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?
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Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?
51–60 of 489 posts
Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?
#52Could also do something with falling standards of living, social media pushing influencers that flaunt obscene wealth on young people, rising awareness of the coming climate catastrophes etc.
This is multifaceted issue
Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?
#53> 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…
That is an interesting point. Couple that with things like cost of living, cost of education, poor training and mentorship in jobs, etc. Although I’m slightly confused by the quote. How do kids in Italy get started navigating real life earlier if they live at home longer? I’m guessing the point there is that they have help in early adulthood while still living at home, but the quote, as written, is a little confusing…
Well, Italian’s are not currently known for being independent adults very early either. Unemployment is insanely high for young adults too, and has been for a long time. Somewhere around 25-30% depending on how you slice ages. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1097938/unemployment-rat...
Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?
#54Who would've thought that locking young people in for 2 years in their youth phase could have detrimental effects on their mental health.
Not saying that is the only part, of course.
Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?
#55I was about to wade in and call out today's youth as pansey-ass-snowflakes. Then I read: "I like to describe it as some kids are growing up developmentally delayed, today’s 18-year-olds are like 12-year-olds from a decade ago. They have very little tolerance for conflict and discomfort, and COVID just exposed it.” " and I suddenly realized that I was just being pandered to.
Do you believe this experience will affect your perception long-term? How?
Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?
#56I 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.
I think smartphones are the worst invention of this century. They bring all the addictive services (not just social media but also news, gaming and such) everywhere, with minimum resistence.
Before smartphones every silent moment, every moment of boredom people had to figure out something to do, make do with what was available. Now the phone is always the path of least resistance and instant gratification, which does nothing good to our brains.
Too often I find myself and my partner just staring our phones while our child is playing. I wish I could destroy these cursed devices.
Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?
#57My 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…
> 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 life-changing criminal records.
That didn't happen until 9/11, so older millennials had largely the same experience.
Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?
#58> 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…
> 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?
Precisely. The world has never been safer or as rich, and it seems like my generation is extremely lacking in independence.
Everyone has to be told to do things, it's like they have no concept of what to do without being commanded. I feel like many simply can't come up with answers on their own. No one can answer the question of how a person should their life. It's subjective. But like a muscle, it's completely atrophied. When you're never given independence, you don't recognize how to listen to your own desires or judgement.
For me this explains perfectly the underlying situation behind the overbearing paternalism (from society & government) that so many apparently desire now.
Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?
#59> 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…
> but damn if 20-somethings aren't emotionally fragile at a level the world has never seen before.
38 year old here.
I do wonder if the sense of "emotionally fragile" has something to do with how we (America? Canada?) had been accustomed to only having ppl speaking about emotions once they'd sorted it out. Maybe ppl talking more about their emotions earlier looks a lot like ppl talking about things they don't understand yet.
But maybe they're more likely to turn out as better ppl than you or I if they're communicating more and earlier and working things out, albeit with a whole lot of untenable conclusions while younger :)
Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?
#60This 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…
Simply "disagreement" implies that there are valid opinions and perspectives to engage about. What we have now is a culture so polarized that you are literally evil to the other side if you disagree. We can't afford to have simple disagreements because if the other tribe destroys you, you need your tribe to support you.
For example, name something of real political consequence that it is acceptable to disagree about. It is a struggle to come up with a single example.