I think it boils down to "comparison being the thief of joy." Social media of all types are basically one giant comparison machine, and the people that are the most visible on social media are the richest/best looking/most successful etc.
Or maybe just maybe the fact that I ended up having to play therapist for my sixth form and the fact that my generation is full of suicidal people willing to die for a revolution tomorrow if it came is a sign that there is something deeply wrong with our society.
I disagree 100%. It's easy to find a scapegoat but the reasons are complex, and from data we know that Millennials and Gen Z are having greater difficulty achieving basic levels of economic stability that were somewhat easier for previous generations. Students are graduating with increasing amounts of debt and entering a job market that can make it tough to pay rent if you don't have experience. It's also easy to say…
Millennials and Gen Z are having greater difficulty achieving basic levels of economic stability that were somewhat easier for previous generations Easier than what? Their great grandparents who lived through the Great Depression? Their grandparents who lived through Stagflation of the 1970's? Or their parents who lived through the Great Recession?
> Easier than what?
Easier than Boomers and Generation X, to be clear. I'd be willing to listen to claims that Millennials / Gen Z are doing well if you have some numbers to back those claims, so please, do change my mind. I'm not really interested in lists of economic recessions that happen to have names, especially since the 2008 recession also affected Millennials.
"Climate change, protecting the environment and natural disasters topped the list of most respondents on a personal level, but less than three in ten of both the Millennial and Gen Z cohorts cited it as a worry." This is surprising. As a Gen Z-er this highlights the kind of bubble I find myself in- my friend group is almost universally in a state of despair about the collapsing biosphere. Climate change and mass exti…
Climate change and mass extinction are the chief reasons I am pessimistic about my life. Can you name another time in recent history where the end of the world wasn't near? WW1, Great Depression, WW2, Mutually Assured Destruction, Swine flu, AIDS, Cuban missile crisis, etc, etc. The correct answer is it's always been this way and what we're going through right now isn't really all that new.
I try to remind myself of that, but most of those had a simple solution of "don't do that thing". Don’t go to war, don't nuke each other, etc. I admit that that's a vast oversimplification of the forces at work during those crises, but the point is that they were in some way imminently stoppable. Climate change isn't like that. Even if we stop the causative behaviors in full today, which we won't come close to doing, the results will continue, have major consequences, be difficult to cope with, and be very difficult to reverse.
A single mother working as a waitress at Denny's in the 1980's had more spending power than a college educated cubicle drone in 2019; Let's talk about how is social media's fault! Twice in the last 20 years - more than any other time in US history combined - The Presidential election went to the candidate that LOST the popular vote; These generations just lack a proper understanding of civics! The beatings will conti…
This "losing the popular vote" narrative would be a lot more compelling (at least to me) if the elections were less close. It looks bad to win the Presidency and lose the popular vote, but I don't think it actually matters. In a nation of 300 something million, close enough to half want either candidate. The problems lie elsewhere. (The fact that I can say "either candidate" is part of it.) [Edit: I should have said…
So many problems with this.
1. 300 million people are not registered voters. ~50-60 million are.
2. First Past The Post means people are voting for the candidate they hate the least, not the candidate they prefer.
3. The election wasn't very close. 2 million votes more for 1 of the candidates in 2016.
4. The electoral college "matters" in that without it, the Iraq war wouldn't have happened, nor Trump. Saying it's the people's fault is unfounded when the people did not vote for these things.
I think this is predominantly due to these generations feeling the affects of social media. They are the guinea pigs of a world wide experiment. They’re the first generation that is constantly barraged with photos that lead them to fomo and unrealistic expectations. I would argue this is a greater factor in producing pessimests than a downturned economy or bearing the burden of the boomers mistakes (climate change et…
It's not about 'unrealistic expectations', we're just hyper-aware of how bad the world is, that does something to you when you're exposed to it from childhood.
I’ve been fortunate to have landed in a financial position where I’m not scraping by as a millennial but having worked for several years in SF tech one thing that I have felt increasing unease with is the feeling that the companies I’ve worked for might not actually be a net positive for the world. My problem is more existential than economic, which is very much a first world problem but a problem for me nonetheless.
Your feelings sound not unlike colleagues working in hedge funds who say it's hard to maintain motivation when your purpose at work is to optimize a percentage risk/return at the end of the quarter. Quarter after quarter. Year after year.
I think this correlates with the idea we expect to derive most of our "purpose" directly from our work [1]. Which certainly doesn't bode well when you are told to go to college for your "passion," find a job doing your "passion," and are now underemployed at a job that primarily just pays the bills.
"Climate change, protecting the environment and natural disasters topped the list of most respondents on a personal level, but less than three in ten of both the Millennial and Gen Z cohorts cited it as a worry." This is surprising. As a Gen Z-er this highlights the kind of bubble I find myself in- my friend group is almost universally in a state of despair about the collapsing biosphere. Climate change and mass exti…
In elementary (late 80's) were constantly propagandized that the whales were going to be extinct, the ozone layer was going to be gone, and killer bees were going to get us all. Not a peep of optimism that we could solve problems. It was presented as inevitable. There are strong forces that need people to be in a constant state of worry. Power is derived from it.
The ozone hole actually existed and was solved by legislation. If people weren't panicking about it I don't think that would of happened. I'm not sure why you are calling it propaganda.
"Climate change, protecting the environment and natural disasters topped the list of most respondents on a personal level, but less than three in ten of both the Millennial and Gen Z cohorts cited it as a worry." This is surprising. As a Gen Z-er this highlights the kind of bubble I find myself in- my friend group is almost universally in a state of despair about the collapsing biosphere. Climate change and mass exti…
Not that surprising. People tend to focus on their own personal/economic issuea rather than larger problems in the world as a whole. If you're struggling to pay rent, find a good job, keep up with others, get political representation etc, then stuff like global warming won't really register by comparison.
On the other hand, I suspect those with decent living conditions are probably more panicked about stuff like climate change. Feels you can focus more on big picture issues if your immediate lifestyle is going somewhat to plan.
For some simple examples, inflation-adjusted home prices have gone up by a factor of 6 and inflation-adjusted education prices have gone up by a factor of 3 over the past few generations [1], while inflation-adjusted average wages have only gone up by $2/hour [2]. That single mom would have had a dramatically easier time providing housing and education for kids even with lower purchasing power for most consumer goods…
You're not accounting for the higher interest rates of the 1980s. Which home would you prefer to buy: $150,000 at 15% over 30 years. $350,000 at 4% over 30 years. Hint : they both have approximately the same total loan cost and payment. You can do this calculation with your parents. My home cost $350k at 3.8%. My parents bought my childhood home for $88k at 8%. Adjust my parents' home price for inflation and run the…
A standard 30 year mortgage requires 20% down...what’s the percent of households that can put down $70k to purchase a home?
I disagree 100%. It's easy to find a scapegoat but the reasons are complex, and from data we know that Millennials and Gen Z are having greater difficulty achieving basic levels of economic stability that were somewhat easier for previous generations. Students are graduating with increasing amounts of debt and entering a job market that can make it tough to pay rent if you don't have experience. It's also easy to say…
It is honestly ludicrous to see the results of decades of economic warfare and the nonstop closing of proverbial doors of economic opportunity done by boomers and to a lesser extent gen X and then boil everything down to "Social media means more people compare their normal to everyone else's best." It isn't that it's not true, it is! Social media sucks for mental health. It's just also true that there are many legiti…
The issue with social media and mental health is that the topic is just being researched.
Millennials and Z's are the consumers in which that technology is being tested and we don't really know all the effects and damages that this new thing is causing on people. We sure know that it is pretty addictive and causes some damages to people who use social media mostly passive and binge on it.
Another damage that Social Media does is that now most peoples attention span is quite short, really short actually, and it doesn't help for the workflow. Add the depression(FOMO?) caused from the "comparison is the thief of joy" produced by Social Media and you have a really bad mix that will make you fill like shit on the regular basis.