Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Teens are spending less time than ever with friends

thehill.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 33 posts

Re: Teens are spending less time than ever with friends

#21

Post by autoexec »

Pet_Ant wrote: post #19
autoexec wrote: post #17

> “Going to the mall has gone down. Driving in the car for fun has gone down. Going to the movies has gone down,” she said. “We’re talking about kids who are spending five, six, seven hours a day on social media.” The malls are dead, gas is overpriced, helicopter parents don't let kids out of the house, and movies (sitting next to each other in the dark staring silently at something else) is barely social interaction…

> Give teens more freedom, give them places to hang out, They don't have bunch of disposible income, so what's the economic incentive? I mean can you imagine the shit storm if a tax was levied to fund a space of teens to hang out? I can hear the whinging from parallel universes where it happened already.

I know long term thinking is basically impossible for most people, but their could be economic advantages over the long term. If teens start spending more time in person and have spaces to run away to maybe they'll start having sex again and the population will boom.

Re: Teens are spending less time than ever with friends

#22

Post by lockhouse »

BanazirGalbasi wrote: post #3

The article mostly seems to blame social media, but I also think that the lack of good social spaces is also key. There's fewer and fewer spaces that a group of teens can just hang out without spending money (due to "no loitering" policies/signs), and that number is even smaller if you count spaces in walking distance of most families. I've also heard/read plenty of anecdotes about malls shrinking or closing down com…

People are also ignoring the fact that we trained children to stay home by themselves and keep themselves occupied and only interact with other kids through computers and cell phones for almost 2 years due to COVID. I think the lockdowns really reprogrammed kids to interact with each other differently than they normally would have.

Re: Teens are spending less time than ever with friends

#23

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

adhesive_wombat wrote: post #20
wilg wrote: post #2

> Adolescents are spending less time gathering in shopping malls, movie theaters and rec rooms, and more time connecting on Instagram, TikTok and Discord. On this point, I’d say the problem lies with the former becoming irrelevant. This is why I’m really interested in creating new types of IRL social spaces and shared experiences. There’s just not a lot of options really, and for The Kids, bars are out.

Bars (and cafes) have also learned to absolutely blast music to stop people talking and make them drink up. So not only can you not afford to drink at many bars as a teen, you can't talk to your friends there either. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1530-0277.2008... About the only place to hang out that doesn't demand money is a library, assuming you can find one, and that's not exactly the right place…

Library, park, church, (after) school, friends' houses, your house. I don't think this is actually that huge of a delta from the historical norm.

Re: Teens are spending less time than ever with friends

#24

Post by adhesive_wombat »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #23
adhesive_wombat wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bars (and cafes) have also learned to absolutely blast music to stop people talking and make them drink up. So not only can you not afford to drink at many bars as a teen, you can't talk to your friends there either. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1530-0277.2008... About the only place to hang out that doesn't demand money is a library, assuming you can find one, and that's not exactly the right place…

Library, park, church, (after) school, friends' houses, your house. I don't think this is actually that huge of a delta from the historical norm.

In the context of "third places" (which excludes work/schools and homes), there's a pretty seismic shift in churches from the historical norm of virtually 100% attendance.

Malls took up some slack for a few decades but they're on the way out in many places too.

Re: Teens are spending less time than ever with friends

#25

Post by crtified »

rcme wrote: post #13
BanazirGalbasi wrote: post #3

The article mostly seems to blame social media, but I also think that the lack of good social spaces is also key. There's fewer and fewer spaces that a group of teens can just hang out without spending money (due to "no loitering" policies/signs), and that number is even smaller if you count spaces in walking distance of most families. I've also heard/read plenty of anecdotes about malls shrinking or closing down com…

I doubt lack of social space has anything to do with it. As a kid I would hang out at a literal dump with friends; what else were we going to do? It’s just too easy to waste an afternoon on TikTok.

I agree. Kids make the best of what's available. And in some ways they are still doing so, in this more digital age. In ways we older gens couldn't. But there's no denying that the elephant in the room is the massively pervasive, universal social and information connection that is cellphones and internet. Even we older gens have been subsumed to a fair degree - we're here right now! :)

Re: Teens are spending less time than ever with friends

#26

Post by floor2 »

Pet_Ant wrote: post #19
autoexec wrote: post #17

> “Going to the mall has gone down. Driving in the car for fun has gone down. Going to the movies has gone down,” she said. “We’re talking about kids who are spending five, six, seven hours a day on social media.” The malls are dead, gas is overpriced, helicopter parents don't let kids out of the house, and movies (sitting next to each other in the dark staring silently at something else) is barely social interaction…

> Give teens more freedom, give them places to hang out, They don't have bunch of disposible income, so what's the economic incentive? I mean can you imagine the shit storm if a tax was levied to fund a space of teens to hang out? I can hear the whinging from parallel universes where it happened already.

Huh? We already have taxes to fund spaces for teens to hang out.

Taxes pay for parks, libraries, nature preserves, swimming pools, schools (with after-school sports, musicals, various clubs), museums and galleries. Many local organizations receive grants from taxpayer money to provide services and activities for teens.

Within a 10-mile radius of where I'm sitting, a teenager could skateboard at a taxpayer-funded skate park, swim at a taxpayer-funded pool, read a magazine at a taxpayer-funded library, play basketball on a taxpayer-funded court, walk through a tax-payer funded art gallery, etc.

Re: Teens are spending less time than ever with friends

#27

Post by crtified »

wilg wrote: post #2

> Adolescents are spending less time gathering in shopping malls, movie theaters and rec rooms, and more time connecting on Instagram, TikTok and Discord. On this point, I’d say the problem lies with the former becoming irrelevant. This is why I’m really interested in creating new types of IRL social spaces and shared experiences. There’s just not a lot of options really, and for The Kids, bars are out.

Also, let's be honest - we older generations set this scene. It's us who began this pattern of behaviour, starting with the home computing boom in the 1980s. Game consoles. Handhelds. It's us who truly began to normalise the behaviour of spending significant amounts of time in leisure at the desk or couch. It's us who were entirely enthralled and captured by the early years of the internet, and digital content. We're doing it right now, as we speak. I'm not sure we can talk of the younger generations as having coined a problem, when it's our very example (and the products we made and marketed) that they learned from.

I suggest we need to broaden our gaze - the recent decades of digital social revolution have greatly affected the behaviour of us all.

Re: Teens are spending less time than ever with friends

#28

Post by klooney »

boatsie wrote: post #11
BanazirGalbasi wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole concept of Third Places[1] is kind of dying out. Like you said, bars don't work for kids, and other common places are either dwindling or just don't allow loitering - which is basically what teens are doing when they go hang out somewhere. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place

It would be interesting if libraries could be used for this purpose. Most close early so they could be used in the evenings for social gatherings, etc.

They are in lots of places, my suburban library is teeming with kids from the end of school till 8 when it closes.

Re: Teens are spending less time than ever with friends

#29

Post by paulryanrogers »

adhesive_wombat wrote: post #24
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Library, park, church, (after) school, friends' houses, your house. I don't think this is actually that huge of a delta from the historical norm.

In the context of "third places" (which excludes work/schools and homes), there's a pretty seismic shift in churches from the historical norm of virtually 100% attendance. Malls took up some slack for a few decades but they're on the way out in many places too.

Good riddance. Teens don't need to be told how born defective they are and for the low, low cost of 10% of all future income they too can be made right with imaginary sky daddy.

Re: Teens are spending less time than ever with friends

#30

Post by throw9away6 »

floor2 wrote: post #26
Pet_Ant wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Give teens more freedom, give them places to hang out, They don't have bunch of disposible income, so what's the economic incentive? I mean can you imagine the shit storm if a tax was levied to fund a space of teens to hang out? I can hear the whinging from parallel universes where it happened already.

Huh? We already have taxes to fund spaces for teens to hang out. Taxes pay for parks, libraries, nature preserves, swimming pools, schools (with after-school sports, musicals, various clubs), museums and galleries. Many local organizations receive grants from taxpayer money to provide services and activities for teens. Within a 10-mile radius of where I'm sitting, a teenager could skateboard at a taxpayer-funded skat…

10 miles how is the teen supposed to cover 10 mile distance in urban America? No sidewalks or safe bike routes
Post reply on HN