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U.S. teens are spending less time with their friends in person

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Re: U.S. teens are spending less time with their friends in person

#281

Post by sanderjd »

wtallis wrote: post #112
sanderjd wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a fan of these sorts of programs as well, but adolescents also really really need unstructured time together.

A properly executed Boy Scout program[1] should give adolescents a lot of unstructured time and leave them with the sense that they spent a weekend hanging out with their friends having fun. It's only at the Cub Scout level where it's appropriate for adults to be planning and leading a highly structured weekend of activities. When I take my troop camping, even if there's a fixed plan for an activity during the day (e…

I agree with all of this and spent my youth as part of a really great troop that did lots of great youth-led events. It was a wonderful enriching experience that has had lasting value in my adult life. But it was not a replacement for all the time I spent hanging out shooting the shit with my friends. Both things were really important to me.

Re: U.S. teens are spending less time with their friends in person

#282

Post by sanderjd »

PascLeRasc wrote: post #253
wtallis wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A properly executed Boy Scout program[1] should give adolescents a lot of unstructured time and leave them with the sense that they spent a weekend hanging out with their friends having fun. It's only at the Cub Scout level where it's appropriate for adults to be planning and leading a highly structured weekend of activities. When I take my troop camping, even if there's a fixed plan for an activity during the day (e…

In the Boy Scouts troop I was in, no one was allowed to spend time at the parents/adult leaders tent. There's several obvious reasons for this, but one is to force kids, especially those who have a parent volunteering, to spend time away from them and learn some independence. I think it was a great policy.

Yep, this is totally right and an important part of the program. But still not a substitute for spending unstructured time with peers. If nothing else, teenagers should be spending time with possible love interests, flirting, saying the wrong things, saying the right things, figuring out why which is which, that sort of thing. For the large majority of kids that wasn't going to happen at BSA events. Maybe that will change with the broadening to include girls, but I suspect that sort of stuff will be frowned on rather than encouraged; it's just not the goal of the program.

Re: U.S. teens are spending less time with their friends in person

#283

Post by nitwit005 »

Symbiote wrote: post #165
_qwfv wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My argument is that it's not anti social. It's maybe less visibly social, but being in a group voice or video chat while playing board or video games is definitely a social activity. Or building something together - computers enable us to engage in storytelling and art in ways our ancestors could only dream of. Yeah, sure, they aren't social in the same way you were. But you weren't social in the same ways your paren…

So then, how does sex happen? (Or any intimacy.) That's the bit the old people don't understand. Board games are fine, as would be video games in the same room as the other players. But online? Note that the same worry would apply to a youth who spent all their free time reading alone in the past.

Sex wasn't exactly supposed to be happening in past generations of teens. One of the reasons people sometimes had their first sexual experience in cars was because both sets of parents would block it at home, and they couldn't rent a hotel room.

My high school apparently got complaints from neighboring homes that students were having sex in their bushes.

So, yes, changing social lives may be an issue, but it doesn't seem like it was easy before.

Re: U.S. teens are spending less time with their friends in person

#284

Post by winningcontinue »

pessimizer wrote: post #240
hardwaregeek wrote: post #116

Idk if this is specific to my generation, but us young people suck at hanging out. People never confirm whether or not they're going to an event. They flake all the time, often without warning. If they're not flaking, they're perpetually late, often absurdly (nothing like getting to a place and getting a text about just leaving). It drives me nuts. But it's so ubiquitous, it's hard to take a stand against it. It's li…

When I was a kid, which is getting to be a long time ago, we never really scheduled anything. People in our peer group tended to hang out in maybe 6-10 different locations - one being a particular bar, one being a particular corner, one being a particular house, etc. Sometimes a location would disappear, sometimes you'd hear about a new location. On your downtime, you would go to one of those locations and join the g…

The commons thing does sound pretty magical the way you described it. For me, there were often anti-social people at those common areas. People who you sometimes didn't want to run into, who were really certain subcultures and they didn't always mix.

Re: U.S. teens are spending less time with their friends in person

#285

Post by toomanybeersies »

jmoss20 wrote: post #51
trhway wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that they are entirely responsible for changes in loneliness. loneliness? The amount and richness of communication like the number of participants, number of parallel communications, number of the topics and the range of opinions, etc. is most probably much higher when using smartphones then when it is subject to the limitations of physical presence. Our species brain development is basically history of social comm…

> "... may feel like loneliness." Isn't the feeling the whole point? It's a bit strange to claim that, even though some people might feel lonely, they aren't /actually/. Lonely is a word that refers to an emotion -- not a word that refers to the circumstances that tend to bring about that emotion. I'll grant you that if we had a perfect account of what those circumstances were, the two might be identical (for a physi…

I feel that GP has confused loneliness with being alone, when they are two very different concepts.

It's absolutely possible to be alone and not feel lonely, possibly because one is an introvert or because they gain social fulfilment from online interaction.

On the other hand it's also absolutely possible to be surrounded with people, and even have rich social interaction with them, and still feel lonely. This could be simply due to interacting with the wrong people, but can also be symptomatic of mental health issues such as depressive or anxiety disorders.

Re: U.S. teens are spending less time with their friends in person

#286

Post by toomanybeersies »

trhway wrote: post #34
skywhopper wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, more and more super-suburban living, combined with increasingly restrictive teen driving regulations, curfews, and fear-based media stories about abductions have ratcheted down the ability of teens to hang out together. So when technology came along to enable improved interpersonal contact, it was embraced far more rapidly than it would have been if teen freedom were as high as it was in the 70s. The graphs they…

> that they are entirely responsible for changes in loneliness. loneliness? The amount and richness of communication like the number of participants, number of parallel communications, number of the topics and the range of opinions, etc. is most probably much higher when using smartphones then when it is subject to the limitations of physical presence. Our species brain development is basically history of social comm…

Humans need to interact physically (not necessarily with touch, but with proximity) with other humans. We are social animals.

Communication and interaction in social relationships is not just about information exchange. Non-verbal interaction (touch, gestures, physical closeness) are just as essential, if not more essential than verbal/text interaction for the majority of people.

Re: U.S. teens are spending less time with their friends in person

#287

Post by Symbiote »

darkpuma wrote: post #278
tikkabhuna wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a leatherman in London with a locking blade. It was a Christmas present from my dad and I emailed the local police about the legality of it. Ultimately, if you're walking round with it in the bottom of your bag and you have a use for it, you'll be fine. They're looking to stop people from having it in their pocket as they're walking round town. Same with the kitchen knives, got it down the back of your trouser…

That doesn't sound very reasonable to me. Is my pocket not a perfectly reasonable place to put my leatherman? It takes many seconds to unfold it and then unfold the blade, it's not exactly a switchblade. I'm not doing dance battles in the streets against the Sharks and Jets with it (is that really what London is like?) Carrying around a bag when I'm out and about town is a bad habit I broke myself from a few years ag…

> I'm not doing dance battles in the streets against the Sharks and Jets with it (is that really what London is like?)

I had to look that up, but the rate of incidents suggests that for some teenagers in London, it could be like that.

> supposing it were in my backpack instead of my pocket, what's the difference?

You are not "armed", it's not available for use to make an opportunistic attack or defence. "Don't run off, I need to get my knife out of my bag!"

(Do note that the knife violence is almost entirely within [youth] gangs, and shouldn't be a worry for anyone considering visiting London.)

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/knifecrime

Re: U.S. teens are spending less time with their friends in person

#288

Post by darkpuma »

Symbiote wrote: post #287
darkpuma wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't sound very reasonable to me. Is my pocket not a perfectly reasonable place to put my leatherman? It takes many seconds to unfold it and then unfold the blade, it's not exactly a switchblade. I'm not doing dance battles in the streets against the Sharks and Jets with it (is that really what London is like?) Carrying around a bag when I'm out and about town is a bad habit I broke myself from a few years ag…

> I'm not doing dance battles in the streets against the Sharks and Jets with it (is that really what London is like?) I had to look that up, but the rate of incidents suggests that for some teenagers in London, it could be like that. > supposing it were in my backpack instead of my pocket, what's the difference? You are not "armed", it's not available for use to make an opportunistic attack or defence. "Don't run of…

This article from that link (https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/mar/14/knife-and-we...) suggests 21 thousand knife incidents in 2018 across all of England and Wales, the combined population of which is nearly 60 million people.

The whole thing seems like an overblown hysteria to me. 21 thousand sounds like a lot until you put it into perspective. How low does that number have to get before knife regulations are walked back and people are given their rights back?

Re: U.S. teens are spending less time with their friends in person

#289

Post by Symbiote »

RugnirViking wrote: post #203
Zenst wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK, both are now illegal, can't even sell a knife to anybody under 18, same with glue and many things above and beyond alcohol and tobacco. Equally, having a knife in public, would be mandatory jail in the UK in the current climate. For a child, they would be taken into care and some serious nightmares for the parents from social services and the police. As for explosives, all the above, but far worse. By defa…

I was recently a child in the uk only a few years ago (I'm in my early 20s) and got into trouble for having a knife while playing out in the woods. I was sent home with the knife confiscated, and it was later returned to me. Of course, its entirely possible in other circumstances for it to be less/more acceptable. While at scouts we could of course carry knives without worry, and even met police officers who came to…

Who decided it was a problem — police, or an interfering parent?

Re: U.S. teens are spending less time with their friends in person

#290

Post by RandomBacon »

logfromblammo wrote: post #251
hobs wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I am glad your troop helped out a bit, I had mine ask me to leave and not come back because I didnt fit in with their religious boyscouts. Honestly a large amount of troops are maintained by mormons or others as extended wings of their belief systems.

My father is an Eagle Scout that frequently volunteers for the organization at the national and council level. I don't always pay attention when he talks about scouts, but I have heard enough. I'm not very keen on supporting the organization myself, thanks to their abuse cover-ups and hostility towards non-orthodox people. AFAIK, Mormons recently voted to stop using Boy Scouts as their de facto youth activities organ…

There is the Lone Scout program (part of BSA that almost no one knows about). The youth does not have to be in a troop, can still earn ranks/Eagle, merit badges, etc, can still participate in district/council/national events, and gets to wear a cool Lone Scout patch.
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