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

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

afterbabel.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 824 posts

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

#291

Post by RangerScience »

hnpolicestate wrote: post #246

The articles thesis on loss of community plays a role but has always existed in some context depending upon the individuals location. The primary cause (in my opinion) of the youth mental health crisis and falling happiness rates was the introduction of the smart phone. Blaming social media is a clever cop out, it's the actual device and inability of people to stop looking at it. Totally abnormal to human life. Will…

Counter-take: Smartphone addiction, like other addictions, it a coping mechanism for other issues, see https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/what-does-rat-park-tea...

> But Alexander wondered: is this about the drug or might it be related to the setting they were in? To test his hypothesis, he put rats in “rat parks,” where they were among others and free to roam and play, to socialize and to have sex. And they were given the same access to the same two types of drug laced bottles. When inhabiting a “rat park,” they remarkably preferred the plain water. Even when they did imbibe from the drug-filled bottle, they did so intermittently, not obsessively, and never overdosed. A social community beat the power of drugs.

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

#292

Post by api »

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…

You could even go so far as to say that third spaces that are tied to political, religious, or other types of groups are "monetized" in the sense that they exist to further the cause of growing that group.

What's nearly extinct is neutral third spaces with zero agenda.

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

#293

Post by ToucanLoucan »

collingreen wrote: post #265
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a lot at a shopping mall, sure. At a park in the suburbs, IMO significantly less so. Especially when ostensibly my property taxes are already paying for the fucking park.

I understand your frustration but I expect there are a lot of things that go into that decision. I expect adding a fee to parking makes it possible to enforce time limits, to remove squatting, and to ensure there are actually spots available. I doubt it is for the money but even if it is the park systems tend to be horribly underfunded (and often have to be held up with private donation money). A lot of our broken th…

> From your rant we know you'll pick free open spots compared to paid open spots but what if the choice is between paid open spots and no spots at all?

I wouldn't know, there weren't any free spots, open or otherwise, for consideration.

> Or worse, paid open spots or shady looking cars parked all day selling drugs?

I'm not sure what constitutes a shady car in your mind. I'm pretty sure no one in my neighborhood sells drugs. I know that cuz I have to leave my neighborhood to buy the drugs I want. All things being equal I'd much prefer to just buy them in stores but for some insane reason we're still carrying on the war on drugs despite it being linked, in ink and in recordings, directly to the Nixon administration wanting to prevent black people and hippies from voting, so we make do the best we can.

> It seems like the more effective change is more parks

I mean, we have plenty of parks. Some days they're pretty damn busy but most days they're not. I'm blessed to be a remote worker so I can also just go there (or you know, used to be able to!) and work for a bit too.

> but imagine the pushback if someone tried suggesting that! You're angry that you already pay taxes and now you have to pay again to have a special spot right at the park you can park your car in. Imagine the backlash if someone had the audacity to suggest raising your taxes for new parks.

I actually pay pretty high taxes for my area. The trade-off is our snow collection is extremely good and the roads are well kept, as are the parks for that matter (now marred with stupid ass parking meters but alas).

I'm not opposed in the slightest to paying taxes. I participate in my local government, and I'm planning to bring this up at the next meeting because frankly I think it's bullshit that we're being asked to pay to park there when we're already funding that department. If they need more money or are running at a shortfall, that problem should be addressed with our community like everything else is, with a tax bump if required. I'm frankly infuriated that this was done not just from the principles of it but also because somehow it was done in a way that completely went under the radar of the city council I participate in. This was a huge change and should've been discussed.

> "I already pay for parks! I won't even use 95% of them! Why should I have to pay just because I'm a homeowner!"

Yes my position would be very unreasonable if it was even remotely this. Thankfully it's not.

FWIW I also am fine with paying for our schools too.

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

#294

Post by odo1242 »

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.

Libraries are trying to do that (with community events, conference rooms, etc.) though. Depends on the library.

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

#295

Post by kahmeal »

conductr wrote: post #110

I’m so glad it’s finally happening but also it’s wild to me this conversation feels like it’s just beginning. The Anxious Generation book seems to have been what was needed for people to see what, to me anyways, was common sense and actually question their silly iPad at 6months old parenting styles. As it’s picking up steam, I’ve been hearing stories recently about how our local “school district decided to ban phones…

>I say all this as a parent of an almost 6 year old boy, doing everything I can to shield him from the wacky parenting style that seems to be the norm and provide him places of community and activities away from screens. He won’t have a phone until he drives, or maybe just a basic flip phone if we think we need a communication line to reach him when he’s a bit older.

This is possibly a bit extreme, imo. In a world that is ever increasingly digital, responsible exposure is without a doubt necessary; However, it seems that one could also inadvertently foster naiveté and ignorance of our digital reality, which has its own potential pitfalls. The "right" answer is probably somewhere in the middle. As usual.

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

#296

Post by loa_in_ »

michaelt wrote: post #118
bunderbunder wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If compromise with others is starting to be seen as an affront to one's own sense of identity, it's no wonder people are reporting such a poor sense of well-being nowadays. I grew up before the terminally online era, and I'm not sure we ever saw taking turns doing each other's favorite activity as a sacrifice of our individualism. It was just part of what it means to form meaningful social bonds with other people. He…

I agree with you, but there was certainly some pressure in that direction. You were probably told that if all your friends were doing drugs (or jumping off a cliff) you should think for yourself. And you were probably told it was bad to be a sheep and just follow the crowd. And you probably saw some "real fans" of bands/comics/whatever being scornful towards "phoneys" who were just "pretending". And you might have be…

I think you just wrote down a post mortem of my life's failure

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

#297

Post by sethammons »

collingreen wrote: post #265
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a lot at a shopping mall, sure. At a park in the suburbs, IMO significantly less so. Especially when ostensibly my property taxes are already paying for the fucking park.

I understand your frustration but I expect there are a lot of things that go into that decision. I expect adding a fee to parking makes it possible to enforce time limits, to remove squatting, and to ensure there are actually spots available. I doubt it is for the money but even if it is the park systems tend to be horribly underfunded (and often have to be held up with private donation money). A lot of our broken th…

it is a public space. we all pay for it via taxes. if it is criminal ridden, hire police. if there are squatters, hire police. charging parking at a non accessible location to a public resource, I'm sure you could find a solid argument for that being racist. charging for parking at a public park feels like charging to get to the voter polling location. it should be obviously wrong.

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

#298

Post by apsurd »

hot_gril wrote: post #210
ant_li0n wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A housing development will create parks because they are required to do it. This is not market forces at work.

There are definitely fancier HOAs with bigger and nicer parks and common spaces than the others, and I don't think it's because they have different city rules.

HOA style commons solutions means a city becomes thousands of micro, private, exclusive spaces.

Perhaps better than everyone sitting in their homes getting amazon deliveries every few hours.

but this isn't what people mean when they say public community spaces. We need interconnectedness across income, ideology, generation, education, etc, for stable democracy.

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

#299

Post by dmkolobov »

krapp wrote: post #256
2snakes wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are certain elements that are not true. But other ones are true. There are many ways to alleviate suffering.

God is not true, at least not the sense that any religion claims (God as an abstraction and a meme is as real as any other, as real as Harry Potter or Slenderman) Claims of absolute moral right or authority derived from divine right are not true. Claims made by the religious that belief in God is a prerequisite to morality, community or cultural identity are not true. Claims made by religious teachings about the natu…

Growing up in Nashville I've frequently heard that religion is a prerequisite to ethics. While I disagree in principle, I struggle to come up with an example where philosophy and ethics are discussed in a secular setting outside of school(academia included) and politics.

It would not surprise me that on the whole our society is worse off for lack of a widespread secular tradition of discussing these concepts with your community.

edit: substitute "secular setting" for "secular state", definitely not arguing for the integration of church and state.

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

#300

Post by brightball »

hot_gril wrote: post #169
brightball wrote: post #31

I have to assume that people leaving their home towns to work elsewhere is a huge driving factor of all of this.

I recently moved. Most of my new friends aren't from here, they came here for work, but they consider it their own city now and are part of the community. It's different in a "commuter city" like San Francisco. That means the majority of people don't even live there during the day, and even their job might be temporary. Unfortunately most are there to make money, not friends.

Yep, exactly. And if your families aren't around, that will have an impact the moment you decide to have kids. Available grandparents make everything about raising children easier, especially for working parents.

And then the grandparents will connect the kids with their friends, their friends families and grand kids too. And so on.

Post reply on HN