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The upstream cause of the youth mental health crisis is the loss of community

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Re: The upstream cause of the youth mental health crisis is the loss of community

#11

Post by ericmay »

tivert wrote: post #5
joe_the_user wrote: post #2

There are so many candidates for causes here. Thinking about and watching climate change can't be good for, say, a teenager imagining their future. Of course, that teenager is also watching the world not coming together to solve this problem so you could say the situation is connected to "loss of community" in a way.

> Thinking about and watching climate change can't be good for, say, a teenager imagining their future. That doesn't make sense. Kids in previous generations had to grow up with things like the omnipresent threat of nuclear annihilation, which had greatly faded into the background until very recently. Also (at least in the 80s) destruction of the environment was a an issue kids were made very aware of. At least when…

I don’t disagree completely but I think one could argue that while we had that threat, the government and people were in agreement that it was a problem to be addressed.

The equivalent today would probably be the United States having a few token nuclear weapons, the Soviet Union stockpiling nuclear weapons, and 30% of the country largely in charge denying that the Soviet Union even exists.

The latter scenario is probably more hopeless and frustrating.

Re: The upstream cause of the youth mental health crisis is the loss of community

#12

Post by realce »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #3
joe_the_user wrote: post #2

There are so many candidates for causes here. Thinking about and watching climate change can't be good for, say, a teenager imagining their future. Of course, that teenager is also watching the world not coming together to solve this problem so you could say the situation is connected to "loss of community" in a way.

I wonder if there's any useful parallels to children and teenagers growing up during the Cold War - that feels somewhat analogous, at least in the terms of a looming threat that could be solved by more cooperation.

I'm reminded of Hypernormalization's portrayal of teens in the USSR. It's not just the impending doom, it's the dissolution of facts and the implicit knowledge that your leaders are super-predators with goals antithesis to your well-being.

I know it's hyperbole, but anywhere you look it feels like nobody is really invested in the future - that everyone's just trying to cash out ASAP and run away to the "safe place" of a gated community or something.

Re: The upstream cause of the youth mental health crisis is the loss of community

#14

Post by ponector »

TylerE wrote: post #7
joe_the_user wrote: post #2

There are so many candidates for causes here. Thinking about and watching climate change can't be good for, say, a teenager imagining their future. Of course, that teenager is also watching the world not coming together to solve this problem so you could say the situation is connected to "loss of community" in a way.

It’s so much more than that. It’s the continually enshittification of literally everything. It's a hypercapitalist hellscape.

That is not true. Many things are much better now than 20 years ago.

Not mentioning even poor western people are living life in better conditions than the richest people lived 300+ years ago.

Re: The upstream cause of the youth mental health crisis is the loss of community

#16

Post by Semaphor »

astrodust wrote: post #10

Who knew utterly destroying cities and replacing them with gated communities with no accommodations for children whatsoever, and borderline criminalizing any activity which isn't closely supervised would have knock-on effects.

Probably doesn't help, but we have similar issues here in Germany, yet those things you mentioned aren't.

Re: The upstream cause of the youth mental health crisis is the loss of community

#17

Post by treis »

ericmay wrote: post #11
tivert wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thinking about and watching climate change can't be good for, say, a teenager imagining their future. That doesn't make sense. Kids in previous generations had to grow up with things like the omnipresent threat of nuclear annihilation, which had greatly faded into the background until very recently. Also (at least in the 80s) destruction of the environment was a an issue kids were made very aware of. At least when…

I don’t disagree completely but I think one could argue that while we had that threat, the government and people were in agreement that it was a problem to be addressed. The equivalent today would probably be the United States having a few token nuclear weapons, the Soviet Union stockpiling nuclear weapons, and 30% of the country largely in charge denying that the Soviet Union even exists. The latter scenario is prob…

There were plenty of people denying that the Soviets and communism at large was a threat.

Re: The upstream cause of the youth mental health crisis is the loss of community

#19

Post by [deleted] »

tivert wrote: post #5
joe_the_user wrote: post #2

There are so many candidates for causes here. Thinking about and watching climate change can't be good for, say, a teenager imagining their future. Of course, that teenager is also watching the world not coming together to solve this problem so you could say the situation is connected to "loss of community" in a way.

> Thinking about and watching climate change can't be good for, say, a teenager imagining their future. That doesn't make sense. Kids in previous generations had to grow up with things like the omnipresent threat of nuclear annihilation, which had greatly faded into the background until very recently. Also (at least in the 80s) destruction of the environment was a an issue kids were made very aware of. At least when…

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