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

The death of partying in the USA

derekthompson.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

721–730 of 756 posts

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#721

Post by DaSHacka »

lbrito wrote: post #126
lr4444lr wrote: post #6

The parental part bears special mention. My spouse and I find that we are overwhelmingly the ones calling to organize playdates rather than vice versa. I'd like to think it's not that my kids are poorly socialized or misbehave - they've always received glowing reports at school. I give my kids business cards with my phone number to pass out to their friends to give to their parents, and there is also a class list whe…

As a father of 2 in Canada, I feel the same. Loving the discussion here. Seems like an opening to build a SaaS to encourage kids to socialize. /s

> Seems like an opening to build a SaaS to encourage kids to socialize.

that's... not actually a terrible idea

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#722

Post by [deleted] »

gilbetron wrote: post #663
patrickthebold wrote: post #4

Reminds me of the Jonathan Richman classic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6Pg9IGgQpY

Holy crap, I've never seen a Janathan Richman recommendation on the Internet ever ;) I listened to him like crazy in college (1988ish) and saw him play once. My favorite still remains https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR6Ns3AcDco I know two other people that know of Richman, four if you count my wife and son who I made listen to him! edit: had to add Richman was a big influence on the Talking Heads :)

[deleted]

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#723

Post by naijaboiler »

RyanOD wrote: post #506
vitaflo wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From talking to many parents they want to give them activities so their kids aren’t bored or sitting inside on their phones all day. Sports is one of those things and lets them also be with other kids. The problem is kids being bored can be a good thing but they are never allowed to be. When I was a kid the internet didn’t even exist let alone cell phones and the only rule was “be home before sundown”. Kids now have…

I can't stress this enough to new or soon to be parents. Hold off on giving your child a phone as long as possible. Once your kids are old enough (your choice...but it's before they are teens), send them outside, shut the door, and go about your business. Tell them to come back for lunch. Then send them outside again and tell them to come back for dinner. I mean this in all sincerity. Don't plan their day for them. M…

cultural norms in the US have shifted so much that this becomes impractical. The parents of the friend you just went to are not expecting that behavior.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#724

Post by nottorp »

echelon wrote: post #231
os2warpman wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>People these days don’t own real estate. The home ownership rate has been 64%, plus or minus about 1%, for the last 45 years. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RSAHORUSQ156S

Phones are the reason. Everyone gets quick and lazy dopamine from phones. Why bother with anything else? Think about how much time goes into phones. Who has time to plan? Who has time to coordinate? Phones are probably why the birth rate is declining too. You don't even need a house to party. You can use a pavilion at a park, go out in the woods like the rednecks I grew up around did, party at the trailer park. Homes…

> Think about how much time goes into phones. Who has time to plan? Who has time to coordinate?

Hmm I use a group chat on my phone to coordinate with my friend group where we go out on saturday evening, if we need a reservation etc.

Phones are invaluable for fun too :)

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#725

Post by kjkjadksj »

Apocryphon wrote: post #405
kjkjadksj wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I observed about these club hockey players I saw growing up, mainly the kid loves it and made it into their identity. So the parents are probably feeling pretty forced into paying for it. That being said every family I knew doing this sort of thing could easily pay for it.

I mean aren't there also jockeying for college opportunities through school athleticism, and also a culture of over-competitive parents using their children's sports to posture against one another?

For this kid not really. He was always going to work for his dads company so for him the purpose of college was joining a fraternity and partying. I’m sure a number of people on that team felt the same way as it was quite costly and demanded a certain amount of disposable income from the family, which from what I’ve seen leads to a certain loss of ambition from the kids who see themselves as set early.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#726

Post by bluefirebrand »

SideQuark wrote: post #700
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #249

This was a post on the GenX subreddit (from a Gen Zer) from just a couple days ago asking about if parties as portrayed in late 90s/early 00s "teen movies" were actually a real thing: https://www.reddit.com/r/GenX/comments/1lu102v/were_parties_... The responses from the Gen Xers were a mix of bewilderment and sadness, stuff like "What do you mean parties like this, it's just a normal teenage party!? I feel so ancient…

> It's really sad to me how we have completely fucked a lot of youth with social media, smart phones, and over-scheduling/over-protection. It's also fascinating how every generation in recorded history has similar claims about the next, yet somehow mankind has improved quality of life for so many. Simply google (without quotes) "list of ancients bemoaning youth" and read millennia of similar claims, some of which cou…

> yet somehow mankind has improved quality of life for so many

I think it would be hard to argue that Gen Z has a higher quality of life than Gen X

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#727

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

SideQuark wrote: post #700
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #249

This was a post on the GenX subreddit (from a Gen Zer) from just a couple days ago asking about if parties as portrayed in late 90s/early 00s "teen movies" were actually a real thing: https://www.reddit.com/r/GenX/comments/1lu102v/were_parties_... The responses from the Gen Xers were a mix of bewilderment and sadness, stuff like "What do you mean parties like this, it's just a normal teenage party!? I feel so ancient…

> It's really sad to me how we have completely fucked a lot of youth with social media, smart phones, and over-scheduling/over-protection. It's also fascinating how every generation in recorded history has similar claims about the next, yet somehow mankind has improved quality of life for so many. Simply google (without quotes) "list of ancients bemoaning youth" and read millennia of similar claims, some of which cou…

I think it's such a huge mistake to think "well, it's always been like that, this is just a continuation of what's been going on in recorded history." Especially when the data tells a very different story.

For example, just look at one metric: weight. Kids these days (and, obviously, adults as well) are overweight and obese in numbers that are off the charts (off the charts because you barely had any obese kids in decades past). They used to always call it "adult-onset diabetes", which now they prefer to call it Type 2 diabetes because you see so many kids getting it, which is tragic IMO. To be clear, I'm not solely blaming the childhood obesity epidemic on smartphones or social media - I'm just using it as an example of something that has changed for kids that we should be worried about, not just hand wave away as "Meh, adults have always bemoaned youth."

Rates of teenage depression, loneliness and anxiety have skyrocketed in the pass 15 years, and when you dig into the data it doesn't look like just a rate of diagnosis issue.

Teenagers themselves (as a group) are telling us they are significantly more unhappy than teenagers in years past. We should listen to them.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#728

Post by tuna74 »

RyanOD wrote: post #506
vitaflo wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From talking to many parents they want to give them activities so their kids aren’t bored or sitting inside on their phones all day. Sports is one of those things and lets them also be with other kids. The problem is kids being bored can be a good thing but they are never allowed to be. When I was a kid the internet didn’t even exist let alone cell phones and the only rule was “be home before sundown”. Kids now have…

I can't stress this enough to new or soon to be parents. Hold off on giving your child a phone as long as possible. Once your kids are old enough (your choice...but it's before they are teens), send them outside, shut the door, and go about your business. Tell them to come back for lunch. Then send them outside again and tell them to come back for dinner. I mean this in all sincerity. Don't plan their day for them. M…

You can give your child a phone with limits so they call you and their friends so that they can more easily meet up. Just because they have a phone does not mean they have to have TikTok on it.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#729

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

watwut wrote: post #673
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The old "boomer" parties were even wilder. Some girl's parents would leave for the weekend, and she'd quietly invite a friend or two over. Somehow, word would get out, and 400 people would show up, with multiple kegs, and the place would get trashed.

That is what she gets for having weak boundaries tho. And it is a thing that if you have seen, you will actively teach your kids to avoid - by saying no soom enough.

Teenage girls have a difficult time, saying no, and teenage boys have a difficult time, accepting "no." It sucks, but that's human nature. Being a teenager is clabbered misery.

I suspect that what they do, is have a hunk show up a couple of hours early, with a bottle of tequila.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#730

Post by bluefirebrand »

sjducb wrote: post #638
fathomdeez wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I go through this with my wife for every party we throw. She wants the house cleaned, table set, food spread ready, seasonal cocktails mixed, furniture moved around, decorations just so, etc. I’m like here’s a giant thing of ice cold booze have fun.

Cleaning your house before a party is a reasonable ask.

It reallllllly depends on how dirty the place is

Why clean it thoroughly both before and after a big party? Why not just after?

Post reply on HN