161–170 of 937 posts
Do teens have much to look forward to? Climate change is already causing severe weather events, which are very likely to ramp quickly. Careers are a thing of the past, and it seems like no matter how hard you work you'll never "get ahead" and will be lucky not to spend your life living paycheck to paycheck. Life expectancy has gone down, markedly. Debt is up. New wars.
People blame social media, but they never ask why social media is like that. I think that the cultural changes that lead to that have been running for far more time than people give credit for, and that social media is just the proverbial canary on the mine that made things explicit. Those changes are multi-generational changes, and more probably there are a multitude of factors behind it. Family structure, economy f…
More likely the libertine social movements of the sixties leading to a breakdown of social standards and family life.
Real world social connection is essential to human happiness.
I think all the social media stuff is missing the mark. It's 100% bad but it's just trash filling the hole society is making. Looking top down at the problem, humans need self actualization or propose to be happy. Originally we evolved to live in medium sized social groups that worked together to ensure their survival, we took care of each other and that was what drove our purpose, or rather why that need evolved, it…
> I think all the social media stuff is missing the mark. I think phones may well be responsible. Before smartphones, people regularly experienced true downtime - unstructured moments with nothing to do except be in your surroundings, feel your own boredom, experience your thoughts. Now, the moment our attention isn’t occupied by something external, we reach for our phones to have something to fill the silence. I bel…
Was there not a similar argument made as newspapers became commonplace? Before that the same argument had been made for books but newspapers were on another level - they were effectively limitless drugs, affordable and every single day a new one was available. Instead of talking, laughing and joking with the other workers waiting at the bus stop or in the canteen or whatever, instead you had a sea of silent men reading newspapers.
I’m not convinced phones are without potential harm, but I’m hesitant to get too worked up about them vs. What’s gone before.
People blame social media, but they never ask why social media is like that. I think that the cultural changes that lead to that have been running for far more time than people give credit for, and that social media is just the proverbial canary on the mine that made things explicit. Those changes are multi-generational changes, and more probably there are a multitude of factors behind it. Family structure, economy f…
No, what you are saying is factually wrong. Now if you are lying or just wrong would depend on how much of your income depends on it. The culprit is manipulated mass media, the current version of it is social media so before mark Zuckerberg the culprit was television owners, not whatever excuse you are trying to find to not blame media.
You may well be right, I concede that I also believe that mass media is at least part of the explanation, but I don't think we should act so certain and refuse the debate. The current state of psychology and social sciences don't warrant by now this extreme level of confidence in a handful of studies that seems to corroborate this hypothesis.
My theory is it is effect of ever faster economic growth across the world. Now it has given great many benefits to great many people. Negative effects so far discussed are only in term of destruction of ecology, depletion of natural resources, pollution etc. To me this growth has created a sense of anxiety in all teens and older. Now the societal structures, jobs, careers, education, medicine etc do not change over m…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Disagree. Folks in the 60’s thru 80’s expected global nuclear annihilation with some probability.
I was taught about Nuclear annihilation as well as global warming in the 80s. Fast forward to today and both are still on the table. Climate catastrophes make geopolitical conflict more likely.
Since my youth climate change has been A wildly depressing concept to grapple with. Environment destruction period. I mean being depressed is one thing, living in a world that's literally cooking at the same time just takes it up a whole other level. I guess in the past, no matter how bad things got for you on a personal level, you could kind of count on the world being there if you got through it, now it's sort of 5…
Disagree. Folks in the 60’s thru 80’s expected global nuclear annihilation with some probability.
Few deny that a drinking age is necessary. We also need a smart phone age. It's quite obvious that many teens are addicted to their phones and the mostly useless content they consume there.
I deny a drinking age is necessary. From what it sounds like, the kids should be out there drinking more!