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[Trogdor1123]

Available jobs is nice, but they don’t tell the whole story. Home and rental prices have risen significantly faster than high paying job opportunities have. It’s even worse if you’re getting a job somewhere that has a substantial cost of living (the Bay Area for instance) where your high paying job just can’t cover the cost of actual living.

Agree but demographics are going to change significantly. Sadly, people will get old and die or move into homes better suited to them or supportive care. It won’t be everywhere but it will definitely be in lots of places.

In addition the mobility of labour will help. It won’t happen over night I agree but people need to think long term for these things rather than instant gratification. Easier said than done with kids, but that also leads me to think that isn’t issue either. They aren’t looking at it.

 

[OmegaSupreme]

Social media censorship and restrictions are coming. Been says this for quite some time. First step will be making it adult only. Mark my words.

Porn is "adult only" too but that was easy enough to circumvent as a teen. I'd be curious to know how they would do it.

 

[DaleinCalgary]

wrong

 

[Catphish]

Social media censorship and restrictions are coming. Been says this for quite some time. First step will be making it adult only. Mark my words.

Call me crazy but unlike say the 80s and 90s I think this generation will be looked down upon in the future. Kinda feel bad for todays teens.

I'd like to believe that but, if they can't control guns, or even porn, I highly doubt there will be a curtailment of social media. It makes too much money, mines too much data, and has people too easily programmable to think that its power would be restricted. The only censorship or restrictions will be on content that challenges or threatens to undermine the power base.

Would love to be wrong, though.

 

[The_hunter]

Didn't read the article, but teen angst is normal.

 

[Ememee]

I’m an idiot but I do think smartphones, social media and the culture in itself (associated with the previously mentioned) are the main culprit.

Along with everything else I guess.

 

[OmegaSupreme]

wrong

What is?

 

[NickFire]

When the people the most impressionable humans listen to tell them every single day why they should be depressed, the most impressionable people will be depressed.

 

[DeepBreath87]

I would contend the main reason is because we have lost our purpose and belief as a society. We have denigrated our high minded goals. People of the past where oriented towards things like exploration and expansion or overcoming nature. Others devoted themselves to glorifying their Gods or improving the life of their families.

Our society has denigrated all those things. Exploration and expansion are colonialist. Religion is false and bigoted. Even having a family is seen as selfish or pointless or wrong somehow.

Now all of these things, it can be argued, are unnecessary. Maybe the arguments against them are correct, on some level. But if you removed all of the higher goals while replacing them with nothing, you end up left with nihilism. That is where we are right now. We are society that provides children with zero direction.

Worse, we undermine fundamental parts of their identity to the point where they don’t even know who they are. It used to be you could define yourself pretty easily. You could be a Jewish boy from New York. That’s a decent foundation. It says what you are, what you believe, and where you’re from. Then a person could build off that and become more.

Our society has made people feel no pride in where they are from. Now you’re a product of privilege and oppression or a victim of it. Your religion is basically just a bunch of oppressive lies meant to keep people down and keep you from enjoying yourself. Even your gender isn’t a product of anything “real” like biology. It’s just a societal construct that is really about, again, oppressively categorizing people.

We have stripped down all the things that allow a kid to form an identity and replaced it with vapid, “self love” bullshit. I think kids are so uncertain about who they are that they spend all their time looking inward to the point they drive themselves insane. Our society does a terrible job of providing kids with any direction, to the point where some parents are unwilling to even reinforce that their sons and daughters are in fact boys and girls. Kids need direction. People need direction. We have become lost and aimless.

 

[JimmyRustler]

I'd like to believe that but, if they can't control guns, or even porn, I highly doubt there will be a curtailment of social media. It makes too much money, mines too much data, and has people too easily programmable to think that its power would be restricted. The only censorship or restrictions will be on content that challenges or threatens to undermine the power base.

Would love to be wrong, though.

But guns are controlled everywhere outside perhaps the US. Porn doesn‘t cause similar issues so l‘m not sure if the same thing applies. Though it may get some restriction too in the future. Who knows? Keep in mind that porn hasn‘t been around much longer in this state than social media. As to how they‘ll do it… well, I say at least in the EU having the Apps banned on AppleStore could be a first step. Or provider ban would be another way. I know, there are ways around this on the net but I doubt that most people will actually go through this and then I see it just kinda slowly fade away.

 

[InfiniteCombo]

I would contend the main reason is because we have lost our purpose and belief as a society. We have denigrated our high minded goals. People of the past where oriented towards things like exploration and expansion or overcoming nature. Others devoted themselves to glorifying their Gods or improving the life of their families.

Our society has denigrated all those things. Exploration and expansion are colonialist. Religion is false and bigoted. Even having a family is seen as selfish or pointless or wrong somehow.

Now all of these things, it can be argued, are unnecessary. Maybe the arguments against them are correct, on some level. But if you removed all of the higher goals while replacing them with nothing, you end up left with nihilism. That is where we are right now. We are society that provides children with zero direction.

Worse, we undermine fundamental parts of their identity to the point where they don’t even know who they are. It used to be you could define yourself pretty easily. You could be a Jewish boy from New York. That’s a decent foundation. It says what you are, what you believe, and where you’re from. Then a person could build off that and become more.

Our society has made people feel no pride in where they are from. Now you’re a product of privilege and oppression or a victim of it. Your religion is basically just a bunch of oppressive lies meant to keep people down and keep you from enjoying yourself. Even your gender isn’t a product of anything “real” like biology. It’s just a societal construct that is really about, again, oppressively categorizing people.

We have stripped down all the things that allow a kid to form an identity and replaced it with vapid, “self love” bullshit. I think kids are so uncertain about who they are that they spend all their time looking inward to the point they drive themselves insane. Our society does a terrible job of providing kids with any direction, to the point where some parents are unwilling to even reinforce that their sons and daughters are in fact boys and girls. Kids need direction. People need direction. We have become lost and aimless.

One of the best posts I've ever seen in my 8+ years on this forum.

 

[AV]

That music normalizes this state of mind and it's not healthy or cute.

Normalises is a word I was looking for and couldn't find, thanks. That's what it is. It becomes so incredibly normal to be depressed, or on some sort of medication, to the point where kids genuinely feel left out or weird if they're NOT feeling like that.

 

[EverydayBeast]

That’s how the teenage years are constructed at least for boys it means being able to play sports, having an impact on outside of school activities. Covid makes things difficult to scout out sadness in teens. You’re seeing more teens vape, because they make it widely available.

 

[StormCell]

One of the reasons the Mrs and I likely won't have kids. There's just too much doom & gloom everywhere.

Suit yourself. The state of the world is actually one of the reasons I'm more determined to have more children. At minimum, I will hopefully propagate a good set of thoughts and beliefs and leave the world with more educated and balanced adults.

EviLore That was a good read, and I have no idea how so many left the OP and arrived at the various conclusions that they did. I feel that Twenge raises the most compelling points. Anecdotally, I have seen this effect for myself in my wife's behaviors and moods. A little bit of exposure to social media can have mixed results on one's mood, but it's the always-connected and always-available characteristic of smart phones that make this such a negative and amplified negative effect. My wife has acknowledged that getting away from her phone during normal working hours has a positive effect on her overall mood. I detected a similar pattern in myself years ago when I would browse Facebook and come away feeling disappointed that groups of friends did things without me or without even inviting me, etc., until eventually I decided I didn't need to know most of what I was seeing on the timeline.

Basically, there's no tangible benefit to knowing the things that FB tells us, and there lies the great problem with smart phones + social media. I find it bad enough that I'm even basically required to function on social media as a sponsored athlete, but I can't fathom staying connected the same way I was when I was in college. I would probably look like the graph if I lived my entire existence through these apps and I relied on likes and views to determine my worth to the world.

This all leads me to the thought that being always connected is a bigger part of the problem. We're all prone to over-consumption of the internet, and social media is an all-you-can-drink tray of martinis. It was nice back in the day when you could sit down in front of the computer, log on to the internet, and get updates from a friend or family member. Back then it didn't seem to be a competition for social media points. If it was, you could disconnect from it and it stayed on the internet. Being always there makes it never go away. We hit some sort of world/internet singularity when the smart phone hit store shelves. Getting rid of smart phones won't solve the problem, but changing how we socially interact will.

The inevitable solution will be a change in social tastes... a generation of youth who find our photos of social situations to be pitiful pleas for attention. lol "Anybody can snap a photo of a glass of wine, bro, but check out this killer code solution I put up on my feed and comment on where you think I could improve efficiency!"

 

[MadAnon]

It's all because of social networks. I mean, just look at shit subs on reddit like r/antiwork. All it does is just enforce this idea that you have no hope, everything's shit. Imagine reading crap like that all day, it's a motivation killer and only feeds negative mindset. Then you have all these influencers showing how perfect their life is, how they are making tons of money by doing what they love etc. And then you just sit around and think about how shit your life is in comparison.

 

[Maiden Voyage]

To me this is insane as overpopulation is probably not a problem where you live. More economically stable and technologically advanced societies don’t have an overpopulation problem, they have a birth rate problem.

It’s not where I live at all. It’s also not about my city, more a global view.

Suit yourself. The state of the world is actually one of the reasons I'm more determined to have more children. At minimum, I will hopefully propagate a good set of thoughts and beliefs and leave the world with more educated and balanced adults.

I hope your wife likes fucking and bearing children.

 

[MatrixReloaded101]

Back in the day people would get married and start having kids and create a family that gave them purpose.

Nowadays , girls are being taught to value career and money over starting a family and boys are told that they hold no value unless they can become famous and rich like the people they see on social media.

The constant pursuit of money and fame creates emptiness, jealously and isolation. Especially for teens that are too young to even be constantly thinking about making money.

Than you factor in the declining number of good paying jobs, increasing prices of rent/housing and crippling student loan debt that is probably causing stress and mental illness for the teens parents and family members. Its no wonder they feel hopeless and constantly sad.

 

[Wildebeest]

I would contend the main reason is because we have lost our purpose and belief as a society. We have denigrated our high minded goals. People of the past where oriented towards things like exploration and expansion or overcoming nature. Others devoted themselves to glorifying their Gods or improving the life of their families.

Interesting that you don't mention studying arts and humanities in this list of thing that show that America no longer values "high-minded" activities. These subjects are first in line in the US education system when it comes to cuts, and the reason is that America is not nihilistic. It has an extreme love and reverence for the power and meaning of money.

 

[DeepBreath87]

Interesting that you don't mention studying arts and humanities in this list of thing that show that America no longer values "high-minded" activities. These subjects are first in line in the US education system when it comes to cuts, and the reason is that America is not nihilistic. It has an extreme love and reverence for the power and meaning of money.

Arts and Humanities don’t really provide the purpose, in my estimation. They more reflect the values of society. Which is why so much of our art is terrible. Modern art and music is generally terrible not so much because we don’t value art and music, but because they are a reflection of an empty, sick society.

I think people can find individual purpose in things like art, but broadly speaking, they don’t drive purpose or belief. They a product of healthy societies, rather than the cause of them.

 

[OmegaSupreme]

Here's a funny thing. I couldn't delete Facebook on my old phone. I could "deactivate" it but I couldn't delete it. So the icon would remain there. This was a note 8. I have no idea if it's different on modern phones but I found it irriating. Why didn't they want me to delete facebook?

 

[Wildebeest]

Arts and Humanities don’t really provide the purpose, in my estimation. They more reflect the values of society. Which is why so much of our art is terrible. Modern art and music is generally terrible not so much because we don’t value art and music, but because they are a reflection of an empty, sick society.

Please tell me how to get musicians like this without any education.



These skills do not appear from nowhere because you believe in god or have some abstract "values" which don't involve hard work and sacrifice from teachers and students.

 

[DeepBreath87]

Please tell me how to get musicians like this without any education.



These skills do not appear from nowhere because you believe in god or have some abstract "values" which don't involve hard work and sacrifice from teachers and students.

No. Natural singing talent is mostly biology and practice. But composing the music? That’s cultural. That’s a product of your history and your upbringing and your environment. The music is the product of the culture and the society, not the other way around.

 

[Wildebeest]

No. Natural singing talent is mostly biology and practice. But composing the music? That’s cultural. That’s a product of your history and your upbringing and your environment. The music is the product of the culture and the society, not the other way around.

Why do you think that Nina Simone's "culture" was improvising Bach compositions on piano? Education had nothing to do with it?

 

[DeepBreath87]

Why do you think that Nina Simone's "culture" was improvising Bach compositions on piano? Education had nothing to do with it?

I think we are talking past each other. People need purpose. Music, for instance, can help people find purpose. Music is still downstream of what I’m talking about. Art and music are symptoms of the society that produces and enjoys them. Just saying “study art” could produce the Mona Lisa or trash modern art, depending on the society you’re living in.

 

[Go_Ly_Dow]

I would contend the main reason is because we have lost our purpose and belief as a society. We have denigrated our high minded goals. People of the past where oriented towards things like exploration and expansion or overcoming nature. Others devoted themselves to glorifying their Gods or improving the life of their families.

Our society has denigrated all those things. Exploration and expansion are colonialist. Religion is false and bigoted. Even having a family is seen as selfish or pointless or wrong somehow.

Now all of these things, it can be argued, are unnecessary. Maybe the arguments against them are correct, on some level. But if you removed all of the higher goals while replacing them with nothing, you end up left with nihilism. That is where we are right now. We are society that provides children with zero direction.

Worse, we undermine fundamental parts of their identity to the point where they don’t even know who they are. It used to be you could define yourself pretty easily. You could be a Jewish boy from New York. That’s a decent foundation. It says what you are, what you believe, and where you’re from. Then a person could build off that and become more.

Our society has made people feel no pride in where they are from. Now you’re a product of privilege and oppression or a victim of it. Your religion is basically just a bunch of oppressive lies meant to keep people down and keep you from enjoying yourself. Even your gender isn’t a product of anything “real” like biology. It’s just a societal construct that is really about, again, oppressively categorizing people.

We have stripped down all the things that allow a kid to form an identity and replaced it with vapid, “self love” bullshit. I think kids are so uncertain about who they are that they spend all their time looking inward to the point they drive themselves insane. Our society does a terrible job of providing kids with any direction, to the point where some parents are unwilling to even reinforce that their sons and daughters are in fact boys and girls. Kids need direction. People need direction. We have become lost and aimless.

Amen to that.

It's an utter travesty.

 

[Maiden Voyage]

Here's a funny thing. I couldn't delete Facebook on my old phone. I could "deactivate" it but I couldn't delete it. So the icon would remain there. This was a note 8. I have no idea if it's different on modern phones but I found it irriating. Why didn't they want me to delete facebook?

They sign deal with the phone manufacturer. Honestly sucks for Android users and also why so many prefer vanilla.

 

[Davey Cakes]

It's all because of social networks. I mean, just look at shit subs on reddit like r/antiwork. All it does is just enforce this idea that you have no hope, everything's shit. Imagine reading crap like that all day, it's a motivation killer and only feeds negative mindset. Then you have all these influencers showing how perfect their life is, how they are making tons of money by doing what they love etc. And then you just sit around and think about how shit your life is in comparison.

I disagree about r/antiwork. It's just a way to lift the veil and show how people are mistreated in the work world, and how there should be solidarity across disciplines and across white collar and blue collar. If it leads to more unionization efforts and strikes/protests, then I'm all for it. Obviously the messaging is negative, but if it gets people to mobilize then what's wrong? Complacency with a broken system is the problem. People burying their heads in the sand doesn't help.

Funny how people say "no one is driven or motivated to do anything" but when they see regular working people FINALLY standing up for themselves, they say "not like that."

Everyone wants to return to the 1950's but no one wants to admit that getting there is impossible, besides the ONE thing we can do which is restore the power of the people. All this talk about bringing back the family unit means nothing unless the family can THRIVE rather than just SURVIVE. Our world would definitely be in a better place if all families only required a single income so that there was always a parent at home to properly raise their kid(s).

 

[DeepBreath87]

I disagree about r/antiwork. It's just a way to lift the veil and show how people are mistreated in the work world, and how there should be solidarity across disciplines and across white collar and blue collar. If it leads to more unionization efforts and strikes/protests, then I'm all for it. Obviously the messaging is negative, but if it gets people to mobilize then what's wrong? Complacency with a broken system is the problem. People burying their heads in the sand doesn't help.

Funny how people say "no one is driven to do anything" but when they see regular working people FINALLY standing up for themselves, they say "not like that."

Everyone wants to return to the 1950's but no one wants to admit that getting there is impossible, besides the ONE thing we can do which is restore the power of the people.

There is no “people”. We have nothing in common. We don’t collectively share the same values and I don’t think it’s something people can compromise about. I’m speaking about America because that’s where I live. What values do Americans share in broad numbers these days? What do we believe in fundamentally? So the idea of power going to the people fails because the “people” don’t share the same goals.

 

[OmegaSupreme]

I disagree about r/antiwork. It's just a way to lift the veil and show how people are mistreated in the work world, and how there should be solidarity across disciplines and across white collar and blue collar. If it leads to more unionization efforts and strikes/protests, then I'm all for it. Obviously the messaging is negative, but if it gets people to mobilize then what's wrong? Complacency with a broken system is the problem. People burying their heads in the sand doesn't help.

Funny how people say "no one is driven or motivated to do anything" but when they see regular working people FINALLY standing up for themselves, they say "not like that."

Everyone wants to return to the 1950's but no one wants to admit that getting there is impossible, besides the ONE thing we can do which is restore the power of the people. All this talk about bringing back the family unit means nothing unless the family can THRIVE rather than just SURVIVE. Our world would definitely be in a better place if all families only required a single income so that there was always a parent at home to properly raise their kid(s).

You must have missed that infamous interview from a little while back. r/antiwork was a safe space for lazy losers who believe they shouldn't have to work at all. Even the name antiwork is bs. Why not fairwork?

 

[Davey Cakes]

You must have missed that infamous interview from a little while back. r/antiwork was a safe space for lazy losers who believe they shouldn't have to work at all. Even the name antiwork is bs. Why not fairwork?

That interview wasn't representative of what the movement became. I agree it was embarrassing. That's why r/WorkReform is a thing now.

 

[12Goblins]

I like how maladjusted boomers are projecting their own insecurities on the changes going on around that they don't understand instead of reading the article

 

[InfiniteCombo]

I like how maladjusted boomers are projecting their own insecurities on the changes going on around that they don't understand instead of reading the article

Examples?

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

Delete twitter, disable likes/views and comments on instagram.

 

[Lunarorbit]

My two cents is, The news is a huge contributing factor.

No matter which channel it's on, it's always negative, from wars to covid, to climate change to everyone is racist/ misogynistic bla bla bla, its 24 hours a day of none stop despair.

Go to an airport, CNN is on 24/7, go on to yahoo to check emails, it's just none stop articles trying to make you pick a side and hate on someone.

And it's the same every single day, day in, day out, year in, year out.

Here here. When I lived in Texas there was a light hearted news show that would come on and it was my favorite thing to watch. It was a variety show that just had local people and animals segments that didn't focus exclusively on the negative.

The national news organizations just run the same doomer shit all day to get you to stay tuned. But I think it's really shifted people's expectations of reality.

People are more apt to think the worst of everything and social media and Doom scrolling the news is a huge contributor.

 

[SF Kosmo]

I don't think it's just social media per se, but a shift toward less personal means of communication, such as text messaging, and a decreased emphasis on group activities. Social media is part of that, but not the only part.

As a teenager we hung out face to face, talked on the phone sometimes for hours a night, and we developed social skills and confidence that today's teens just don't have as much.

And it's a vicious cycle. Without that socialization, these kids will grow into adults that find it harder to meet friends, find romantic and sexual partners, and succeed professionally. All of that can mean poor mental health.

 

[StormCell]

There is no “people”. We have nothing in common. We don’t collectively share the same values and I don’t think it’s something people can compromise about. I’m speaking about America because that’s where I live. What values do Americans share in broad numbers these days? What do we believe in fundamentally? So the idea of power going to the people fails because the “people” don’t share the same goals.

There is so much power in these statements. It's too bad all that power belongs to the ones who need you to believe it.

There has always been plenty of division, but we all have death and taxes in common. Right now, the way things are setup, you must pay taxes in order to have a home. There's no reality where you live a solitary peaceful life on a couple of acres nestled by the woods living off a garden and some meat animals where you never have to deal with the IRS or the Feds the rest of your life. Every year, you will pay property taxes. If that means you had to take a job to raise the funds, then you will also pay income tax. Assuming you don't have internet (no electricity, no ISP), you now have to venture into society to obtain the proper tax forms either through a library or a tax handler's office. This probably means you drove there, so now there's tabs and vehicle registration fees. I think you get what I'm saying... you're nothing more than a slave to the governing system, and it all starts with property taxes.

There's no good wholesome reason for them to collect taxes on something you already own except to maintain a leash on every citizen in the Union. It's this leash that keeps us beholden to employers and whatever cold sterile work environment they can concoct for us. lol

I feel like we have plenty in common with every other working aged adult in the US.

 

[BigBooper]

Social media is a vampire of many things including mental health. My kids will do the same as I did, no cell phones or unsupervised social media until they start driving.

Hard to know what to do after that age and when they start to become adults. Just don't enable bad behavior I guess, but it's not hard to survive if they want to leave you and be a loser. I had a small graduating class and most of them seemed to have good parents, but at least a third seemed to spread into addiction and criminal behavior; even beating spouses and murder.

I also think throwing away cultural standards of morality and accomplishment, ie Christianity, is a big part of it

 

[Kraz]

3. The world is stressful—and there is more news about the world’s stressors

4. Modern parenting strategies

Children being provided proper worldly context and intellectual tools sooner to be able to process not only stressors but all the streams of information available in a technological free speech society is a parenting issue. When the world doesn't conform as true to the Pollyanna introduced to youth at basic foundational levels at the start of their cognizance, when later worldly experience doesn't follow expectations, it creates circumstances for depression and resentment. Adjustments of varying degree in worldview affecting processes then has to done later ad hoc. It'll take new developments to approaches with parenting, medicine, and educators which will follow along with cultural changes to adapt in the new millennia for future generations.

 

[Nezzeroth]

Some people today are more concerned about sharing whatever they’re doing on social media than actually enjoying the moment, so I can’t say I’m surprised. They live fake empty lives.

Phone addiction is also a big thing.

 

[DragoonKain]

Not just teens, unfortunately. I've never seen a state as long as I've been alive with such rampant mental illness not only left unchecked, but enabled.

In some instances, reality in itself has been completely pushed aside in favor of fantasies just to not hurt the feelings of some who can't handle living in the real world and accepting truth.

And unfortunately, there's something currently going on that I'm not going to talk about here that ties into teens mental health, that is being exploited and taken advantage of that I find sick and repulsive.

None of this is going to end well.

 

[Batiman]

Obviously social media is the main issue.
The housing crisis here in Toronto has a lot of young adults just giving up and accepting they’ll never own their own home. I’m lucky I jumped in before shot hit the fan. I know tons of young teens who also just don’t want to work anymore as well. With fake entrepreneurs telling them a 9-5 job is for losers and they need to get on the “grind”. The problem is everybody is on their “grind” but not everyone is built for it.
Young people are taking these chances and a lot of them are just putting themselves in debt. In short, everybody wants to be a Gary V.

 

[DeepBreath87]

There is so much power in these statements. It's too bad all that power belongs to the ones who need you to believe it.

There has always been plenty of division, but we all have death and taxes in common. Right now, the way things are setup, you must pay taxes in order to have a home. There's no reality where you live a solitary peaceful life on a couple of acres nestled by the woods living off a garden and some meat animals where you never have to deal with the IRS or the Feds the rest of your life. Every year, you will pay property taxes. If that means you had to take a job to raise the funds, then you will also pay income tax. Assuming you don't have internet (no electricity, no ISP), you now have to venture into society to obtain the proper tax forms either through a library or a tax handler's office. This probably means you drove there, so now there's tabs and vehicle registration fees. I think you get what I'm saying... you're nothing more than a slave to the governing system, and it all starts with property taxes.

There's no good wholesome reason for them to collect taxes on something you already own except to maintain a leash on every citizen in the Union. It's this leash that keeps us beholden to employers and whatever cold sterile work environment they can concoct for us. lol

I feel like we have plenty in common with every other working aged adult in the US.

We have certainly realities in common, although I would argue even our reality has become divided. But we have very few values in common.

We might all share the value that I can keep my money. But we don’t all share the value that you can keep yours. In fact, selfishness is probably our most widely held value, which is probably a part of this whole problem.

 

[Missingnomer]

The internet has given us all of humanities knowledge at our fingertips which is a blessing and a curse. Teenagers have dreams, hobbies, and talents that they want to pursue and develop, but knowledge tells them to not bother. If you love drawing, woodworking, teaching, gardening, and so many other fun and enjoyable activities, you wont want to pursue them. There is no economic growth for most people in those things. Pursue a career or lifestyle that provides stable economic growth through out your life. Forget passion, adventure, imagination, and creativity. Focus solely on financial growth. Knowledge is a great enabler, but I also think it is a great disabler too. I would have loved to become an artist or musician, but those fields aren't lucrative for most people. It made way more sense to become an engineer. Souless work that pays the bills and then some. Money > passion will cripple people.

We live in the era of computers which are way more efficient than humans. We make food, products, and services at a fraction of the time and effort, yet we work just as many hours as our grandparents. Forget enjoying anything, just make money. Depressing as hell. Literally min-maxing life.

 

[K' Dash]

Social media use is up.

In person social interactions are down.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

No surprise at all.

Any of us who are old enough to remember the 80s and 90s before the net could tell you people were happier hanging out, playing after school street hockey or playing phone tag and trying to coordinate people coming over on a weekend. Do kids eve go to each other's houses anymore to work on projects? Dont know. Maybe they all do it on MS Teams or something. Back then it was a special kind of thing for people to go over to a friend's house, eat dinner there, do some homework/projects, and if you got time to watch some TV before heading home. And if you lived far, either they drove you home or your bro or dad came to pick you up.

Not just social media though. IMO, its the combo of cellphone/internet and social media. Even if there was no Twitter, FB, Instagram etc.... just the fact everyone can stay home like hermits and text each other on SMS is bad too. But when combined with social media (posts, shares and likes) it becomes a deadly combo for people who are emotional.

For older people like many of us on gaf, we got cellphones and social media too, but likely dont give that much shit about it like 16 years olds. When you got jobs and familty and a house to pay for, you got a different focus in life. Social media is more for entertainment than for conformity.

 

[DeepBreath87]

No surprise at all.

Any of us who are old enough to remember the 80s and 90s before the net could tell you people were happier hanging out, playing after school street hockey or playing phone tag and trying to coordinate people coming over on a weekend. Do kids eve go to each other's houses anymore to work on projects? Dont know. Maybe they all do it on MS Teams or something. Back then it was a special kind of thing for people to go over to a friend's house, eat dinner there, do some homework/projects, and if you got time to watch some TV before heading home. And if you lived far, either they drove you home or your bro or dad came to pick you up.

Not just social media though. IMO, its the combo of cellphone/internet and social media. Even if there was no Twitter, FB, Instagram etc.... just the fact everyone can stay home like hermits and text each other on SMS is bad too. But when combined with social media (posts, shares and likes) it becomes a deadly combo for people who are emotional.

For older people like many of us on gaf, we got cellphones and social media too, but likely dont give that much shit about it like 16 years olds. When you got jobs and familty and a house to pay for, you got a different focus in life. Social media is more for entertainment than for conformity.

I think it should be said that maybe the internet just isn’t good for kids. It’s very often not good for adults either. But at least adults might be developed enough to keep perspective. Unfettered access to the internet and particularly social media detracts a kids’ attention from developing skills and relationships in reality. Not to mention all the porn and other nonsense kids have no business seeing.

It’s kind of like letting your kid have access to the whole world at 14. They just aren’t ready for it. Maybe it’s better to keep their world small so they can learn to manage that. Then, when they’re a little older and wiser, they’ll be ready to open up themselves up to the whole online world.

I know that’s idealistic and naive. It’s very hard to keep your kids off social media these days. But something probably needs to be done because things are going to go off the rails if this trend continues.

 

[LiquidMetal14]

Unfortunately we have been training this way for such a long time and all the videos and constant before bombardment with social media cusses more anxiety than it's worth. Of course there is more to it but don't you notice that people used to go out and play more and we lived in a more care free world without all the BS.

Well.......BS has always excited but things have changed so much and it must suck to be a kid compared to pre 1980's kids.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

The one thing that can be a postive, is if there's such a study taking a look at these depressed kids and seeing what they are like when they are 40 or older.

Maybe it's not so doom and gloom and a lot of these kids just grow out of it. Kinds of like that post someone mentioned in another thread about teenagers and young people being punkers, goths, emo etc.... When youre 35 with a job and fam, most of these people are changed into your average boring parents wearing jeans and Gap polo shirts.

There's always hope they can outgrow it.

 

[ipukespiders]

But I think Twenge’s strongest point is misunderstood. Social media isn’t like rat poison, which is toxic to almost everyone. It’s more like alcohol: a mildly addictive substance that can enhance social situations but can also lead to dependency and depression among a minority of users.

Yes, it's definitely rat poison.

 

[NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt]

We're currently in the 'Weak Men' phase, the 'Hard Times' are coming.

Agreed. Especially with the Anti Male Propoganda that's been infesting Entertainment, Education, Government for years now