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Teen mental health is plummeting and social media is a major contributing cause [pdf]

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Re: Teen mental health is plummeting and social media is a major contributing cause [pdf]

#501

Post by api »

indymike wrote: post #481

Unpopular opinion: Social media is a great scapegoat, but it is not the source of the problem. It is where they go to communicate and cope. My sole qualification to post this: I have four kids that are either teens or in their early 20s, and one who will be a teen next year. Here is what I see out there: 1. Kids have little or no slack in their schedule. This means very little freedom, and very little time to work th…

I'll add one more that IMHO is huge:

Youth culture seems dead.

I remember being a teen and early-20 in the 90s-2000s and there were things like a hippie festival circuit, raves, goth culture, club culture, and so on.

I keep hoping I'm just old and don't see it, but I remember back then it would seep out and get covered by the media and get chatted about on the nascent Internet. I see nothing like it today. Sure there are concerts and IDM shows and the like, but they don't have a mystique. It's just entertainment, not a coming of age subculture. Subculture is dead.

I think this is a factor from personal experience. If I hadn't gotten into the rave/club culture in the late 90s I'd probably be dead from suicide.

These cultures were where kids that did not exactly fit the popular mold would be able to go out, make friends, have experiences, and have a sense of belonging. I still miss it to this day.

Re: Teen mental health is plummeting and social media is a major contributing cause [pdf]

#502

Post by radarsat1 »

indymike wrote: post #481

Unpopular opinion: Social media is a great scapegoat, but it is not the source of the problem. It is where they go to communicate and cope. My sole qualification to post this: I have four kids that are either teens or in their early 20s, and one who will be a teen next year. Here is what I see out there: 1. Kids have little or no slack in their schedule. This means very little freedom, and very little time to work th…

> Diversity is good, but being ____ is bad.

Can you fill in the blank? I actually have no idea what you are referring to here.

Re: Teen mental health is plummeting and social media is a major contributing cause [pdf]

#503

Post by lupire »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #332
tgv wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Multiple major recessions One. They lived through one major recession, and here it wasn't really major, and is not something they lived through recently. They were younger than 6 when it started. I've lived through two. The 80s weren't a happy time, and there are no signs that that had such an impact on teen mental health. If it did, it would be proof that the impact of a major recession is temporary. > prospect of…

> One. They lived through one major recession If seems like one continuous recession since 2008 - at least here in the UK, and I suspect also in many places. Nearly a decade and a half of austerity and failure: what does that do to their hopes for the future? My children (both teenagers) ask me "has it always been like this?" I was a child/teen in the seventies and I remember thinking the same thing. Add to that the…

We used to have the cold war and the nuclear bomb threat, WWII, the Communist devastation of Asia, not to mention global poverty in general, and the old global warming". The "climate crisis isn't a new kid of psychological threat.

Re: Teen mental health is plummeting and social media is a major contributing cause [pdf]

#504

Post by mmarq »

antisinguIarity wrote: post #487
mmarq wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, as a resident of the UK, I have to ask - how does it have a non-existent safety net? Jobseeker’s Allowance is one forth of the average rent in London and I’m not sure you are entitled to it if you have any savings. If you lose your private insurance you’d have to rely on the NHS, which is not as bad as what happens in the US, but it’s not in the same league of the French, German or even the Italian healthc…

>Jobseeker’s Allowance is one forth of the average rent in London Tricky issue. I do know that where I live (Wales), there are huge numbers of people living relatively comfortably on a benefit-funded lifestyle. There's also a whole lot more to the UK safety net than Jobseeker's Allowance. >If you lose your private insurance you’d have to rely on the NHS If you don't mind me asking, are you a UK native? That's a fanta…

> There's also a whole lot more to the UK safety net than Jobseeker's Allowance.

Fine, but given what I pay in income tax and NI (~80K£ last year), I’d expect a lot more than 4-500£ per month plus (maybe?) 500£ of housing benefit and access to a food bank. I would expect at least 2–3-4 times that for at least one or two years, no questions asked. I understand this money may be enough to live in Wales, but I can’t be expected to relocate there because I lost my job.

> If you don't mind me asking, are you a UK native?

No, I’m not. Hence I’m immune to the NHS cult. :)

Unfortunately several members of my family have battle tested the Italian and the German healthcare systems. Half of them would have died horribly in the UK.

Re: Teen mental health is plummeting and social media is a major contributing cause [pdf]

#505

Post by lupire »

Jcowell wrote: post #459
meerita wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 kids from previous generations lived under much worse conditions. Not only economical ones, but also social (wars, technology, etc.)

It depends where you are ? A male kid from Kentucky probably didn’t see his life get worse in the last 60 years. A kid from Yemen & Afghanistan (and now Ukraine) more than likely did.

Methamphetamine has entered the chat.

Re: Teen mental health is plummeting and social media is a major contributing cause [pdf]

#506

Post by bambataa »

moonchrome wrote: post #196
Semaphor wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Situation wrt to teen mental health is similar in Europe, but there's a much smaller graduation debt. We have other issues here, though (speaking for the situation in Germany). I’m quite some time out of my teens at 36, but for many years now I’ve been told that all that tax (technically not a tax) I pay for my pension will not result in me getting any meaningful pension. For people who are currently teenagers it p…

You think teenagers are thinking about pensions... If they are they are probably already having mental issues because that's not something someone pre 20s should be concerned about. People in this thread need to stop projecting their problems and worldviews as universal social issues.

In the UK, recent tax rises to pay off some of the Covid debt were pretty openly designed to avoid asking older people to contribute. (Roughly, national insurance, paid by workers, went up rather than income tax. Only after opposition in Parliament did they extend it to include over 65s who still work).

Young people are definitely extremely aware that they sacrificed a lot over the last two years to protect the elderly and now the elderly are not being asked to contribute back.

This is before you consider climate change, about which young people are generally much more informed and concerned.

Boomers don’t care because it won’t affect them. I know that sounds hyperbolic but I genuinely think it’s true. Those who are aware of the problems focus on helping their immediate descendants.

Re: Teen mental health is plummeting and social media is a major contributing cause [pdf]

#507

Post by [deleted] »

yunohn wrote: post #419
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally speaking, cost of living is proportional to income; I could move inside my small country to a place twice as big, but if I were to get a job close to where I live it'd slash my wages by a lot to the point where I wouldn't actually be able to live there. That said, if you can work remotely, you can move south or east and live a lot cheaper. It just has to be your thing to move to a new country.

> if you can work remotely, you can move south or east and live a lot cheaper. It just has to be your thing to move to a new country. “The solution to these problems is to exploit systemic economic inequalities by leveraging remote work for income arbitrage” I don’t understand why HN keeps repeating this “solution”.

[deleted]

Re: Teen mental health is plummeting and social media is a major contributing cause [pdf]

#508

Post by throwaway787544 »

indymike wrote: post #481

Unpopular opinion: Social media is a great scapegoat, but it is not the source of the problem. It is where they go to communicate and cope. My sole qualification to post this: I have four kids that are either teens or in their early 20s, and one who will be a teen next year. Here is what I see out there: 1. Kids have little or no slack in their schedule. This means very little freedom, and very little time to work th…

It's not the only source of the problem, but social media is certainly a big one.

Back in the day you didn't get rape threats from 50 anonymous accounts, or see pictures of you photoshopped sucking dicks, or feel like even more of a loser because you see in 4K detail how everybody else in class is having more fun outside of school. The internet is a threat and embarrassment and envy machine. You feel like you're constantly losing a battle to be relevant and have a good time, and you pathologically monitor feeds of other people's lives to try to stay ahead. When that doesn't work you lose yourself in mindless entertainment to avoid mental stress, also avoiding processing hard emotions.

That's not all new, but it's at a level higher than ever before.

Re: Teen mental health is plummeting and social media is a major contributing cause [pdf]

#509

Post by lupire »

snikeris wrote: post #495
mschuster91 wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Perhaps it's social media that makes that they are either too aware of it or simply mention it more often. Or rather, they see how historically threats were dealt with: lead was banned, CFCs were banned, sulphur in fuel was banned - in short, environmental threats were met with decisive action. And then they see how scientists have warned for decades now about climate change and they can clearly see that nothing ha…

Perhaps the threats that were met with decisive action were better understood. What decisive actions should be taken in this case?

> What decisive actions should be taken in this case?

Putting humanity in the environment could be banned. But we're seeing a trend in the other direction.

Re: Teen mental health is plummeting and social media is a major contributing cause [pdf]

#510

Post by monsieurgaufre »

ejb999 wrote: post #496
paxys wrote: post #68

Social media definitely amplifies it, but consider the economic and social environment that teenagers have lived through their entire lives. Multiple major recessions, a global pandemic, rising inflation, housing and education getting more expensive by the day, prospect of a mountain of debt right after graduation, climate that will be unlivable in a few decades, political extremism becoming the norm, and massive gov…

>>a mountain of debt right after graduation Average debt upon graduation is approx. $31K, less than the cost of a mid-grade car. I would not call that 'a mountain', and unlike a car which will rapidly depreciate in a very short amount of time, getting a decent college degree will pay dividends throughout your life in increased earnings power. According to govt estimates, the average lifetime earnings difference betwe…

> A $550,000 improvement in lifetime earnings in exchange for $31K in debt, seems like one of the best investments you can make.

Not when you're not even sure of being able to pay back those $31K+interests afterwards.

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