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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

#71

Post by constantcrying »

raziel2p wrote: post #59
constantcrying wrote: post #54

No, absolutely not. Young people are more connected than they have ever been before, just now they are connected in some of the most unhealthy and detrimental manners possible. Instead of connecting with friends in real life, they form communities on social media, in discord channels, in video games, etc. The consequences are just barely starting to show themselves. As for the why, I think they are many reasons. The…

The article clearly states that the connections you mention don't make up a community: > Many praise the myriad benefits that smartphones and social media are said to bring; online connection can give a person a sense of “community,” we are told. We can find new friends, discover just about any idea imaginable, network, and even date through our phones. We can video chat with hundreds of people simultaneously from fa…

The article indeed makes that argument. But from a functional perspective it just isn't true, virtual communities have replaced physical ones.

I also think it sells short the attractiveness of these digital communities. A digital community can be something where you spend many hours a day, with the same people, where the connections are just as important as your connections in real life. It isn't just dating apps, Facebook and YouTube.

Of course what the article wants to say that they are different, which is obviously true and I do absolutely agree that digital communities can be very detrimental and aren't a replacement with the necessary benefits.

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

#72

Post by jimmy1337 »

piva00 wrote: post #33
weberer wrote: post #21

I've noticed an uptick recently of large brands to start referring to themselves as "The [Brand] Community". The author pointed out Youtube here (who in an Orwellian manner calls their ToS "community guidelines") but I've also seen it with many other multi-million dollar companies such as Reddit, Twitter, etc. Young people today are reaching out for real support structures, but only receiving manipulation from corpor…

> while occasionally arguing with pseudo-anonymous internet strangers. Even this has been eroding, the amount of comments made by bots I see across reddit/Twitter has increased exponentially since the 2010s. It only got worse after LLMs.

I made an ‘Ask HN’ yesterday about the dire state of bots on the web and the lack of conversation around it.

After a few mins, with 4 upvotes and one user reply it was [flagged] and I couldn’t even reply to the person.

So I am left with the impression we aren’t allowed to discuss bots on the web on this platform.

Edit: This comment not appearing for others?

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

#73

Post by SoftTalker »

ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #29

The further upstream of that is large super structures of human social web cannot exist. There is no monoculture anymore and that has both pros and cons.

That's interesting and I hadn't really considered that for most of history, children grew up in a pretty un-diverse environment. You lived with your tribe and your extended family for the most part. In cities, ethnic and religious groups tended to self-segregate. The social rules were clear, and there was a lot less room for doubt about who you were and where you fit in.

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

#74

Post by recursive »

cvoss wrote: post #37
chasebank wrote: post #24

The cause is having a tiny computer in your hand all day. It's so glaringly obvious.

Is that the cause of the loss of community? Or is that a coping mechanism for the loss of community? Or a combination? I agree it's related. But that it's glaringly obviously the cause? I'd need to hear more.

Seems to be the cause to me. Community is the natural result of putting a group of people together. The dopamine drip disrupts that.

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

#75

Post by [deleted] »

constantcrying wrote: post #54

No, absolutely not. Young people are more connected than they have ever been before, just now they are connected in some of the most unhealthy and detrimental manners possible. Instead of connecting with friends in real life, they form communities on social media, in discord channels, in video games, etc. The consequences are just barely starting to show themselves. As for the why, I think they are many reasons. The…

[deleted]

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

#76

Post by alisonatwork »

JohnFen wrote: post #38
xhrpost wrote: post #8

I've personally noticed that my own value of autonomy has often contributed to a reduction in social activity and community integration. I used to be very selective of what I did with others. If I had an invite from friends and the activity didn't seem immediately interesting to me, I'd decline. I've since learned to say yes more (but not always) to invites and particularly consider ones that are more outside my comf…

> 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 opportunity, which cuts even more into the time you could have been spending doing something you actually wanted to do if you'd said no.

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

#77

Post by Sol- »

Is the "youth mental health crisis" confirmed? I remember reading there was a bit of back and forth in that topic. Some unhappiness was also concentrated among young progressive girls etc.

It fits nicely with the pessimistic vibes that everything gets worse, but I wonder to what extent it's media bias and that actually things are normal or even good.

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

#79

Post by recursive »

frithsun wrote: post #44

We lack the moral courage to be honest about why real world community disintegrated and are therefore doomed to suffer these pedantic lectures that miss the point and point in random directions.

Do you also lack the courage? If not, could you be honest? Curious what you mean.

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

#80

Post by silverquiet »

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).
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