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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

#281

Post by darby_nine »

lawlessone wrote: post #241
StopTheWorld wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Professor Michael Rosenfeld at Stanford does research on how heterosexual couples in the US meet ( https://web.stanford.edu/~mrosenfe/ ). In 1940, over 50% met via friends or family. About 36% met at school. In 2021, about 20% met via friends or family. About 10% met at school. Over 50% met online. So the majority of US couples are now meeting via profit-maximizing corporations. He has a 2019 paper on this (and it ha…

I'm surprised dating sites work well enough that 50% of customers meet via it. They've no incentive to help you leave.

They just need to work once. Who knows how many failed attempts at finding someone preceded the one that suck.

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

#282

Post by pnut »

ryandrake wrote: post #221
phil21 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mad rush to as quickly abolish religious practices in mainstream U.S. culture without any form of societal replacement is puzzling to me. I am no fan of religion having grown up in an exceedingly religious environment. But it was always completely obvious to me even as a child that the primary purpose of religion was to form local communities and have others with shared values to rely on. We seem to be doing it w…

It seems to me that a lot of the "community" hole left by religion declining is being quickly filled in by politics, which itself is taking on quasi-religious attributes.

Maybe it always was one and the same.. separation of church and state in Western culture was a hard won, radical political innovation not very long ago. And Christians today are a highly motivated special interest group in the States, openly attempting to lock their social agenda into law. See also sharia law.

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

#283

Post by loa_in_ »

itishappy wrote: post #276
lawlessone wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised dating sites work well enough that 50% of customers meet via it. They've no incentive to help you leave.

Customer success stories are free advertising.

And the need for the service doesn't need to be fabricated, it's innate.

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

#285

Post by jimbokun »

weberer wrote: post #25
astrodust wrote: post #10

Who knew utterly destroying cities and replacing them with gated communities with no accommodations for children whatsoever, and borderline criminalizing any activity which isn't closely supervised would have knock-on effects.

What percentage of the population do you think lives in a gated community? I know its common in some areas with particularly high amounts of break ins like South Africa and Brazil, but they're fairly rare in the USA.

OK, so not "gated community" but "cul-de-sac suburb". Argument still holds.

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

#286

Post by RangerScience »

Hot take:

The upstream cause of this is, essentially, "the rent is too damn high". Not necessarily in a sense of housing prices, but -

In order to have a community, that community needs a space. (The early 'net was interesting in that "space" was cheap/nearly free - IRC, forums, etc, which might be one reason it took over as a social space to begin with)

Extremely consistently, I see efforts at forming communities fail simply due to a lack of regular space in which to have them, and from what little I know talking to organizers, it pretty much always comes down to the cost of the space - the rent. This remains true even if the space itself wants to be cheap/free - it has to pay it's own rent, which means it needs dollars from everyone using it.

AFAIK, religious institutions get around this through (1) advantageous tax laws and (2) long-term ownership.

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

#287

Post by vegadw »

fn-mote wrote: post #257
vegadw wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What frustrates me is that, it seems (Read as: the following is just my vibe) that the majority of 3rd places left are religious in nature, but I, personally, don't want to be religious or raise children that are. There are some options, of course, but they're limited and often of poor quality, at least locally. Libraries are trying to adapt to fill this gap, and maker spaces spring up but most don't have funding to…

I hear you, but it sounds like you’re saying you want program that delivers high value without paying for it. The way to make this happen is get out there and volunteer your big dollar software engineer time to make it happen. Use all of the knowledge about how to get things done that you get from reading HN, join a team, and start building. My volunteering experience has been amazing, but there were some negative ex…

I'm willing to help, but as one person, I can only do so much. Hyper-locally, it's actually a problem of community here instead of money anyway. There's a half-way decent maker-space, but it's all old men. Think "ham radio guys" stereotype. They're knowledgeable, but without any young blood (and the artistic pursuits younger people tend to bring) it's not fun.

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

#288

Post by vegadw »

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #244
vegadw wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What frustrates me is that, it seems (Read as: the following is just my vibe) that the majority of 3rd places left are religious in nature, but I, personally, don't want to be religious or raise children that are. There are some options, of course, but they're limited and often of poor quality, at least locally. Libraries are trying to adapt to fill this gap, and maker spaces spring up but most don't have funding to…

Libraries are a great place to be, enjoy, learn, and relax, but a terrible place to meet new people. You're not really supposed to talk, and most people don't go there expecting to interact with a stranger or strike up a conversation.

It depends. Many libraries host events on a regular basis where socialization is half the point.

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

#289

Post by hoosieree »

vegadw wrote: post #165
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…

What frustrates me is that, it seems (Read as: the following is just my vibe) that the majority of 3rd places left are religious in nature, but I, personally, don't want to be religious or raise children that are. There are some options, of course, but they're limited and often of poor quality, at least locally. Libraries are trying to adapt to fill this gap, and maker spaces spring up but most don't have funding to…

I've had the exact same feeling. I think this is some latent cultural zeitgeist that more people are starting to notice.

My thought was to start a "philosopher's club", for Platonic friendships. Right now it's just me and one neighbor meeting every 2 weeks for coffee, but I think an ideal size might be around 3-4 "regulars" plus 2-5 sporadic attendees. Big enough to get boisterous but small enough to carpool.

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

#290

Post by MarkMarine »

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…

The rise of (lowercase L) liberalism and replacement of feudal society’s requirement that you be part of the community with the commodification of every relationship we have is the root cause here. We’re just late enough in this transition to really feel it, and people are looking at symptoms and seeing cause.
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