Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer? • Hacker News Board

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#41

Post by yucky » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 1:03 AM UTC

jasonhansel wrote: post #9

> Chentsova Dutton said America has an international reputation for prizing autonomy, but her study opened her eyes to a more complicated picture. American parents tend to be overprotective when children are young, acting as if kids are going to live at home for a long time, like parents do in Italy. Yet they also expect children to live away from home fairly early for college, like families do in Germany. The result…

I'm confused. They're too broke to move away from home, but their mental health is bad because they were coddled while they were at home and now they're no longer at home and struggling, but also more of them live at home later in life than in generations past?

Is it possible maybe the problem is they are just a bit too entitled on average, and when things don't go perfectly they can't cope? That's been my experience, albeit anecdotal. I know this comes off as old man yelling at the clouds, but damn if 20-somethings aren't emotionally fragile at a level the world has never seen before. And they're also all in therapy too and super in touch with their feelings and emotions which is supposed to help, but is actually likely to be a large part of the problem.

To be fair, I don't blame them. I think the blame lies firmly on social media and their need to be "always on". But there actually is such a thing as too much empathy, and we're seeing what happens with it.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#42

Post by horns4lyfe » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 1:03 AM UTC

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #19

My generation (early GenX) may be the last one to grow up in an environment that didn't systematically screw young people at every possible turn. We didn't have a constant presence of adults and had space to work out issues on our own. We were able to travel for miles in most directions without being barraged by No Trespassing signs - each of them backed up by disproportionate penalties and an ever present risk of li…

Every bit of it is because people don’t want to get get sued if something bad happens. We live an insanely litigious country with far too many lawyers and kids suffer the consequences.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#43

Post by jim-jim-jim » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 1:04 AM UTC

This is mostly about parenting, but the point about conflict struck me. I've found that lots of people out there seemingly can't handle disagreement at all, and attribute a fundamental moral failure to their conversation partner if they don't see eye to eye. And most of these people are incredibly unhappy. I would be too if I couldn't trust anybody other than my perfect clone.

It's an antiquated idea, but explicit classroom instruction about agreeing to disagree might go a long way for some kids, if only to counter a media environment that only tells you exactly what you already want to hear.

--

More controversially, I've found that some young people would really benefit from disengaging with the entire concept of "mental health." Their obsessive focus upon medical labels and the dysfunctional communities it brings them in contact with only serve to warp acute distress into chronic misery.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#44

Post by swader999 » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 1:05 AM UTC

goldcd wrote: post #30

mberning wrote: post #20

I was at the beach the other day, beautiful weather, perfect sunset, etc. The number of people staring at their phones was very high. The number of teenagers, especially girls, taking pictures and seemingly staging events was downright depressing. We will soon look back and realize that social media and phone addiction was worse for people’s health than smoking.

But you know that's simply not true. I was a smoker in my 20s and quit finally in my 40s. Are you suggesting my f'ed up choices were in some way better than taking a load of selfies in my twenties and growing out of it in their thirties?

Maybe. Smoking is a very social habit at least. Whose to say the isolation and depression from phones/social media is less harmful?

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#45

Post by WarOnPrivacy » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 1:06 AM UTC

paulcole wrote: post #35

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #19

My generation (early GenX) may be the last one to grow up in an environment that didn't systematically screw young people at every possible turn. We didn't have a constant presence of adults and had space to work out issues on our own. We were able to travel for miles in most directions without being barraged by No Trespassing signs - each of them backed up by disproportionate penalties and an ever present risk of li…

It’s amazing that your generation was the last one where things were done right. I don’t think every other generation in history has said that exact same thing.

I never said my generation did it right. Quite the opposite. The evidence is my generation screwed children out of everything kids have always needed to learn functionality.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#46

Post by kylenoteboom » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 1:06 AM UTC

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #11

> Young adults are struggling with their mental health. Is more childhood independence the answer? Prospects in life is the answer. The article goes over how independence in adolescence could help reduce people's anxieties, and closes with the following which sums up the article rather nicely > “When we are controlling a young adult’s experiences, and they go without that full range of emotional experience, we’re act…

Thank you for your thorough reply. You've managed to make manifest some thoughts I've been pondering for quite some time now.

> There is no reasonable form of independence when you need to work 9-5 just to cover your most basic living experiences.

If all your life is spent on just making sure you get to survive, how does on manage to make the world better? If all one's mind is spent on making it through the next month, or week, or even day, how can we expect them to make a meaningful change at large?

This world has brought about the availability of an incredible amount of even more incredibly brilliant minds, but for some reason we choose to not actively make use of them. Somehow, actively, we choose to let some of the most productive and knowledgeable of human beings go to waste.

I am not sure this was the exact sentiment you were aiming for, but what you wrote resonated for me and here we are.

I do have to admit that I do not know the "solution" to what I am (or might be) suggesting is the problem here, but if we might just be able to figure this out, there might just be hope for all of us.

Or I might just believe in Interstellar a wee bit too much ;)

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#47

Post by mberning » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 1:09 AM UTC

goldcd wrote: post #30

mberning wrote: post #20

I was at the beach the other day, beautiful weather, perfect sunset, etc. The number of people staring at their phones was very high. The number of teenagers, especially girls, taking pictures and seemingly staging events was downright depressing. We will soon look back and realize that social media and phone addiction was worse for people’s health than smoking.

But you know that's simply not true. I was a smoker in my 20s and quit finally in my 40s. Are you suggesting my f'ed up choices were in some way better than taking a load of selfies in my twenties and growing out of it in their thirties?

In aggregate it would be hard to say. But at the extremes I think you could argue that social media is worse. For example, getting severely depressed and killing yourself as a teenager due in large part to a distorted sense of reality from social media is probably worse than getting esophageal cancer and dying in your 50s. Both are extreme outcomes of a bad habit, but one is way worse in my eyes.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#48

Post by Lanz » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 1:09 AM UTC

The infantilization of an entire generation and the extension of adolescence into the 20s is a disaster for mental health. It's hard to find meaning if you remain immature. Without meaning, what's the point in living?

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#49

Post by Rayhem » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 1:09 AM UTC

jim-jim-jim wrote: post #43

This is mostly about parenting, but the point about conflict struck me. I've found that lots of people out there seemingly can't handle disagreement at all, and attribute a fundamental moral failure to their conversation partner if they don't see eye to eye. And most of these people are incredibly unhappy. I would be too if I couldn't trust anybody other than my perfect clone. It's an antiquated idea, but explicit cl…

>I've found that lots of people out there seemingly can't handle disagreement at all...

This is the second time this week I'll have linked this here on HN but I'm exceptionally happy to do so. Jonathan Haidt has a topical discussion[1] about that and hypothesizes it stems from an utter lack of viewpoint diversity as kids grow up. He states that universities have sought to remove all emotional distress, when they're supposed to be the place where you go to have your ideas challenged and feel a little distressed about it.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gatn5ameRr8

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#50

Post by sfeaster » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 1:11 AM UTC

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #19

My generation (early GenX) may be the last one to grow up in an environment that didn't systematically screw young people at every possible turn. We didn't have a constant presence of adults and had space to work out issues on our own. We were able to travel for miles in most directions without being barraged by No Trespassing signs - each of them backed up by disproportionate penalties and an ever present risk of li…

older millenial here to say that you weren't the last generation. The world remained pretty offline-centric well into the early 2000's. I grew up exploring and testing boundaries out in the real world. As a parent now, I have to artificially create independent experience for my kids in a way that was just natural to me growing up.