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Teens Aren’t Partying Anymore

wired.com

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Re: Teens Aren’t Partying Anymore

#141

Post by kodablah »

aaroninsf wrote: post #115
ashark wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your parents had eliminated screens when you were very young (including theirs) save maybe one publicly-placed crappy terminal for wikipedia or looking up business hours or maps or learning you some programming or whatever, but loosened the reigns on hang-outs and travel, do you think you'd have still felt isolated because all your friends were still online most of the time? Asking as a parent with three young kid…

Kids approaching 7 and 10 watch some movies/vetted series online, only recently got Kindle tablets which they are literally only allowed to use on long (3 hr+) transits, never at home. No TV or analog in house. I am now torn as the older kid is at a prime age to introduce programming... ...but the benefits we see daily from no-screen childhood are to our biased eyes overwhelming. Our kids spend all their free time en…

Out of curiosity, and as someone who has a newborn and will be going through this at some point, how do you determine what effects your policies have on their potential social ostracization especially as they get older. In my youth I witnessed this social outcasting happen to children based on parental restrictions such as these. I still see it as they become adults. The effect seems to compound on itself from being the one not allowed to do something, to having only the few friends in a similar boat, to being an adult that grew up with fewer friends and fewer at-large interactions. Do you take into account these costs? Is the cost of over-exposure to media greater than the cost of having them be different/segregated to satisfy this?

Re: Teens Aren’t Partying Anymore

#142

Post by woolvalley »

conductr wrote: post #125
snowwindwaves wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My parents are baby boomers and they said there were just kids everywhere when they grew up. Every house on the street had at least two. Kids went outside to play. Parents had real perspective on the dangers and risks in life after living through ww2 and a kid falling out of a tree was not a concern.

In the 80s/90s, I rarely had that many kids on my block but I was always outside. I had a bike and roamed ~10 mile radius around my house. So my friends and I would just meet up some place and decide where to go. I wouldn't say the war impacted the parental decision(s), historically kids always played outside so they were just continuing what they knew, but we kids did have safety in numbers and that's why I'd say th…

More like child services would be called and the parent charged with something. That foundational law is what prevents parents from sending out their kids nowadays.

Re: Teens Aren’t Partying Anymore

#143

Post by losteverything »

bastijn wrote: post #136
losteverything wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My kid tells us we did her/him a big disservice by just who were were: an in love couple with a good marriage. She/he tells us ahe/he was so unprepared for relationships and the knowledge that others' sid not come from our style home (happy marriage filled with love, imo) Now how does one predict that??? Introduce my kids to broken marriages?

Offtopic: are we now so gender neutral we even cannot address our own kid as he or she? Or did you do this on purpose to hide the gender of your kid as part of your privacy? No flame intended. Honest question. Never thought about the gender of my kids being a privacy thing. Ontopic: As a parent I (we) try not to restrain things like screen use. Instead we actively promote all other forms of spending time we prefer mo…

Hide gender

Re: Teens Aren’t Partying Anymore

#144

Post by toasterlovin »

arethuza wrote: post #16
noelwelsh wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having seen how much more sociable the Spanish are compared to the English I'm inclined to agree there is a significant cultural component here. This could be just genetic, but I believe it isn't. A very quick search suggests this is something that academia is considering and has not answered definitively.

Almost certainly purely cultural - look at the huge difference in reputations between how friendly places like Glasgow and Edinburgh are even though they are actually ~75km apart.

My experience has been that people sort themselves into different cities according to their preferences, so there could very well be a genetic component as well.

Re: Teens Aren’t Partying Anymore

#145

Post by abritinthebay »

Analemma_ wrote: post #130
toyg wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the thing: I’m very tempted to let my kids roam the neighborhood, like I did in Italy in the 80s. Where we live now, streets are pretty tight and have speed bumps, so it’s fairly safe. But if anybody gets nosey and calls child protection, I’m in a world of hurt from which I’ll probably never emerge. Yet another bit of the world ruined by Sun and Daily Mail.

> But if anybody gets nosey and calls child protection, I’m in a world of hurt from which I’ll probably never emerge. I think this is a really overblown fear. Yeah, everyone "totally heard about someone" who had CPS called on them because they let their kid roam around, but I think this is mostly an urban legend about as likely as a terrorist attack. CPS usually has way more on their plate than they can handle with a…

It happened to a friend of mine - twice even.

However, and I think this is the important thing, CPS totally didn’t care after a quick 15min interview.

The second time they even apologized and said they were mostly showing up because they had to.

It was the same local busy-body calling them both times btw.

Re: Teens Aren’t Partying Anymore

#146

Post by Symbiote »

westmeal wrote: post #9

I know, I know this is anecdotal 'evidence'. I happen to be 21 which fits me right in this generation and the main reason this occurs is due to parenting. My parents wouldn't let me go _anywhere_ by myself until I was at least 17. By that time I was completely and utterly addicted to computing to just let go and 'hang out'. As a matter in fact most of my friends are online rather than 4 real friends in real life. It…

> My parents wouldn't let me go _anywhere_ by myself until I was at least 17.

My parents were early adopters of this, about 20 years ago. They wanted me to be 15-16. I don't remember exactly, since by that point I was well practised at lying about why I'd be late home from school, who I'd be with, etc, so it didn't make much difference.

Age 10, my friend's parents let him take the public bus home alone (like most parents, I think). Mine didn't, and I didn't like being in the 2-3 kids waiting at the school for my mum to collect me, especially as she was always late.

So there was "computer club" on Wednesdays, "robot club" on Fridays, and "technology club" erratically. They were (or had been) real after-school clubs, so I'd sometimes show up for a few minutes, in case my parents asked a teacher about it. Mostly I'd spend the hour walking around the weirder streets in the city. (Unusual example: going to the fetish/bondage with my friend so he could buy the net shirt to dress up like the main character in Rocky Horror.)

Weekends were more difficult, it needed good co-operation from friends and their parents.

Essentially, by restricting my independence far beyond the average of my peers, I lost a huge amount of trust and respect for my parents. This has still not recovered.

Re: Teens Aren’t Partying Anymore

#147

Post by conductr »

AmVess wrote: post #103
glitcher wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to agree with you. Although I also don't have any hard evidence, it seems to me that growing up in the 80's, there was far less parental supervision of kids then there is now. In the summertime during school break, even as early as elementary school probably 3rd grade, we would take off on our bikes and roam without any supervision. As long as we were home by sundown we wouldn't be in any trouble.

My parents let me walk to the corner store alone when I was 5. By the time I was 8, I'd be gone all day doing who knows what; the big rule was to be home for dinner. Allowing your kids to roam around like that these days will get CPS called on you.

Same, my mom would regularly write a note asking the clerk to sell me cigarettes (for her). It worked.

I can't even imagine how that would play out in current times.

Re: Teens Aren’t Partying Anymore

#148

Post by bsder »

hrktb wrote: post #66
dragonwriter wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is definitely true, and driven in part by media-driven hysteria that has led to the decades of the perception that child abduction and similar child targeting crimes are on the rise, while the reverse has been the case.

I think it’s not just that. For instance 20 years ago there was public phone booths everywhere. A kid would just need a few coins and the house number to do a call, now you’d need a cell phone, and giving one to a 5~8 year kid is still not practical. Or I remember shopping at local shops enough to know their faces and names, or ask shop owner if the other kids where nearby. I don’t think my kid knows anyone other tha…

> Same with police or church member perception, I think our generation is less OK to just say to a kid “if there’s any problem just trust the police”.

I'd go further. We need to get back to: "If you have a problem, pick an adult and ask for help." Really. Most threats to children are people they know. Random strangers are almost always helpful in a situation.

Re: Teens Aren’t Partying Anymore

#149

Post by abritinthebay »

appleiigs wrote: post #133
hrktb wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s not just that. For instance 20 years ago there was public phone booths everywhere. A kid would just need a few coins and the house number to do a call, now you’d need a cell phone, and giving one to a 5~8 year kid is still not practical. Or I remember shopping at local shops enough to know their faces and names, or ask shop owner if the other kids where nearby. I don’t think my kid knows anyone other tha…

> TL;DR: A lot of stuff changed in the last decades, we can’t just blindly do the same as before. When I was kid, I would get on my bike and wander too far. One time I was out and a thunderstorm came along. A nice lady invited me into her house to call home. Fast forward to university, a professor objected to me closing his office door with just the 2 of us in there (we're both male and I'm 6ft 200lbs). A colleague o…

There’s also a difference between interactions & power dynamics in a neighborhood setting with a young kid and a college with an adult student.

So to be totally fair - not exactly similar situations

Re: Teens Aren’t Partying Anymore

#150

Post by Theodores »

hodgesrm wrote: post #64

Basically it feels as if parts of American society are becoming desocialized--losing the ability to interact effectively with other members of the society. This article echoes Robert Putnam's "Bowling Alone" thesis [0]. His ideas are at least a quarter century old but now seem prescient. I find the social changes the Wired article describes far more disturbing than the "Internet is frying our brains" threat that peop…

I think you are correct. I am in the UK and I saw a change happen to the students that went to university after I left. This was early nineties so pre-internet. Nothing to do with screens. However, my generation created and participated in untold amount of parties. We did not go to official organised events most of the time, more things we did. So no fancy concerts with known acts, just some of us playing records, everyone else dancing or propping up the bar (or taking drugs). In fact even the drug taking was different, it was about the 'raves' and not the drugs. People didn't take the drugs outside of the events. Undoubtedly the drug scene was a huge appeal to some but more people were happy on regular alcohol.

The generation that came along after just did not have the aptitude for getting together with a few hundred close friends for beach parties or illegal raves. At the same time the 'rave' scene or proper party scene had been killed off by capitalism, with larger venues in big cities - nightclubs - being the new thing.

In the days of partying the idea of spending a Friday/Saturday in front of a screen and not going out would be tantamount to hell. Also, back in the day, it would be possible to physically see a party event and hear the music. Nowadays that never happens, I don't see house parties as frequently as how they used to happen, e.g. on a Saturday night walking back across town there is no party to be heard, everything has to be properly organised now.

I think that the change happened with Reagan/Thatcher and how the individual mattered more than society, we become atomised then.

It would be nice to know how teenagers partied before the invention of the teenager to see the whole pattern and not assume everything is due to me being 'getting old'.

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