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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

#121

Post by KittenInABox »

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…

> - America went from poor to rich, but still behaves like a developing economy. Public healthcare + public education + low-income housing availability are poor, while there's a big class of people who can afford private education + private healthcare + McMansions. I think this deteriorates the idea of "we're all in this together" because there's such unequal opportunity.

America has had a long history of unequal opportunity. It's kind of founded with unequal opportunity (slavery) and continued to shoot itself in the foot in order to ensure inequality (closing public schools instead of allowing integrated schools is why we have a rise of private schooling to begin with, HOAs existed primarily to ensure the community could enforce that no one could allow a black family to move in by selling their property to blacks). I think of America as a country that is constantly being challenged with the ideals it claims as having against the society it builds which falls short of those ideals. But I don't think this inequality has to do with the recent youth mental health crisis... America has endeavored to be more and more equal by the year.

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

#122

Post by jeffbee »

This guy seems to think his city is special by not allowing kids to have phones in school but the thing is I've heard this claim of special status from a lot of places lately and in my own city kids have never been allowed to have phones at school so I am starting to think this is actually just a widespread and quite obvious practice.

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

#124

Post by shigawire »

the_snooze wrote: post #98
bustling-noose wrote: post #62

About 9 years ago I traveled to the US from India for education. Smartphones were still not very common in India cause data was not as cheap as it is today. When I was in the bus commuting everyone’s head was buried in their phones. I thought to myself this is such a sad thing. Look outside talk to each other but the every single person had an iPhone and was doing something on the phone. Fast forward to 2024 and ever…

When I'm out at a sit-down restaurant, I always make a mental note of everyone who has their phone out on the table. It's usually 50-50. Not necessarily using them, but within view, as if they're waiting for something else instead of prioritizing the people who took the time to be physically around them in the same place and time. No wonder lots of people feel disconnected. They forgot how to connect in even the most…

Counter point - phones are so large now I don't always want it in my pocket when seated.

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

#125

Post by carapace »

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).

There's no taboo, that's ridiculous. I love the US-of-A and I don't care who knows it. God bless America, and apple pie and moms.

I love the people, even though we're mostly stupid and crazy. I love the land, even though it's drenched in the blood of the people of the First Nations and of each other. I love that we fight to repudiate and destroy the evil of slavery, even though we aren't done yet.

And yeah, I even love the Federal Government. Sure it's a gnarly bureaucracy that makes mistakes, but most of the time it pretty much works. And there are so many really cool bits, like the USGS. And the vast majority of the people in the Federal workforce are decent folk just doing their best.

So yeah, we have a lot of problems, but we're doing our best and the story isn't finished yet. I love the USA. (I also love the rest of the world too. It's not an either-or thing.)

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

#126

Post by veryfancy »

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).

Everyone’s got a basket of things they can love or hate about this place when they’re in the mood to love or to hate. That’s something to love, I think.

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

#127

Post by CitrusFruits »

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).

I'll preface this with saying there are other countries that do many of the following things I say better, but there are many many countries that do things worse. Additionally, I've found most people who have trouble loving the U.S.A. haven't had the privilege of traveling to any of the 130+ countries of the world that have a GDP per capita of less than $15K. Those countries can be awesome in their own right, but they also can help highlight how privileged the U.S. is in many areas. I love the USA because of its infrastructure, it's natural beauty, the principles of its governmental structure, the diversity of people (and food!), how it provides opportunity for people who want that opportunity, for its strong civil rights, and for its natural resources. We can do better to protect and grow all those things I mentioned, but it doesn't mean they don't exist in the first place.

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

#128

Post by mclau156 »

sleepingreset wrote: post #92
drooby wrote: post #60

I have recently started traveling and working remote at "co-living" hotels. And I must say, this is the ideal way I wish to live my life in my 20s-30s. Community makes life fun. Someone needs to import co-living to the US. And I don't mean these "co-living" apartment complexes that exist in our major cities. I mean like, actual communities with character and life.

there's a few cool groups working on this, specifically for academics & ambitious young people as the beginning market. https://www.livetheresidency.com/ :)

I dont understand the residency thing at all

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

#129

Post by meowkit »

hot_gril wrote: post #107
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.

Point == missed

Its a tragedy of the commons style problem.

The viability has to come from a group effort - as soon as there is a single entity running the show the economic incentives will warp or collapse the 3rd place into something different.

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

#130

Post by QuercusMax »

noworriesnate wrote: post #86
bustling-noose wrote: post #62

About 9 years ago I traveled to the US from India for education. Smartphones were still not very common in India cause data was not as cheap as it is today. When I was in the bus commuting everyone’s head was buried in their phones. I thought to myself this is such a sad thing. Look outside talk to each other but the every single person had an iPhone and was doing something on the phone. Fast forward to 2024 and ever…

I've noticed the same thing even on airplanes, where everyone is offline. Unfortunately in that case almost everything is either sleeping, consuming corporate entertainment, or reading books. BUT there are always a few people who are open to talking. I prefer talking to being on the phone when I'm in flight. I get to have a long conversation about 1/4 of flights. If you read old books like Pilgrim's Progress you see…

If you like those kinds of storytelling-on-a-pilgrimage stories, I highly recommend Hyperion by Dan Simmons. A large part of the book consists of a group of pilgrims-of-sorts traveling together and sharing stories, which gradually help you understand what's really going on.
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