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U.S. teens are spending less time with their friends in person

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Re: U.S. teens are spending less time with their friends in person

#41

Post by gowld »

darkpuma wrote: post #7
hannasanarion wrote: post #3

All the sillhouettes of kids in the banner have undercuts and it makes me shivver. Hate that style. I guess I'm an old man now. Anyway, I'm hardly surprised that kids aren't spending time with friends in person, because nobody likes spending time with people in person as default. In my childhood in the 90s, I did it only for events that require it, like board games or sports, or when the alternatives are boring or un…

> "because nobody likes spending time with people in person as default." That's very far from true.

More true for people who do their socializing on text chat forums.

Re: U.S. teens are spending less time with their friends in person

#43

Post by stiglitz »

trhway wrote: post #34
skywhopper wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, more and more super-suburban living, combined with increasingly restrictive teen driving regulations, curfews, and fear-based media stories about abductions have ratcheted down the ability of teens to hang out together. So when technology came along to enable improved interpersonal contact, it was embraced far more rapidly than it would have been if teen freedom were as high as it was in the 70s. The graphs they…

> that they are entirely responsible for changes in loneliness. loneliness? The amount and richness of communication like the number of participants, number of parallel communications, number of the topics and the range of opinions, etc. is most probably much higher when using smartphones then when it is subject to the limitations of physical presence. Our species brain development is basically history of social comm…

It’s hazardous and frankly inhuman to boil down human interaction into metrics like “number of participants.”

I’m amused by this notion that “it may feel like loneliness but it’s actually the richness of our new modes of communication you are feeling! Just get used to it!”

Re: U.S. teens are spending less time with their friends in person

#44

Post by [deleted] »

hannasanarion wrote: post #3

All the sillhouettes of kids in the banner have undercuts and it makes me shivver. Hate that style. I guess I'm an old man now. Anyway, I'm hardly surprised that kids aren't spending time with friends in person, because nobody likes spending time with people in person as default. In my childhood in the 90s, I did it only for events that require it, like board games or sports, or when the alternatives are boring or un…

[deleted]

Re: U.S. teens are spending less time with their friends in person

#45

Post by _qwfv »

iheartpotatoes wrote: post #37

I volunteer at STEM after school program at a Northern California suburban public school in a very affluent county. Engineers from the local companies work on projects with hacker kids. It's a pretty dreamy albeit "canned" town, I never lived in a place that nice. Lots of cul de sacs and "mini malls" and "canned fun" places that are very walkable (unlike the poorer suburbs where kids have to cross 8 lanes of traffic…

> few of them drive. WTF?!

Rad? I didn't need to drive in High School, and I still found plenty to do back in the 90s. Kids today have even more options.

> there's a frigging movieplex down the street with a bunch of restaurants and TWO parks on opposite sides of the main E/W street... and they just ... go home. WTF.

First, movie theaters are awful. Second, there's so much cool stuff to do once you get home! I can go home and play a space marine with my friends, or build castles, or ride dragons, or be the last one standing in any number of variations on king of the hill. I can jump online with my crew and be literally anything you can imagine. With tools like Roll20, I can tell stories and roleplay. I can watch Netflix with my friends online.

Restaurants are expensive. Parks are fun for a bit, but it seems pretty out of touch to say, "What The Fuck."

Re: U.S. teens are spending less time with their friends in person

#46

Post by Pfhreak »

bobthepanda wrote: post #15

There's also the fact that when you're in the suburbs, you need a chauffeur until you can drive. American adults are working more and more, and thus less available to take children to outside activities, which these days are also further and further apart.

I grew up in the suburbs. We took this thing called a 'bus' into the city when we needed to.

Re: U.S. teens are spending less time with their friends in person

#47

Post by scoggs »

coding123 wrote: post #35
stcredzero wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notifications are making people miserable because its turned social into a fucking chore. It always was a chore, though, at least for anyone at all introverted. Even in the days before cellphones, I would sigh a sigh of relief when I could put down the phone. It was the same sigh when I closed the door after a visit from a salesperson or a service person. It's the same sigh of relief when I get home from a function a…

I don't know - I kinda see it like the show stranger things. That's how I grew up. We'd bike, walk, or whatever show up to our friends house. Parents didn't have instant communication back then, so the expectancy factor wasn't there. All that mattered was that when the sun was dimming, we'd have to be home for dinner.. Any time after school and before the dimming was our time. Like the goonies. Damn. Damn no really d…

I hate to be silly but they really should be and probably are retreating to their homes when dusk comes around to avoid the creepers and such.

Re: U.S. teens are spending less time with their friends in person

#48

Post by trhway »

stiglitz wrote: post #43
trhway wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that they are entirely responsible for changes in loneliness. loneliness? The amount and richness of communication like the number of participants, number of parallel communications, number of the topics and the range of opinions, etc. is most probably much higher when using smartphones then when it is subject to the limitations of physical presence. Our species brain development is basically history of social comm…

It’s hazardous and frankly inhuman to boil down human interaction into metrics like “number of participants.” I’m amused by this notion that “it may feel like loneliness but it’s actually the richness of our new modes of communication you are feeling! Just get used to it!”

>It’s hazardous and frankly inhuman to boil down human interaction into metrics like “number of participants.”

the tech today allows to for example easily and frequently Skype with your family, like parents, sibling, nephews residing on the other continent. A humongous improvement compare to previous modes of expensive international phone, especially when many of those participants didn't have a phone back then. What is inhuman here?

It also allowed for communication like we have here on HN. Before, it would be limited to just watercooler chat with colleagues at work with very limited exposure and exploration of genuine opposite/conflicting opinions, whereis we can have a bleeding-trolling-edge blast online.

Re: U.S. teens are spending less time with their friends in person

#49

Post by hbosch »

bitxbit wrote: post #42

The sense of community is gone. And it really takes a village to raise a child but that’s disappeared in the US outside of small rural communities.

No, sense of community is actually stronger than ever I think. But those communities are less geographic and much more ideological. The communal bond these days happens more in ideas and beliefs than in physical proximity. Social media made it so, and this shifted sense of community has given rise to increasingly radical and extreme ideologies — but also much stronger bonds in my opinion.

Re: U.S. teens are spending less time with their friends in person

#50

Post by Zenst »

Zak wrote: post #14

Part of the issue, I think is that teenagers are more restricted by parents, laws, and business owners than they used to be. As with younger children, parents are less likely now than in past decades to allow their teenage children to travel alone or hang out in groups without adults present. Legal restrictions compound the issue, with curfew laws being increasingly common, as well as increased driving ages and gradu…

So true, in essence driving them into online friend interactions.

Makes you wonder what life will be like for children 50 years from now, and how that would compare with today.

After there was a time when making explosives was a childhood right of passage along with chemistry sets, making fires, even having a pocket knife. Today, such common activities would not end well at all, however innocent the intention. These are activities people still alive today will recall.

With that, online is still in part a wild-west and new playfield, open, less restrictions compared to real life and with that, perhaps the logical outlet for teenage freedom.

But even that is slowly being eroded away with the same mentalities that drove children into 1984 style parenting.

With that, todays children may very well in their 50's look at the children of the time and feel how restricted and curtailed they are compared to the freedoms they enjoyed in their time. That would not surprise me, but equally, when do laws, rules, restrictions reach a zenith when no more need be added or changed! Until then, the lamentations of life march on.

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