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

afterbabel.com

471–480 of 824 posts

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

#471

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 th…

Hard to completely elaborate on here but I think I am quite in the middle. It just happens to be far from norm. Or at least how i perceive it.

He watches some age appropriate TV daily. He started gaming but probably gets in around a total of 5 hours a month on the switch. It will be the hardest thing not to give into. Right now it’s not allowed on weekdays. And only with restrictions on weekends (eg. All other activities take priority). No smaller screens except on travels it’s a treat. He will get a laptop next year for school but I’m going to try to encourage PC use as a tool/utility and not so much for consumption/media. Phone might be hard but our current community of parents has kind of made a pact so I hope we can stick to it. We will hold out as long as possible and still put some restrictions on it. Thankfully he’s pretty logical and listens to our reasoning and understands the “rules” and doesn’t whine or get rebellious about it (thus far)

It’s not like we’re Amish or shun media.

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

#472

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…

Interestingly, there was another big shift happening from 1940-1980: - in 1940, the top 3 were: met through family, met through friends, met in primary school. In that order, but pretty much equal - From 1940-1980, two of those three (family, primary school) trended sharply downward, as did "met in church", while these trended upward: met through friends, met in bar or restaurant, met as or through coworkers, met in…

> I have a strange feeling that some of those are just people too embarassed to say they met online

Probably right. I don't really get the stigma, but I've known a few people personally who told the same lie and found later it was online. One in particular had a huge elaborate story about their bar meeting. His wife told me later one day he basically selected her from a website.

So like most questions, probably worth taking self reporting with a giant dose of salt.

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

#473
post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Do you realize that these laws that are supposed to "protect women" mean that I, a trans guy who was assigned female at birth but now have a full beard and look completely male in any clothes considered acceptable in public settings, am required to use the women's restroom and changing rooms in Florida? Is forcing an angry (trans) man to use the women's restroom your idea of "protecting women's spaces"?

[deleted]

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

#474
post #180
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…

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…

> I believe no one is talking about this aspect of WFH either. It’s taking away maybe the last “socially expected” regular commitment to your local community.

I don’t get this part. The only time I had a job in my local community was high school. Most of the adults (which was 95+% of the employees) commuted 20-60 minutes to get to it, though, so even that wasn’t my local community. You’d never run into your coworkers at the park or the store because they went to totally different parks and stores. Same’s held for my career as an adult. Coworkers are rarely people you’ll see anywhere other than work unless you go way out of your way to make it happen.

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

#475
post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hasn't the divorce rate also gone down. So one question is if the method of meeting is improving that rate

Yeah. Marriage rate and divorce rate have plummeted since 1940. Probably not much to do with electronic media there. A lot more likely that financial and social pressures are squeezing what were previously considered cultural imperatives. ie - church, marriage, home ownership, etc.

>A lot more likely that financial and social pressures are squeezing what were previously considered cultural imperatives.

We are living the most affluent lives ever known to mankind, even so-called low income people. We all have more money than we know what to do with, let alone more money than our forefathers.

Rather, I think the drop in marriage (and by extension divorce) has to do with increasing individualism and jade-ism.

The more humanity (namely the west) advances, the more it is drilled in that all men are created equal with unalienable rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. People are increasingly more concerned with living their lives the way they want to the exclusion of spouses and children if such things are not what makes them happy.

Combine that with the brutal realities of life, because life is fucking hard at the best of times (no matter how rich you are), and the media constantly sensationalizing on everyones' fears and anger aren't helping matters either.

Also as an aside and anecdata: I'm in my mid-30s now, not married, never married, and never intend to marry because I do not find it appealing at all. I can more than afford to marry, but I am far too busy with other matters more important to me and I frankly find marriage to be nothing short of a human rights violation anyway.

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

#476

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.

It might not be dating sites. I've heard of people in WoW guilds dating back in the day.

I had a couple of very fulfilling relationships with people I met on a band fan site.

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

#477
post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Do you realize that these laws that are supposed to "protect women" mean that I, a trans guy who was assigned female at birth but now have a full beard and look completely male in any clothes considered acceptable in public settings, am required to use the women's restroom and changing rooms in Florida? Is forcing an angry (trans) man to use the women's restroom your idea of "protecting women's spaces"?

[flagged]

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

#478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of places around me have free refills on fountain soft drinks and tea. In fact, it is pretty rare for a restaurant to not have free refills on things like sodas. Something fancier like a craft lemonade or whatever wouldn't have free refills though. This is true for a lot of the places I travel to within the US as well.

Interesting. I’m most familiar with west coast and northeast, and can’t say I have ever seen that.

I've been to Patchogue, Montreal, Toronto, Cleavland, Myrtle Beach, Rehoboth, Baltimore, Louisville, Indianapolis, Nashville, Kansas City, Houston, Austin, Taos, Denver, Chicago, and a few other cities in the past couple of years. The majority of restaurants I visited had free refills for fountain drinks. The biggest places that I went to that didn't have free refills were places like food stands and what not, but that's expected.

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

#479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 th…

Hard to completely elaborate on here but I think I am quite in the middle. It just happens to be far from norm. Or at least how i perceive it. He watches some age appropriate TV daily. He started gaming but probably gets in around a total of 5 hours a month on the switch. It will be the hardest thing not to give into. Right now it’s not allowed on weekdays. And only with restrictions on weekends (eg. All other activi…

This sounds like the sort of route I hope to take with my son when he's old enough. We've already made it past a year without ever sitting him down for TV/tablet/phone time (except video calls with grandparents) but I'm sure it only gets harder from here.

I'd be interested in reading any more you've previously written on the subject, or any other sources you've based your guidelines on!

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

#480

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've no incentive to help you leave

they have plenty of incentive to get you some dates, after that what are they gonna do?

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