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Why are today's teens putting off driving, dating and drinking?

chicagotribune.com

81–90 of 211 posts

Re: Why are today's teens putting off driving, dating and drinking?

#81
post #39

My take on it is the absence of role-models. In the 60's LSD and the Stones, the Doors, the Hippies In the 70's Hash and David Bowie, Disco, Kiss, Alice Cooper, Pink FLoyd In the 80's it was Coke and New Wave, Duran Duran, Punk In the 90's it was Alcohol and Metal, Ecstasy and Raves, Madonna's experimental phase encouraging women to test their limits. In the 00's there was Marilyn Manson, Nu Metal? But it's already g…

Listen to any pop or hip hop station. Here's Mask Off (Future ft Drake) - peaked at 5 on Billboard Hot 100 this summer. The hook is mostly this: "percocet, molly percocet" Then check out dubstep and EDM subculture. There is probably a massive rave event happening every weekend in the states. Molly is a massive component of these events.

> There is probably a massive rave event happening every weekend in the states.

How much of that is the teens described in this article? The subjects of the article seem to be mostly post-millennial (current high schoolers) who enjoy hanging at home with their parents. The average age of a massive rave goer probably skews a bit more towards the college and early 20s age bracket.

Re: Why are today's teens putting off driving, dating and drinking?

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My prior is like yours: There are likely different answers to the various points listed above. Regarding this one: > Sex probably includes factors of better sexual education. Higher pregnancy rates are seen in populations with no or bad sexual education. Also, you are 'held to the fire' by the state if you get someone pregnant. It's possible that the easy availability of porn has a lot more to do with this than just…

>> Less sex When I was in high school, I had no idea of what STDs looked like. We learned about it in sex-ed but none of us knew tangibly. There were rumors it was like the flu. Now, google "Genital Warts" and you get an up close view in no time. That alone drives far more caution than what I exercised 25yrs ago.

When I was in high school in the 1990s, the web was in its infancy and I did not use it to look up pictures of STDs, but I knew what they were. I got a basic overview in school describing the cause, symptoms, prognosis, treatment and prevention of the most common ones.

My takeaway from that wasn't that sex was too scary to do, but that condoms were a really good idea.

Re: Why are today's teens putting off driving, dating and drinking?

#83
post #49

No one mentions video games? It seems like they really cut into both the desire and the time to do those things.

I am SURE video games and, ahem, online activities are largely responsible for these trends. The amount of time spent on the computers/tablets/smartphones is staggering, and it has to come from somewhere.

Re: Why are today's teens putting off driving, dating and drinking?

#84

Good parenting? As a parent, I was proud that my sons waited to date, took public transportation or rode their bikes, don't drink cause they're not 21 yet, and decided to have sex at the perfectly reasonable age of 19. I did like how the end of the article mentioned how scary the world is today. They should try living through the Cold War, and the time of Crips and Bloods, and gas lines, and the housing crash. Now th…

I liked how at the end of the article the mom classified behaviors as "all kinds of risky stuff that I can imagine would be age appropriate." Right. As if she was never that age :)

Climate change seems like an odd thing to pick as a scary reason not to have sex or drink. Endless hysterical news stories about kids being abducted, maybe.

It's hard to get too excited about kids delaying driving if they're ALSO not being allowed to go out on their own on transit or bicycles or whatever.

Re: Why are today's teens putting off driving, dating and drinking?

#85
post #15

There are a pile of different answers to these questions (not question), ones that should be asked separately. For example, excluding factors that affect all the questions, putting off drinking is likely a combination of consumer education and the difficulty in getting alcohol pre-21. Fewer adults want to provide their younger peers alcohol because of legal risks. Driving is the combination of increasing expense to d…

> less money to spend on sex This one doesn't need money ;) I would suspect other things being equal, hanging about with little to do would that costs money would encourage socialisation and sex. Anecdotally, I feel kids are more mature in many ways than my generation (I'm late 30's). They have total access to information and I suspect this helps them learn to see the world faster. As for less drinking/drugs, I wonde…

I am not sure about your claim that sex doesn’t require money. At least the male side courtship seems to be rather expensive both in terms of time and money. Granted that depends on what side of the pareto distribution you fall under. I agree with your point that having the breadth of human knowledge at your fingertips helps you make better decisions especially with how inforgiving the internet’s memory is. It does come with a different set of pathologies though. I find that socializing with real people requires a lot more work than it would if I didn’t have an amalgamation of internet people to talk to.

Re: Why are today's teens putting off driving, dating and drinking?

#86

They're not smoking either. Those things are no longer cool badges of maturity, independence, or rebellion. Instead, they're getting piercings and tattoos, identifying as alternative genders, sexting, and claiming more flexible sexual orientations. Alarms the old folks just as effectively.

You forgot to add:

Now GET OFF MY LAWN!?

Re: Why are today's teens putting off driving, dating and drinking?

#87
post #67
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Sex puts you through a lot of suffering (disappointment, self-doubt, rejection, bad life decisions etc.) and simply is a great waste of resources (time, money, energy etc.) and in modern times even more so cause it isn't usually leading to procreation or long-term bonding. Yes sex is nice but it has a heavy price.

I think you might be, err, doing sex wrong if that's how you describe it.

I think he is confusing "sex" with "stuff people go through to get sex"...

Re: Why are today's teens putting off driving, dating and drinking?

#88
post #28

Slightly offtopic but that website jumped to 4.5GB of RAM by the time i was on the third paragraph (Safari on macOS). Perfectly legible (and memory friendly) in lynx, though!

Yup, one of the few sites that really gave my 6 year old macbook air troubles. Adblock counter was running up like crazy.

Re: Why are today's teens putting off driving, dating and drinking?

#89
post #39

My take on it is the absence of role-models. In the 60's LSD and the Stones, the Doors, the Hippies In the 70's Hash and David Bowie, Disco, Kiss, Alice Cooper, Pink FLoyd In the 80's it was Coke and New Wave, Duran Duran, Punk In the 90's it was Alcohol and Metal, Ecstasy and Raves, Madonna's experimental phase encouraging women to test their limits. In the 00's there was Marilyn Manson, Nu Metal? But it's already g…

Listen to any pop or hip hop station. Here's Mask Off (Future ft Drake) - peaked at 5 on Billboard Hot 100 this summer. The hook is mostly this: "percocet, molly percocet" Then check out dubstep and EDM subculture. There is probably a massive rave event happening every weekend in the states. Molly is a massive component of these events.

"Molly" is what the kids call MDMA these days. Just a FYI.
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