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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

#101

Post by vishnugupta »

One big change I've noticed between growing up in a small town and now where I'm in my mid 40s in a big metro city in India is increased "transactional" nature of interactions of my daily life.

Back then we had a deeper ties with all those who served us by which I mean vegetable vendor, carpenter, doctor, knife sharpener, cloth shop, grocer, baker and so on. Whenever we interacted with them it would be a small chit-chat, exchange small updates (how's your son doing, is he married yet?) and then finally do the actual purchase.

It was to an extent that the carpenter would come by and just hand over a big dining table just because he thought our house deserved/needed it. He wouldn't ask for immediate payment either and also in instalments. Some other times he would come by and borrow some money.

All of that is now gone. Every single interaction I have now with vendors is 100% transactional. I don't even know their names nor they mine.

It means that I'm now connected only with my immediate family, that's it. It also means that the generation now growing up know only transactional way of interaction with non family/friends. I guess these things eventually add up to the loss of community.

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

#102

Post by hot_gril »

squigz wrote: post #32
chasebank wrote: post #24

The cause is having a tiny computer in your hand all day. It's so glaringly obvious.

That doesn't seem very obvious to me. Would you mind elaborating?

I was in middle school when the iPhone first became popular among teens. Within a couple of months, everything changed. Kids talked a lot less on the bus, at lunch, etc. If you didn't have an iPhone, your friends probably did, so same issue. It felt a whole lot worse and stayed that way. I ended up becoming closer with my few friends who didn't have phones and further from my old best friends, just because of who was more willing to hang out together.

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

#103

Post by RickS »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #82

Well, yes, we've doubled down on mediating social interactions through economic relationships. Most of the interactions adults have in their lives are with or in the framing of economic relations. Homes, are being invaded with tablets and mobile devices which bring along with them framing interactions as economic relations through ad and consumer frames. Workplaces are inherently settings of economic relations, and t…

This is positively gut wrenching in its accuracy. Really well captured.

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

#104

Post by cen4 »

fergonco wrote: post #57

Just a data point: In Valencia, Spain, in the 80s, children played in the street with no much supervision from parents. Occasionally we would stop the football match to let a car drive by. Forgetting your keys at home was no issue, you could get a glass of milk in ten different places while you wait for other (more attentive) members of your family. Nowadays there is hardly a place to park your car. Parents don't all…

We have 8 billion people on the planet. And there is no plan what so ever to take care of even half of them. It doesn't matter if we see slowing population growth. With globalization there is no reason to be sitting in the same spot. People are on the move.

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

#105

Post by create-account »

weberer wrote: post #21

I've noticed an uptick recently of large brands to start referring to themselves as "The [Brand] Community". The author pointed out Youtube here (who in an Orwellian manner calls their ToS "community guidelines") but I've also seen it with many other multi-million dollar companies such as Reddit, Twitter, etc. Young people today are reaching out for real support structures, but only receiving manipulation from corpor…

Remember what we will regret on our deathbeds: “I wish I had spent more time arguing with random people on the Internet”

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

#106

Post by stnmtn »

silverquiet wrote: post #80
philip1209 wrote: post #66

The books the authors cite are great and worth reading. Some personal observations: - The USA lacks a unified cultural identity now. There are lots of reasons for this. But, it's considered taboo to express a love of the USA - which hurts our community + culture. - People put a lot of effort into work, and work is becoming more transactional. No more "life-long employment with the buddies" kind of situation. - Americ…

I don't disagree with the comment, but whenever people talk about a "love of the USA", I always want to ask what is it that you love? To stereotype a bit, I'm guessing that it will not be the federal government (despite a strong reverence for the flag of that government).

The absolute natural beauty and diversity of geography that the USA has is one of the things that make me love it. The "newness" of USA compared to Europe is also something that I really like about it.

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

#107

Post by hot_gril »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #82

Well, yes, we've doubled down on mediating social interactions through economic relationships. Most of the interactions adults have in their lives are with or in the framing of economic relations. Homes, are being invaded with tablets and mobile devices which bring along with them framing interactions as economic relations through ad and consumer frames. Workplaces are inherently settings of economic relations, and t…

Anything is economically viable if enough people want it.

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

#108

Post by hot_gril »

philip1209 wrote: post #66

The books the authors cite are great and worth reading. Some personal observations: - The USA lacks a unified cultural identity now. There are lots of reasons for this. But, it's considered taboo to express a love of the USA - which hurts our community + culture. - People put a lot of effort into work, and work is becoming more transactional. No more "life-long employment with the buddies" kind of situation. - Americ…

"it's considered taboo to express a love of the USA" is not really true in most of the country. I moved out of one of the few places where it is.

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

#109

Post by zamfi »

alisonatwork wrote: post #76
JohnFen wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I had an invite from friends and the activity didn't seem immediately interesting to me, I'd decline. I have seen many (usually younger) people make this mistake. The mistake is thinking that the point of the activity is the activity itself. It isn't. The point is the genuine social engagement. (Edited to add:) > I've since learned to say yes more Years ago, I learned to change my default answer to things from "…

Interestingly, I've gone the opposite way in my old age. I realize now how very short life is and how it's absolutely not worth wasting what little free time I have on activities that don't interest me. This goes even moreso in the workplace, where saying yes often leads you into taking on more responsibilities for no extra pay or recognition, unless you simultaneously try to wangle the added work into a schmoozing o…

I suspect people come from different baselines here, which for some means saying "yes" more often, and for others saying "no".

But I think the parent's point is to "say yes" more broadly than just when the activity interests you; e.g., if the people are good, interesting people and there will be interesting conversation, the activity may just be an excuse to get together, and not its focus -- and it's too easy to evaluate just the activity alone in response to an invitation.

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

#110

Post by conductr »

I’m so glad it’s finally happening but also it’s wild to me this conversation feels like it’s just beginning. The Anxious Generation book seems to have been what was needed for people to see what, to me anyways, was common sense and actually question their silly iPad at 6months old parenting styles.

As it’s picking up steam, I’ve been hearing stories recently about how our local “school district decided to ban phones from classrooms” and just yesterday it was “the school will no longer allow food delivery services to drop off food”. Like, educators, WTF, why was that ever an option? In my days long ago, 80s-90s primary school, there was a zero tolerance policy for this stuff. Why was it ever deemed allowable? I can see letting kids keep their phone in their locker or create some storage solution for it. For emergency purposes. But in emergencies, the parent should be able to call the office and they can fetch the kid. It worked just fine in the days of landlines.

It’s hard for me to understand the parenting styles that demanded and allowed this stuff to take place, because I’m sure it was parent driven. But there’s so much else to the parenting styles that are contributing to all this stuff. Banning outdoor play and independence is why they’re online so much and why the arcades and third places all disappeared.

I say all this as a parent of an almost 6 year old boy, doing everything I can to shield him from the wacky parenting style that seems to be the norm and provide him places of community and activities away from screens. He won’t have a phone until he drives, or maybe just a basic flip phone if we think we need a communication line to reach him when he’s a bit older.

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