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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

#71

Post by nradov »

euske wrote: post #55
stiglitz wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 just occurred to me that virtual interaction is like a vitamin pill. There should be a right amount of human interaction, at right timings, in a right way. But today it's happening too often and/or too much, and the type of interactions is limited. Just like vitamins, it's easy to overdose. The best way to take nutrition/interaction is through natural ways because it gives you other kinds of nutrition and there's…

I don't think vitamins are a good example here. It's really tough to overdose on OTC vitamins. But most people derive no health benefit from vitamin supplements.

As for human interaction, the "right" amount is different for everyone.

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

#72

Post by niftich »

lskopwol wrote: post #5
Vagantem wrote: post #2

Interesting how 12th-graders are as lonely as they where in the 70s & 80s (almost no difference). What happened in 2006 that made loneliness drop so much?

Probably advent of instant messengers made them feel less lonely, culminating around 2006-2008 when modern social networks really took off, but peaking in today's result of every post on fb/twitch/instagram engendering social anxiety and thus 'loneliness'.

This time was indeed marked by the high popularity and increasing interop between classic IM networks, and the rise new networks. Some choice dates:

- 2005-09: Meebo launches offering web access to AIM, WLM, Yahoo

- 2006-02-07: Google Talk integration inside Gmail goes live

- 2006-03: Nielsen/Netratings survey for active users: AIM 53M, WLM 27M, Yahoo 22M

- 2006-07-12: seamless interop starts between Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo Messenger

- 2006-09-26: Facebook opens up to everyone (not just colleges)

- 2007-02-14: Gmail opens up to everyone (not just invite-only)

- 2008-04-06: Facebook chat goes live

- 2008-04-19: Facebook overtakes Myspace in Alexa ranking

- 2008-07-11: iOS App Store launches, AIM for iOS released

- 2008-08-26: Facebook hits 100 million active users

- 2008-09-23: Android 1.0 launches

More (and sources) in my earlier posts [1][2]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13465483 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11114518

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

#73

Post by bitxbitxbitcoin »

x2f10 wrote: post #29
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…

>I am not convinced that face-to-face interaction is an inherent good. I think the inherent good is that young people understand social dynamics and how to read the non-verbal cues of others. I've noticed some, those who spend a excessive amount of time online, have a hard time translating their personality into IRL.

Body language is hard when you can't see their body.

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

#74

Post by nradov »

grawprog wrote: post #33
threatofrain wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There also ought be more public spaces in general. When everything is all zoned up to be residential or commercial, there's nowhere to go without a credit card.

This is becoming more of a problem, at least in the city I live. Greenspaces and public parks are being replaced with condos and apartment complexes with their own walled off private courtyards and such. Parks, little groves of trees and stuff are the kinds of places we'd hang out as teenagers a lot.

Which city is that? Most cities are unwilling to sell off public parks to private developers. Do you have specific examples of parks that were built over and not replaced with something accessible to the public?

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

#75

Post by _qwfv »

nodemaker wrote: post #56
_qwfv wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Is being so boring and antisocial a norm these days ? :D (Just busting your balls haha) I think a lot of us deeply care about the future society that will cater to the people that are currently young. And it seems remarkably boring, superficial and for the lack of a better word, just devoid of anything fun. In the end noone cares if this is a subculture (there were enough subcultures when I was in school i.e goths, m…

My argument is that it's not anti social. It's maybe less visibly social, but being in a group voice or video chat while playing board or video games is definitely a social activity. Or building something together - computers enable us to engage in storytelling and art in ways our ancestors could only dream of.

Yeah, sure, they aren't social in the same way you were. But you weren't social in the same ways your parents were either. Calling the younger generations antisocial because they've fully embraced technology as a core part of their identity smacks of patronism to me. Kids these days with their rock and roll, so antisocial!

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

#76

Post by RandomInteger4 »

Outside of virtual settings replacing physical settings, perhaps one possibility is the version of ourselves we present online is collectively making everyone lonelier.

What I mean by this is that in order to seem like someone that others would want to hang out with, we present our best selves, making us appear more social than we are, thus those are the only versions anyone ever sees. People simultaneously know that they're not as social as they present themselves, while forgetting to assume the same about the version others present, thus they assume everyone is having fun without them.

That or I'm just projecting ...

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

#77

Post by bitxbitxbitcoin »

Pfhreak wrote: post #46
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.

I grew up in a suburb that didn't have a bus to the nearby city.

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

#78

Post by 1auralynn »

stephenhuey wrote: post #53
mises wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm not quite sure where he got this. I'm an introvert, and I still really enjoy spending time in-person with close friends. In fact, I don't do that well relating to people over the internet (at least not emotionally speaking).

Sounds a big like they are from the planet in Asimov’s The Naked Sun in which people live miles apart and only see each other through holograms, never in person.

If I recall correctly, the fate of that planet in one of his later books was basically a small population of androgynous people who reproduced asexually and lived on robot-run plantations.

It's something I think about from time to time.

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

#80

Post by bitxbit »

hbosch wrote: post #49
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.

I understand what you mean but you still have to raise your child irl. What is very interesting is that most adults with children in this decade have experienced both worlds and perhaps become too immersed in this new “virtual” environment. In the process, we might be short changing our kids. I imagine a lot of parents feel this way.
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