The upstream cause of the youth mental health crisis is the loss of community • Hacker News Board

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

#661

Post by BeFlatXIII » Sat, Aug 03, 2024, 2:01 PM UTC

scruple wrote: post #311

Filligree wrote: post #203

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. It is a problem, but…

The church that I was raised in and grew up in for the first 18 years of my life... I became a militant atheist when I left that church at 18, close to 30 years ago. In my 30s, I started to drift between Zen Buddhism, Druidry, wicca, paganism, looked into Daoism, and on and on it went. And I finally realized, quite recently, that I had a God-shaped hole running right through the center of me. I still haven't quite fi…

I (somewhat unknowingly) spent several months of immersion in a Hindu monastery. At least in the branch they practiced, they were very clear that your internal beliefs on the theology were far less important than doing the practices that will bring you benefits in this very lifetime—no need to reincarnate to enjoy your positive karma. Christianity puts too much emphasis on belief and not enough on rituals & practices to thrive in a skeptical public.

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

#662

Post by anon291 » Sat, Aug 03, 2024, 2:02 PM UTC

alisonatwork wrote: post #76

JohnFen wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I had an invite from friends and the activity didn't seem immediately interesting to me, I'd decline. I have seen many (usually younger) people make this mistake. The mistake is thinking that the point of the activity is the activity itself. It isn't. The point is the genuine social engagement. (Edited to add:) > I've since learned to say yes more Years ago, I learned to change my default answer to things from "…

Interestingly, I've gone the opposite way in my old age. I realize now how very short life is and how it's absolutely not worth wasting what little free time I have on activities that don't interest me. This goes even moreso in the workplace, where saying yes often leads you into taking on more responsibilities for no extra pay or recognition, unless you simultaneously try to wangle the added work into a schmoozing o…

I mean, it depends where you start at. I always say yes, and that has led me to overscheduling, so I'm learning to say no; but my default is still yes. For me, it takes effort and discretion to say no. It sounds like for OP, it is the opposite.

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

#663

Post by steve_adams_86 » Sat, Aug 03, 2024, 2:02 PM UTC

vishnugupta wrote: post #101

One big change I've noticed between growing up in a small town and now where I'm in my mid 40s in a big metro city in India is increased "transactional" nature of interactions of my daily life. Back then we had a deeper ties with all those who served us by which I mean vegetable vendor, carpenter, doctor, knife sharpener, cloth shop, grocer, baker and so on. Whenever we interacted with them it would be a small chit-c…

This maps to my experience as well.

I see families struggle with things I don’t recall seeing as a kid or teenager. We all had more people around. We were rarely functioning as such independent family units.

And you’re right, my dad was a carpenter himself and he did all kinds of favours for people. Especially elderly people—mostly women—who couldn’t do the work themselves or easily afford to pay someone to. He would offer lower rates, fit things in for free, and show up at their convenience. It was the right thing to do. That isn’t really possible now, though.

Something I urge my kids to understand is that family is great, but it was never meant to be everything. That isn’t to diminish family, but to encourage one to identify and appreciate what’s so valuable and rewarding in friends and community. Humans are so richly social and so poor at functioning in isolation; there’s no sense in pretending otherwise. We really need each other. The more community erodes, so do we each as well.

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

#664

Post by notahacker » Sat, Aug 03, 2024, 2:02 PM UTC

anon291 wrote: post #642

ip26 wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would call that the difference between a small town and a city, which isn't new. You establish those ties because you see the same grocer regularly - there's only two grocers in town, after all. Meanwhile, in the city, you could buy groceries twice a week and never see the same clerk twice.

> Meanwhile, in the city, you could buy groceries twice a week and never see the same clerk twice. So even a cursory reading of older books and novels that detail city life just a few hundred years ago shows this not to be the case. What's gone on is that the phenomenon described above has started in cities and spread everywhere, for better or worse.

If urban city shops and restaurants have had regularly rotating staff for decades then loss of those touchpoints can't have much difference to do with the claimed decline in mental health of the last couple of generations as suggested upthread though.

(A few hundred years back cities were mostly only the size of small towns today anyway, the average person didn't really frequent stores and rural communities were sometimes really isolated, and we don't really have an accurate picture of how any of this affected mental health)

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

#665

Post by lukeschlather » Sat, Aug 03, 2024, 2:04 PM UTC

bustling-noose wrote: post #62

About 9 years ago I traveled to the US from India for education. Smartphones were still not very common in India cause data was not as cheap as it is today. When I was in the bus commuting everyone’s head was buried in their phones. I thought to myself this is such a sad thing. Look outside talk to each other but the every single person had an iPhone and was doing something on the phone. Fast forward to 2024 and ever…

> How can you talk to someone when they aren’t even looking at you or paying attention ?

I'm talking to people constantly without looking at them. Some are loose ties like this one. But group chats, texts, Discord servers, even Facebook. Tons of 1:1 communication with people I see in person regularly. But also I don't have to see someone in person to have a real conversation. I'm often fully present with real people when on my devices, and I'm perfectly capable of dissociating while politely not touching my phone when I'm in a boring conversation with people standing next to me.

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

#666

Post by anon291 » Sat, Aug 03, 2024, 2:08 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #621

globular-toast wrote: post #596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're on to something. Everyone always talks about social media but I honestly think cars are the most harmful technology of our time. Not least because it's not even recognised by the vast majority of people yet. Social media is at least given lip service. Everyone working all the time sucks for many reasons. It's a trap that people have fallen for and the only ones laughing are the billionaire oligarchs. W…

> Women in particular used to work for themselves Women only recently got the right to manage their own assets, and in some societies it is still in the process of happening. >and their families, Yes, they used to work for their families.

Keeping our discussion to Spain, women have been able to manage their own assets for a long time (including married woman). Let's not project english law onto the whole world.

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

#667

Post by anon291 » Sat, Aug 03, 2024, 2:09 PM UTC

philip1209 wrote: post #66

The books the authors cite are great and worth reading. Some personal observations: - The USA lacks a unified cultural identity now. There are lots of reasons for this. But, it's considered taboo to express a love of the USA - which hurts our community + culture. - People put a lot of effort into work, and work is becoming more transactional. No more "life-long employment with the buddies" kind of situation. - Americ…

> But, it's considered taboo to express a love of the USA - which hurts our community + culture.

Only in some circles.

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

#668

Post by anon291 » Sat, Aug 03, 2024, 2:10 PM UTC

silverquiet wrote: post #80

philip1209 wrote: post #66

The books the authors cite are great and worth reading. Some personal observations: - The USA lacks a unified cultural identity now. There are lots of reasons for this. But, it's considered taboo to express a love of the USA - which hurts our community + culture. - People put a lot of effort into work, and work is becoming more transactional. No more "life-long employment with the buddies" kind of situation. - Americ…

I don't disagree with the comment, but whenever people talk about a "love of the USA", I always want to ask what is it that you love? To stereotype a bit, I'm guessing that it will not be the federal government (despite a strong reverence for the flag of that government).

I love the people of the United States; our shared values; our shared culture. I view the United States as more than just an ideology as outlined in our constitution but also a distinct group of people with a distinct culture with a shared past and a shared future.

This is why I bristle when people get upset by terms like American exceptionalism. Yes, America has a unique culture. America is also objectively superlative, whether it's our wealth, military capability, longevity as a democracy, etc. Uniqueness + superlative = exceptional. When people disagree, I'm left wondering what they disagree with. Either they disagree with the superlatives, in which case, I question their grasp on reality. Or they question the uniqueness of American culture, at which point my social monkey brain tells me to shun them.

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

#669

Post by habosa » Sat, Aug 03, 2024, 2:10 PM UTC

vishnugupta wrote: post #101

One big change I've noticed between growing up in a small town and now where I'm in my mid 40s in a big metro city in India is increased "transactional" nature of interactions of my daily life. Back then we had a deeper ties with all those who served us by which I mean vegetable vendor, carpenter, doctor, knife sharpener, cloth shop, grocer, baker and so on. Whenever we interacted with them it would be a small chit-c…

Those of us who worked for tech companies trying to make “Uber for X” really accelerated this. Having an app for everything makes life a series of impersonal transactions.

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

#670

Post by vundercind » Sat, Aug 03, 2024, 2:15 PM UTC

vundercind wrote: post #474

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…

> 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…

My edit window’s gone, but thinking more on this: it seems to me that remote work makes it easier to be in one’s local community. Less time lost to commute, more time to do local stuff. Can work from the local coffee shop, library, or coworking space, all of which are likely to have a far higher proportion of locals in them than an office park halfway across the city would. Can have lunch out at a sandwich joint near your house, instead of one so far away that you’d rarely or never go to it if you didn’t have to commute to an distant office.