to create the perfect [whatever] is lovely. I'm old enough to remember 'zines, and Geocities, and Flash games, and I wish they were still doing that, because that was great, right? But our elders didn't "get" our youth culture, either, and so I think it's probably OK that I don't totally get most of what they're up to now. They're excited by it, and they're doing it together, and it brings them joy, and (apart from my concern about the algorithmic gods) it's just fine.
- micromacrofoot 3y ago
  > it's just fine yes and no, the basics are pretty good... but as you mentioned there are some insidious effects from the centralized platforms themselves that weren't as broad reaching in earlier technologies; instagram promoting content that makes teens girls spiral into feeling terrible about themselves, youtube radicalizing incels, etc then there's the monetization aspect that's leading kids to say things like they want to aspire to become youtubers when they grow up
  - eszed 3y ago
    Thanks for fleshing out my point a bit. I completely agree. Centralized platforms always drove culture, but when that was broadcast (emphasis on the first syllable), it was a) visible to, (potentially!) comprehensible, and able to be influenced by outside observers, and b) sub-cultures developed outside the opticon's view. Now the vast majority of social activity belongs to a few opaque platforms, with consequences we don't yet know, but already seem sinister. I'm honestly more worried about how that affects adults than kids! Young people, mainly because they go to school, have more (albeit enforced) opportunities for offline socialization. As a parent, I know I'll have at least some control over my kid's online activity for a while (and once he finds a way around my router rules he'll be a journeyman hacker, so that's cool too), but there's no brake on twenty-somethings (or thirty- or forty-somethings) being pulled down the dark paths you mention. As for kids aspiring to be YouTubers or whatever? Eh, they're just chasing the high-prestige choices within their cultural ambit. It's no different than wanting to be an athlete or rock star once was. They'll find (as we all did) that actually doing so takes a ton of hard work, and a bit of luck; some will dedicate themselves to it, and learn plenty (through either success or failure); most will drift towards different dreams.

jeffbee 3y ago

The first one is a very good video, both factually and philosophically. I do think it's a bit odd that near the end the speaker concludes that only smashing the capitalist system can restore third spaces, though, since all of the examples of useful third places earlier in the video were consequences of the first waves of industrial capitalism. Pubs, bars, soda fountains, coffeehouses, skating rinks, bowling alleys etc.

seltzered_ 3y ago
Thanks, I thought about this topic a fair amount. To digress a bit a few other links are: - attention restoration design ( Designing Restoration: Protecting and Restoring Our Attention Through Participatory Design , Beck Tench, 2022 ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4swGe2OFJ4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4swGe2OFJ4 - Daniel Christian Wahl's [more urban or town-centre] idea around museums as bioregional learning centres ( https://designforsustainability.medium.com/museums-as-bioregional-learning-centres-in-a-glocal-world-a-precedence-981842e21e53 https://designforsustainability.medium.com/museums-as-bioreg... ) Bioregional Learning Centre (Ecoversities) Donnella Meadows - History of the Ideas Underlying the Balaton Group(1982) https://donellameadows.org/archives/history-of-the-ideas-underlying-the-balaton-group/ https://donellameadows.org/archives/history-of-the-ideas-und... Will likely be rambling about this more on https://transition-er.mn.co https://transition-er.mn.co . (Originally aggregated this stuff on https://earth-regenerators.mn.co/posts/the-design-pathway-book-study-ch-14-additional-resources https://earth-regenerators.mn.co/posts/the-design-pathway-bo... )