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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]

#841

Post by jimmyjazz14 »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #527
dpweb wrote: post #84

What bothers me most and even on HN, where you usaully get intelligent discourse, the alarmist pessimism. Everything is falling apart! Just another form of self-indulgence. There must be something compelling about pretending the apocolypse is tomorrow. Yes, there are problems in our social, political, ecomonic systems. They need to be recognized and addressed. Democracy makes that process slow and difficult. But the…

Consider also that reality today may have unique intractable problems: plastic pollution, acidic oceans, mercury contamination, temperatures nearing unsurvivable in places, etc.

I don't discount the effects of pollution and consider climate change to be a very important problem to recognize that said, more humans are thriving (as in not starving to death or dying at young age) today than in any time in history.

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

#842

Post by akomtu »

krapp wrote: post #733
BlargMcLarg wrote: post #710

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knock it off. These are children who had no say in what their ancestors did.

They have a say in what remains of the power structures created by their white supremacist ancestors, the privileges that system provides and the inequities those privileges feed on. They could be working to dismantle those power structures, but they have to recognize that they exist first and that yes by default all things are not equal. Ignoring that fact or obsessing over petty things like not having a pass to say…

They don't have to be fighting for your cause, even if you believe that cause is noble. If someone driving a white honda totals your car, you don't harass random drivers of white cars. This cult of skin & genitals, that's called "progressive" for unknown reasons, is a shallow lunacy that's appealing to people who can't see further than the skin color.

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

#843

Post by sibeliuss »

listless wrote: post #741
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 both agree and disagree here. My qualification is 3 teenage boys. 1. My kids have slack in their schedule. No, they aren't going to Ivy League schools. That's OK. They will survive somehow. 2. This is certainly true, but it's a complete joke to my kids. They aren't confused. They just wonder why all the adults are. Teenagers already think adults are incompetent. 3. This isn't true at my school. My kids have made eg…

> My kids have slack in their schedule. No, they aren't going to Ivy League schools. That's OK. They will survive somehow.

Thank you! I think we need more people with this mindset speaking up. Everywhere there's this paranoid fear in parents that without a totally filled schedule, tutors, AP classes and more their children are going to be destitute. Not going to an Ivy League school is fine, and likely anyway; having free time to play in their own self-directed world is also fine (and healthy).

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

#844

Post by alimov »

coldtea wrote: post #429
alimov wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know if you were offended by that comment, but just because you may not have considered your future in your teens (don’t know if you did or didn’t, but that doesn’t matter) doesn’t mean that all others also did not. For example in my teens I was very much concerned with what I’d do when i was older and whether or not I’d be able to buy a house or afford to go to college.. these are not strictly adult concerns…

> But you are doing just the same thing by dismissing peoples perspectives and opinions as irrelevant… Nope, he is not doing the same. He basically says "people shouldn't project their own (older age) concerns as universal". He doesn't say there are no universal social issues. So dismissing "peoples perspectives and opinions as irrelevant" is perfectly fine, if they are irrelevant to the group they're projected to.

Is that not a projection of the posters view of the hn crowd as being “older age”?

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

#845

Post by radarsat1 »

boredumb wrote: post #734
radarsat1 wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Diversity is good, but being ____ is bad. Can you fill in the blank? I actually have no idea what you are referring to here.

You absolutely know what they're referring to, playing coy about it was understandable a decade ago but the mask is obviously off. If you live in the western world, even living in a shack in the middle of wyoming, the fact you are online means you are fully aware and these types of comments are not only non-productive, but disingenuous which is a becoming a trend among people that propagate the diversity initiative a…

Sorry if you see it this way but I very, very honestly did not understand what he was trying to say. Yes I'm quite aware of the issues you are talking about, but it was more the structure of the sentence that I just could not follow.

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

#846

Post by [deleted] »

basisword wrote: post #827
juve1996 wrote: post #813

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment represents the same worthless platitude. It doesn't make sense to say "yea your life is significantly worse than your parents, but hey at least you aren't a slave building the pyramids at Giza." The fact is it's relative. People are, in general, worse off than their parents were in the west at this point in time. That matters.

Being slightly economically less well off (although still doing exceedingly well and having lots of opportunity) is not the same thing as “boomers wrecked the world”. There are people in very tough situations and as a society we need to help them more but the vast majority of young people (and I say this as one who isn’t doing exceedingly well) need to grow up, cheer up, and start taking more responsibility for thing…

[deleted]

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

#847

Post by silisili »

nullc wrote: post #152
treespace8 wrote: post #18

Parent of a teen, one anecdote to add. You see what all your friends are doing all the time. Every gathering or event that you where not a part of you see, sometimes in real time. People hate being excluded, and this greatly amplifies this feeling. I'm certain I missed out on a ton of cool stuff as a kid, but at least I didn't have to see it.

Or seeing it presented in ways that make it seem much cooler: Lots of events I've been to look way more amazing in pictures people post then they actually were being there. :)

As someone who lives near a beach, I cannot tell you how true this is.

I used to fish a lot, and would constantly see younger people, usually but not always women, come near me (because I'm away from the crowds) and setup a tripod and spend 20 or so minutes taking different selfies, then leaving.

I can 100% guarantee you the vast majority of those were going on instagram, writing a long story about how a day at the beach is good for your soul, etc...when in reality they just drove to the beach, took a few photos, then went home.

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

#848

Post by brewdad »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #404
pmlnr wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't believe the social medias are that much different from what preceding generations were exposed to; TV, magazines, movies, etc all showed more idealized lifestyles. It is: TV was never meant to make you believe it's real or that someone's life is actually like that. "Reality" TV was always deliberately focused on drama.

'TV was never meant to make you believe it's real' 'Reality TV' is a thing

The most successful ones threw people into situations that were completely unlike real life for 99.999% of the population.

Survivor? Real World/Big Brother? An interview/apprenticeship with Trump with completely made-up "challenges" each week?

None of these are real in any meaningful sense.

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

#849

Post by radarsat1 »

gilbetron wrote: post #584
radarsat1 wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Diversity is good, but being ____ is bad. Can you fill in the blank? I actually have no idea what you are referring to here.

As an example from my son, a 13 year old white kid, gave me is that if you have one of the "diversity cards" (minority, LGBQT+, female sometimes, or some other thing) than you get to joke and talk in a way than those that don't have such a card. So his friends that are gay or black or indian or disabled are able to tease each other about it and have more liberty to use terms that my son is not allowed to. The gay kid…

I understand this quite well, I've felt this myself in the past too, that feeling of being "not in the club". Thanks for your explanation. One does get over it, and one also learns eventually that it's something not restricted to race / sexual orientation etc., it can be similar just with a group of people from a certain neighbourhood etc. But having it be based on race can be hard for a kid in the "out" group. How to deal with that, basically, to learn to let it roll off your shoulders, to learn how to navigate your own position in a group, is a lesson to be learned, sometimes not easy to get the intricate ins and outs of how to behave. I completely get it.

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

#850

Post by hn_version_0023 »

ThalesX wrote: post #763
standardUser wrote: post #679

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boomers wrecked the world and young people know they need to fix it. Sorry it can't just all be sunshine and roses like you prefer, but women in this country are about to lose a fundamental human right, so maybe "looking on the bright side" is not the appropriate disposition for these times.

Boomers wrecked the world, Millenials are wrecking minds, I'm sure Gen Z will find plenty left to wreck. Thankfully, each generation also builds.

As usual GenX gets skipped. But whatever. Apathy is our lot in life.
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