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Kids These Days

smallpotatoes.paulbloom.net

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Re: Kids These Days

#71

Post by alphawhisky »

undeveloper wrote: post #59

a lot of attention given to phones, somewhat rightly so, but little to the rest of society. class -- can we think of any current events might lead to children being despondent about their future? anything at all going on in the world?

The dissolution of many of the financial/social cornerstones of our society such as: class mobility, third places, education, trust in your neighbor, privacy, meritocracy, free thinking (and the right to dissent), etc.

My question to the reader is this: Who benefits from this?

Re: Kids These Days

#72

Post by jimbokun »

moffkalast wrote: post #52
jimbokun wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article reveals that the broader debate is more gibberish and less settled than we tend to think.

I think that in and of itself shows the broader problem: nobody knows what the fuck is going on anymore. Things are changing too quickly, technologically at an unprecedented speed and as a consequence socially in unpredictable ways. We've gone from only having the TV and newspapers, to computers, smartphones, social networks, now actual machines you can talk to like they were humans, in like 30 years total. Quantifyi…

One of the difficulties pointed out in the article is the difficulty of finding a control group when the entire culture has been transformed by these technologies.

Re: Kids These Days

#73

Post by SoftTalker »

arijun wrote: post #16
bluGill wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When was the last time you met somebody who only walked all thier life? Never rode a horse because only the rich could afford such things. When was the last time you had no food? Starvation used to be a real problem. I'm not taking about running short at the end of the month, I'm talking about there isn't food for even the wealthy people. Food today is safer than ever. You talk about poison, but that is pure lie, it…

> You talk about poison, but that is pure lie I think it's fairly well accepted that the high obesity rates are caused by the shifting American diet. Yes it's more available than the 1950s (although I suspect not terribly so), but the effect it has on public health has been a nightmare.

Fundamentally, obesity is caused by an excess of calories. The foods we eat today are more calorie-dense. Even an apple is sweeter and larger than it was in the 1950s. But bottom line people are obese because calories are cheaper and more readily available than they used to be.

Re: Kids These Days

#74

Post by jimbokun »

TFNA wrote: post #58
jimbokun wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe not organic avocados but more likely to be eating produce from your own backyard garden. That was done for cost reasons back then but today local and seasonal produce is a staple of high end restaurants.

The 1960s was well after agriculture as a percentage of the population in the US had declined to a small figure, and relatively few suburban or urban dwellers were growing things for their own consumption.

Well we still were in small town America in the 1970s. :)

Re: Kids These Days

#75

Post by SoftTalker »

Arodex wrote: post #65
cjs_ac wrote: post #43

One observation I made when I was a teacher was that the more we did to help students (as a cohort) with their mental health, the worse it became. My theory is that teenagers are experimenting with different identities, so when you give them a seminar on anxiety and depression, some of them try those on for size. Moral of the story: trying to pre-emptively solve a problem can cause the problem or cause a different pr…

It is a well established fact now that suicide is contagious. Just the mention of it is enough to cause a spike in suicide attempts. Then how do you tell people that they can be helped about it without triggering the very thing?

I would say you mention it when the subject has already come up. Probably do not however devote an entire class period or a special school assembly to it.

Re: Kids These Days

#76

Post by qball »

II2II wrote: post #62

When people talk about how much better off kids were in the past, I remember stories from my father (who went to school in the 1960's). They involved drugs, knives, and bombs. I had it pretty good in the 1980's.

Sounds like you had a pretty lame childhood to me, and in the 30 years since it's only become worse.

Much like panda bears in captivity, it is unusually difficult to give a human being a life that resembles what it evolved for, which mostly involves convincing other humans to back off the safetyism a little.

What dignity can be found in the life of the modern child?

Re: Kids These Days

#77

Post by usernametaken29 »

I think one aspect that wasn’t discussed in this article sufficiently is:

> given that all of their peers have adopted it, there is a serious social cost to opting out.

Unlike reading a book, or fishing, or whatever, there’s no peer pressure to pick a specific hobby. There is significant pressure to use social media. I’m usually on the authors side, the view that the youth is rotten is literally as old as time (go check out Aristotle), but unlike a claimed moral decay, we are actively forcing kids to partake.

In Germany kids are drinking less than ever before. The education ministry went out and surveyed the kids: they don’t want to drink or party because they might embarrass themselves and it’ll be recorded and on social media and as such it might haunt them for the rest of their teen years. Albeit the outcome is good the enforcement mechanism is straight out of a 1984 horror novel kind of shit. As a teen you need to be able to experiment in a safe space somewhere somehow.

Re: Kids These Days

#78

Post by testing22321 »

usernametaken29 wrote: post #77

I think one aspect that wasn’t discussed in this article sufficiently is: > given that all of their peers have adopted it, there is a serious social cost to opting out. Unlike reading a book, or fishing, or whatever, there’s no peer pressure to pick a specific hobby. There is significant pressure to use social media. I’m usually on the authors side, the view that the youth is rotten is literally as old as time (go ch…

There are a few towns around the world that ban phones and social media for kids. I really like this approach because it means nobody feels left out, and the parents are not the bad guys.

Fingers crossed it comes to my mountain hippie town before my 2 year old wants it.

Re: Kids These Days

#79

Post by testing22321 »

qball wrote: post #76
II2II wrote: post #62

When people talk about how much better off kids were in the past, I remember stories from my father (who went to school in the 1960's). They involved drugs, knives, and bombs. I had it pretty good in the 1980's.

Sounds like you had a pretty lame childhood to me, and in the 30 years since it's only become worse. Much like panda bears in captivity, it is unusually difficult to give a human being a life that resembles what it evolved for, which mostly involves convincing other humans to back off the safetyism a little. What dignity can be found in the life of the modern child?

I felt the same way as an adult exploring Africa for three years. One guy even said I was a lion that grew up in captivity, so not completely wild.

“People in developed countries don’t know how to really live, they just die slowly”

Note that guy lived in the US for a decade, and his adult kids still do.

Re: Kids These Days

#80

Post by antonymoose »

cjs_ac wrote: post #43

One observation I made when I was a teacher was that the more we did to help students (as a cohort) with their mental health, the worse it became. My theory is that teenagers are experimenting with different identities, so when you give them a seminar on anxiety and depression, some of them try those on for size. Moral of the story: trying to pre-emptively solve a problem can cause the problem or cause a different pr…

I once heard a lecture from an attorney, one of his tenets was as to completely avoid topics you don’t want opposing council to clue in on and attack. Don’t they to preempt it, just ignore it entirely unless you’re forced to confront it.

The analogy was “don’t tell your kid not to stick crayons in their nose” - otherwise, well, they most certainly will latch on to the topic and do so.

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