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Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

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Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#131

Post by jasonhansel »

objetovoador wrote: post #58
yucky wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused. They're too broke to move away from home, but their mental health is bad because they were coddled while they were at home and now they're no longer at home and struggling, but also more of them live at home later in life than in generations past? Is it possible maybe the problem is they are just a bit too entitled on average, and when things don't go perfectly they can't cope? That's been my experience…

> Is it possible maybe the problem is they are just a bit too entitled on average, and when things don't go perfectly they can't cope? Precisely. The world has never been safer or as rich, and it seems like my generation is extremely lacking in independence. Everyone has to be told to do things, it's like they have no concept of what to do without being commanded. I feel like many simply can't come up with answers on…

At your age, do you think that previous generations were any better?

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#132

Post by hotpotamus »

olalonde wrote: post #61
Mikeb85 wrote: post #36

It's because there's nothing for them to look forward to. People keep asking why is X group struggling? And there's been enough articles about different groups that X is basically nearly everyone. Things are not getting better for anyone except the extremely wealthy.

That's objectively false for almost any metric you can come up with. Maybe the problem is that media gives such distorted view of reality?

How about the mental health metrics?

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#133

Post by cr1895 »

this_user wrote: post #125
OJFord wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yet they also expect children to live away from home fairly early for college Except American children away from home 'for college' are still exactly 'children', home with different parents. The culture of halls and canteens and the way it's funded is much more 'provided for you' than 'you're providing for yourself now'. I don't get the sense (from NA undergrads I've known, film, etc.) that much learning to cook go…

As a European, US colleges/universities seem more like boarding schools. Here, no university would think that they have any business interfering with students' personal lives or anything they do outside a lecture hall, because they are considered adults. More broadly speaking, there seems to be a tendency in current US culture of infantilising young adults. I have repeatedly seen people in their early 20s referred to…

>As a European, US colleges/universities seem more like boarding schools. Here, no university would think that they have any business interfering with students' personal lives or anything they do outside a lecture hall, because they are considered adults.

Seconding this. It was quite a stark difference in university culture and expectations to me between US and NL.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#134

Post by anonzzzies »

olalonde wrote: post #61
Mikeb85 wrote: post #36

It's because there's nothing for them to look forward to. People keep asking why is X group struggling? And there's been enough articles about different groups that X is basically nearly everyone. Things are not getting better for anyone except the extremely wealthy.

That's objectively false for almost any metric you can come up with. Maybe the problem is that media gives such distorted view of reality?

Outside the people on HN etc, aren’t people objectively worse off payment wise than in the 80s? Cannot buy houses and having to live with their parents? Sure we live longer and healthier (well, this is also mostly the well off people) and we have tremendous tech advancements, but isn’t everything owned by a few people? I have to pay monthly for my car seat warmer. Movies and music that I bought are removed without me having anything to say about it. Everything is becoming rented and can be remotely terminated.

Even our mental space is occupied by a handful of billion$ companies (and their billion$ owners).

Then AI is changing the outlook for 100s of millions ‘knowledge workers’ and artists as they see what they were educated for or educated themselves with, rapidly become obsolete. Of course many here say that it will make more jobs as it always did; are those better? Will they pay more and have a better work/life balance, or, more likely when looking at the past, will they pay, generally far less and will the companies rich enough to run the AI be the only ones that benefit from that particular revolution, as they do now?

You can deny climate change and pollution as many do, but that is a problem as well which the coming generations can look forward to reap the pain from through disasters and famine. Not you or your kids or friends, but the masses ‘elsewhere’ who are already suffering now from these things.

So when you are young you look forward to having no possessions (everything shall be rented), a burning planet and no or crappy jobs. Throw in a war here and there and the bleak future arrived already for many. Except for a few, like now and many of those are in the HN echo chamber.

And all of this and more is causing a clearly visible mental health crisis all around the globe.

Which parts are distorted?

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#135

Post by pengaru »

this_user wrote: post #125
OJFord wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yet they also expect children to live away from home fairly early for college Except American children away from home 'for college' are still exactly 'children', home with different parents. The culture of halls and canteens and the way it's funded is much more 'provided for you' than 'you're providing for yourself now'. I don't get the sense (from NA undergrads I've known, film, etc.) that much learning to cook go…

As a European, US colleges/universities seem more like boarding schools. Here, no university would think that they have any business interfering with students' personal lives or anything they do outside a lecture hall, because they are considered adults. More broadly speaking, there seems to be a tendency in current US culture of infantilising young adults. I have repeatedly seen people in their early 20s referred to…

> More broadly speaking, there seems to be a tendency in current US culture of infantilising young adults.

There are obvious incentives for infantilising your population, from capitalism to governance. I find it unsurprising that the US would be exceptionally awful in this regard, when it's so good for business to convince your adults they're helpless children dependent on almighty corporate products/services.

But if we look at the global history of religious indoctrination, arguably the epitome and oldest form of infantilising at-scale, there's certainly not a US monopoly on the practice.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#136

Post by jasonhansel »

standardUser wrote: post #127
this_user wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a European, US colleges/universities seem more like boarding schools. Here, no university would think that they have any business interfering with students' personal lives or anything they do outside a lecture hall, because they are considered adults. More broadly speaking, there seems to be a tendency in current US culture of infantilising young adults. I have repeatedly seen people in their early 20s referred to…

I wouldn't take that line of reasoning too far. Most kids in the US don't go to college and many that do never live in a dorm. And for most schools with dorms, dorm living is only the first year or two for most students. Maybe it's different at expensive private schools in the US, but the vast majority of Americans never attend those schools.

> Most kids in the US don't go to college

It's about 63% of high-school grads, including both 2-year and 4-year colleges: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cpa

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#137

Post by beezlebroxxxxxx »

Rayhem wrote: post #49
jim-jim-jim wrote: post #43

This is mostly about parenting, but the point about conflict struck me. I've found that lots of people out there seemingly can't handle disagreement at all, and attribute a fundamental moral failure to their conversation partner if they don't see eye to eye. And most of these people are incredibly unhappy. I would be too if I couldn't trust anybody other than my perfect clone. It's an antiquated idea, but explicit cl…

>I've found that lots of people out there seemingly can't handle disagreement at all... This is the second time this week I'll have linked this here on HN but I'm exceptionally happy to do so. Jonathan Haidt has a topical discussion[1] about that and hypothesizes it stems from an utter lack of viewpoint diversity as kids grow up. He states that universities have sought to remove all emotional distress, when they're s…

Even before universities or higher education, a lot of people are growing up in demographic bubbles where everyone around them, their parents, their classmates, the other people in their hobbies (and they are usually specific hobbies delineated along class lines), are from the same socio-economic class, the same political POV, share the same set of cultural values around things like art, religion, history (self created myths more often), etc. They often simply don't face much disagreement at all and so don't really experience "fundamental" disagreements. This is often exacerbated when they go to higher-ed where certain schools often mirror those same demographic differences and bubbles. Those schools market to those demographics and then it becomes an intensifying spiral.

I grew up on the borderline between the liberal urban part and the more conservative leaning rural part of my city, and I credit simply where I grew up with me having friends from diverse backgrounds up and down the class scale and with different POVS. If you weren't able to handle disagreement, you simply didn't have as many friends or had none.

When I moved to a far more homogenous city for university where I met an intensely cosmopolitan set of friends (all of whom are very nice people) it was fascinating to see how they struggled to occupy a different POV from their own, even more weird: they saw in that inability a paradoxical foundation for the certainty of their beliefs that made them double-down more often! They simply assume something was wrong with the person if they disagreed with them. If they couldn't occupy that different POV, then either they are in the wrong, or that different person is thinking wrong in a fundamental way that is irreconcilable. I'll let you guess which position they are more likely to take.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#138

Post by weakfortress »

zmgsabst wrote: post #103
OJFord wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yet they also expect children to live away from home fairly early for college Except American children away from home 'for college' are still exactly 'children', home with different parents. The culture of halls and canteens and the way it's funded is much more 'provided for you' than 'you're providing for yourself now'. I don't get the sense (from NA undergrads I've known, film, etc.) that much learning to cook go…

In my experience, college is when that transition happens: - freshman year, start off supported and end with a job - sophomore year, housing is dorms but otherwise on your own - junior and senior year, apartments with roommates and supporting yourself

What era is this? Certainly it's not the last 20-25 years. I don't remember being able to afford anything until after I graduated and was fortunate enough to have parents that let me live in the basement while I got on my feet. My college jobs were barely enough to feed me, pay the interest on my loans, and pay my parents a pittance for my chunk of the power bill. Maybe it's easier for these kids to get a programming gig paying 70k+ while they're in school but when I was a kid companies wouldn't even look at you until you could guarantee 40 hours plus overtime.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#139

Post by kmlx »

_mme wrote: post #22

I‘m 42. Here‘s my advice to someone half my age. Have conflicts. Put your heart into it. If you loose, you receive some truth. If you win you give some truth. The outcome does not matter if it means you grow. Go eat or drink together as if nothing happened.

> loose

since a few years ago i’ve noticed a trend where people write

“loose” (not firmly or tightly fixed in place; detached or able to be detached. "a loose tooth")

instead of

“lose” (be deprived of or cease to have or retain (something). "I've lost my appetite")

does anyone know what’s going on?

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