No, Teen Suicide Isn’t Rising Because Life Got Objectively Worse(nymag.com)
nymag.com
No, Teen Suicide Isn’t Rising Because Life Got Objectively Worse
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/02/teen-suicide-depression-girls-social-media.html
18 comments
Do you disagree with this statement?
> Whatever caused young people in the U.S. to develop higher rates of mental illness over the past two decades, it was not an objective collapse in living standards, employment prospects, or opportunities for material security.
What numbers or objective data can you put forward to refute it?
Imagine a short story where a man gets a diagnosis of an incurable, terminal disease certain to inflict much suffering before death. He kills himself. And then the doctor discovers there was an error in the test, and the man did not have the disease after all.
It's possible that for young people today, life is not objectively worse than for previous generations. But with catastrophic pronouncements on blast from social media to a greater extent than ever before, lack of in person support and friendships, a general discourse of partisanship and hate and unrelenting negativity, it's plausible more people are killing themselves due to the perception of reality, moreso than reality itself.
In other words, maybe we should stop telling people life is hopeless, the world is doomed, and it's impossible for it to get better.
> Whatever caused young people in the U.S. to develop higher rates of mental illness over the past two decades, it was not an objective collapse in living standards, employment prospects, or opportunities for material security.
What numbers or objective data can you put forward to refute it?
Imagine a short story where a man gets a diagnosis of an incurable, terminal disease certain to inflict much suffering before death. He kills himself. And then the doctor discovers there was an error in the test, and the man did not have the disease after all.
It's possible that for young people today, life is not objectively worse than for previous generations. But with catastrophic pronouncements on blast from social media to a greater extent than ever before, lack of in person support and friendships, a general discourse of partisanship and hate and unrelenting negativity, it's plausible more people are killing themselves due to the perception of reality, moreso than reality itself.
In other words, maybe we should stop telling people life is hopeless, the world is doomed, and it's impossible for it to get better.
> living standards, employment prospects, ...
Is it possible that dividing GDP by population isn't a good indicator of whether "life got objectively worse" for people living in conditions of increasing inequality?
Perhaps the prospect of juggling three gig jobs that can disappear in an instant, while still not being able to pay for rent and healthcare, isn't an ideal "employment prospect".
Or perhaps the data cited in the article isn't granular enough to point at root causes. Yes, young people are depressed and anxious. But when we understand that persistent sadness and hopelessness is far more prevalent among teen girls than teen boys, now we can look at what's different for girls than boys.
One hint is that among teens, the vast majority of minutes spent on Instagram are by girls, not boys. Boys are online a lot too, but gaming is a different social and behavioral animal.
And most studies looking for correlations between social media usage and mental health are flawed, because they are typically dose-response studies. If individuals who consume 15 meals a week of fast food have greater rates of diabetes than individuals who never eat fast food, then that's a good correlation (though not necessarily causation)!
But that method fails for social media, because social media is a collective activity. Girls who spend five hours a day on Instagram are mediating relationships through the app and neglecting in-person social activity, and we know that's unhealthy.
But girls who stay off social media are out of the loop, socially isolated, probably ostracized for being weird, because their friends are still on it for five hours a day.
High rates of social media usage damage both frequent users and infrequent users, so it's hard to see that in dose-response correlations.
Is it possible that dividing GDP by population isn't a good indicator of whether "life got objectively worse" for people living in conditions of increasing inequality?
Perhaps the prospect of juggling three gig jobs that can disappear in an instant, while still not being able to pay for rent and healthcare, isn't an ideal "employment prospect".
Or perhaps the data cited in the article isn't granular enough to point at root causes. Yes, young people are depressed and anxious. But when we understand that persistent sadness and hopelessness is far more prevalent among teen girls than teen boys, now we can look at what's different for girls than boys.
One hint is that among teens, the vast majority of minutes spent on Instagram are by girls, not boys. Boys are online a lot too, but gaming is a different social and behavioral animal.
And most studies looking for correlations between social media usage and mental health are flawed, because they are typically dose-response studies. If individuals who consume 15 meals a week of fast food have greater rates of diabetes than individuals who never eat fast food, then that's a good correlation (though not necessarily causation)!
But that method fails for social media, because social media is a collective activity. Girls who spend five hours a day on Instagram are mediating relationships through the app and neglecting in-person social activity, and we know that's unhealthy.
But girls who stay off social media are out of the loop, socially isolated, probably ostracized for being weird, because their friends are still on it for five hours a day.
High rates of social media usage damage both frequent users and infrequent users, so it's hard to see that in dose-response correlations.
I disagree with the statement. It privileges economic factors over social factors, environmental factors, sexual factors. If it's easier today to inaccurately broadcast doom, then that is an indication that life got objectively worse in one respect.
There are plenty of distopian SF societies that are wonderful from an economic basis, but horrific from another basis (Brave New World is the most famous, but by far not the only example).
I think the biggest issue here is the normal headline/article disagreement.
Edit to add:
As for "objective data":
Social: The collapse of friendships and group activities. https://www.americansurveycenter.org/research/the-state-of-a...
Environmental: Things have improved in some respects compared to the smog and burning rivers of the 60s. But in other respects we now have historic droughts, historic wildfires, increasing frequency of cyclones, sea-level increases, decreases in green spaces, climate change, and still a variety of pollution events (which get more airplay than in previous years).
Sexual: Incel communities. Breakups by text and ghosting. Finding partners online balanced out by not having the support of shared communities with sexual partners.
There are plenty of distopian SF societies that are wonderful from an economic basis, but horrific from another basis (Brave New World is the most famous, but by far not the only example).
I think the biggest issue here is the normal headline/article disagreement.
Edit to add:
As for "objective data":
Social: The collapse of friendships and group activities. https://www.americansurveycenter.org/research/the-state-of-a...
Environmental: Things have improved in some respects compared to the smog and burning rivers of the 60s. But in other respects we now have historic droughts, historic wildfires, increasing frequency of cyclones, sea-level increases, decreases in green spaces, climate change, and still a variety of pollution events (which get more airplay than in previous years).
Sexual: Incel communities. Breakups by text and ghosting. Finding partners online balanced out by not having the support of shared communities with sexual partners.
> If it's easier today to inaccurately broadcast doom, then that is an indication that life got objectively worse in one respect.
This is just conveniently redefining what most people mean when they talk about objective factors.
I tend to agree that this ability to broadcast doom is an explanatory factor and it makes life worse, but to claim this is an objective explanatory factor is problematic I think, at least without drawing a distinction between this factor and those traditionally considered "objective".
But setting aside arguments about semantics, I think the deep seated stigmas around mental health that have only recently started to fade are a huge factor in the language we use to describe these issues, and I would argue seem to influence many people's perception of the importance of "subjective" factors (i.e. they deprioritize these factors or think they are not as "real" as objective factors).
People tend to think of issues that impact mental health as somehow less objective, because mental health is itself subjective. While it's objectively true that if I do not have enough money to buy food and don't find some other way to acquire it, I will die, it is not objectively true that two people experiencing the same social media environment will be impacted by it the same way, and yet this is an experience that can also lead to death.
But even if we accept that subjective factors are the primary issue, we can still trace those back to objective causes, it's just that we cannot use the same mental models of understanding "objective quality of life". We could find that social media is objectively the cause of degraded mental health (and studies are confirming this), but the impact itself is still subjective, unlike traditional economic indicators.
In other words, subjective experience could be just as critical to understand and explore as objective factors, and that subjectivity does not in any way reduce the importance or validity of such exploration.
This is just conveniently redefining what most people mean when they talk about objective factors.
I tend to agree that this ability to broadcast doom is an explanatory factor and it makes life worse, but to claim this is an objective explanatory factor is problematic I think, at least without drawing a distinction between this factor and those traditionally considered "objective".
But setting aside arguments about semantics, I think the deep seated stigmas around mental health that have only recently started to fade are a huge factor in the language we use to describe these issues, and I would argue seem to influence many people's perception of the importance of "subjective" factors (i.e. they deprioritize these factors or think they are not as "real" as objective factors).
People tend to think of issues that impact mental health as somehow less objective, because mental health is itself subjective. While it's objectively true that if I do not have enough money to buy food and don't find some other way to acquire it, I will die, it is not objectively true that two people experiencing the same social media environment will be impacted by it the same way, and yet this is an experience that can also lead to death.
But even if we accept that subjective factors are the primary issue, we can still trace those back to objective causes, it's just that we cannot use the same mental models of understanding "objective quality of life". We could find that social media is objectively the cause of degraded mental health (and studies are confirming this), but the impact itself is still subjective, unlike traditional economic indicators.
In other words, subjective experience could be just as critical to understand and explore as objective factors, and that subjectivity does not in any way reduce the importance or validity of such exploration.
> This is just conveniently redefining what most people mean when they talk about objective factors.
I disagree. People have complained about the increase in television channels and shows leading to a breakdown in the cohesiveness of society. Broadcast technologies (along with the related rabbit-hole and bubble effects) are definitely an aspect of "objective factors" that people talk about.
> People tend to think of issues that impact mental health as somehow less objective, because mental health is itself subjective.
Personal mental health is subjective in much the same way that personal ability to find a place to sleep (from couch surfing to buying a mansion) is subjective (and becoming harder due to demographics and new construction deficits).
Social mental health (sociology) is an objectively measurable criterion. As indicated by the link in my edit to the post you are responding to.
I disagree. People have complained about the increase in television channels and shows leading to a breakdown in the cohesiveness of society. Broadcast technologies (along with the related rabbit-hole and bubble effects) are definitely an aspect of "objective factors" that people talk about.
> People tend to think of issues that impact mental health as somehow less objective, because mental health is itself subjective.
Personal mental health is subjective in much the same way that personal ability to find a place to sleep (from couch surfing to buying a mansion) is subjective (and becoming harder due to demographics and new construction deficits).
Social mental health (sociology) is an objectively measurable criterion. As indicated by the link in my edit to the post you are responding to.
As far as I can tell you are agreeing with the statement, as you agree that factors other than the economy must be driving the increase in unhappiness.
Is increasing inequality not an economic factor? Inequality is a strong predictor of crime, which I think we'd agree is something which makes life objectively worse. So there's at least one economic factor which is causing an objective drop in quality of life.
Please see my post here where I explicitly disagree: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34987495
(Pardon the tense disagreement in the third sentence.)
(Pardon the tense disagreement in the third sentence.)
Measuring current income is much less helpful for someone's longevity than measuring how long they can sustain a productive lifestyle without burning out. That's why people care so little about so-called "objective" metrics when considering things like "how much they like their lives".
If I was being cynical I'd say that this is just an article designed to get clicks by confirming people's biases.
To anyone who disagrees with me, ask yourself. What is the most important thing in your life? I can with certainty say that it doesn't have a "price" associated with it.
If you can comprehend that then you can accept the premise that life can get worse as material conditions improve, especially when the marginal utility of those increasing material conditions is already low. Are touchscreens really a 10x improvement in quality of life when penicillin has been invented?
To anyone who disagrees with me, ask yourself. What is the most important thing in your life? I can with certainty say that it doesn't have a "price" associated with it.
If you can comprehend that then you can accept the premise that life can get worse as material conditions improve, especially when the marginal utility of those increasing material conditions is already low. Are touchscreens really a 10x improvement in quality of life when penicillin has been invented?
> To anyone who disagrees with me, ask yourself. What is the most important thing in your life? I can with certainty say that it doesn't have a "price" associated with it.
This shows one of the wrinkles.
Some people will be able to put a very specific price on that most important thing, straight from their health/insurance bills, because they would be dead without types of care that existed even in the 50s.
We should be happy we've improved potential material conditions for people, but unhappy that it's distributed so poorly and that we've also introduced other technologies that rub those differences in people's faces.
The headline is ludicrous because what the fuck does "objectively worse" even mean about quality of life. Humans have emotions, not just objective material sensor evaluators.
This shows one of the wrinkles.
Some people will be able to put a very specific price on that most important thing, straight from their health/insurance bills, because they would be dead without types of care that existed even in the 50s.
We should be happy we've improved potential material conditions for people, but unhappy that it's distributed so poorly and that we've also introduced other technologies that rub those differences in people's faces.
The headline is ludicrous because what the fuck does "objectively worse" even mean about quality of life. Humans have emotions, not just objective material sensor evaluators.
> What is the most important thing in your life?
Security - food, transportation, housing. All have huge price tags associated with them.
My wife being able to follow her passion - taking care of her family. Which means I have to make enough to account for her lost income for all the above.
Security - food, transportation, housing. All have huge price tags associated with them.
My wife being able to follow her passion - taking care of her family. Which means I have to make enough to account for her lost income for all the above.
It sounds like the things you listed are prerequisites to having a family. Something people have been able to do for hundreds of thousands of years without transportation or high-paying tech jobs. That's the point I was making.
Our material gains are only true quality of life improvements when they increase the access to things that are "meaningful" like relationships. GDP increase could mean you are capable of producing one extra Jurassic Park sequel each year, while people's ability to start a family stagnates.
Our material gains are only true quality of life improvements when they increase the access to things that are "meaningful" like relationships. GDP increase could mean you are capable of producing one extra Jurassic Park sequel each year, while people's ability to start a family stagnates.
Those weren't the goals asked for by the parent.
But to address this individually, yes, they are required for any kind of a family - single or married or with 55 children. And it's harder to do than it has been for the hundreds of thousands of years before now - it's not something you just "get" for working, for being part of a community, anymore.
In other words, being hale and working all of the sunlit hours week is no longer sufficient to provide for a family. Something relatively new in human history.
EDIT: $7.25 (US federal minimum wage) * 8 hours * 365 days/year puts you right at the poverty line for a 3 person household. A quality of life which may theoretically be better than that of a caveman, but hardly what I'd call "providing" for your family.
But to address this individually, yes, they are required for any kind of a family - single or married or with 55 children. And it's harder to do than it has been for the hundreds of thousands of years before now - it's not something you just "get" for working, for being part of a community, anymore.
In other words, being hale and working all of the sunlit hours week is no longer sufficient to provide for a family. Something relatively new in human history.
EDIT: $7.25 (US federal minimum wage) * 8 hours * 365 days/year puts you right at the poverty line for a 3 person household. A quality of life which may theoretically be better than that of a caveman, but hardly what I'd call "providing" for your family.
> The logic here is absolutely astounding. People _killing themselves_ is not an indicator that life is worse?
It could be an indicator that there is a perception that life is worse, which may drive action regardless of whether it is objectively true - and social media may be the primary vector for spreading that perception.
Let’s face it, “life is better/worse” is an absurdly one-dimensional judgement given how complex everyone’s lives are. Even if there was a way of measuring an accurate quality of life trend, I expect it is far more likely that people’s perceptions are shaped by their media inputs than by reviewing actual data.
It could be an indicator that there is a perception that life is worse, which may drive action regardless of whether it is objectively true - and social media may be the primary vector for spreading that perception.
Let’s face it, “life is better/worse” is an absurdly one-dimensional judgement given how complex everyone’s lives are. Even if there was a way of measuring an accurate quality of life trend, I expect it is far more likely that people’s perceptions are shaped by their media inputs than by reviewing actual data.
I think this issue is extremely complex and not something we can just address by saying, "You make more money. You're better off." It's factually correct to say we live in much more materially-abundant times today. In that respect, I think that the easiness of life has caused many to become more mentally weak. I don't think the solution is to go back to scarcer times. I think we need to recognize this and voluntarily introduce challenges into our lives; dare say I, a little bit of adversity.
My second thought is that we have weaker homes today than we did in times past. No, I don't think our ancestors were perfect. I could go on and on about how we've improved so much on many things. But homes were more stable in the past -- and that too is factually correct. I also think this weakens a teenagers support system and overall sense of love and security.
My third thought is that even if someone comes from a good home, great parents, and well-off, today -- we have social media. Anyone can recognize the mental struggle this has catapulted humanity into. That too is factual. And for teens, they probably have it worse than anyone because the need and desire for acceptance is at the absolute strongest during these years. And being excluded or bullied is a harsh reality for many teens; not to mention being in relationships, introducing social media, and combining that with a lack of real education, experience, and emotional maturity.
I don't have the answer, but if teens are offing themselves, something is wrong. And those of us who have already passed through that age should reach out and help.
My second thought is that we have weaker homes today than we did in times past. No, I don't think our ancestors were perfect. I could go on and on about how we've improved so much on many things. But homes were more stable in the past -- and that too is factually correct. I also think this weakens a teenagers support system and overall sense of love and security.
My third thought is that even if someone comes from a good home, great parents, and well-off, today -- we have social media. Anyone can recognize the mental struggle this has catapulted humanity into. That too is factual. And for teens, they probably have it worse than anyone because the need and desire for acceptance is at the absolute strongest during these years. And being excluded or bullied is a harsh reality for many teens; not to mention being in relationships, introducing social media, and combining that with a lack of real education, experience, and emotional maturity.
I don't have the answer, but if teens are offing themselves, something is wrong. And those of us who have already passed through that age should reach out and help.
The article is very bad. But this specific point is because it tries to say that it's not because life got materially worse. It implies the problems is with culture, socialization or something like that.
Of course, all the evidence it has is that suicide trends are not correlated with short term noise on general measurements of the economy. Or, in other words, it's bullshit. But the hypothesis itself is valid and worth looking at.
Of course, all the evidence it has is that suicide trends are not correlated with short term noise on general measurements of the economy. Or, in other words, it's bullshit. But the hypothesis itself is valid and worth looking at.
Did you even read the article? You're arguing a complete strawman. You can be materially better off while still feeling life is worse than it used to be.
It's pretty clear that social media is a leading cause of the increase in suicide, because it certainly isn't anything else measurable in the data.
Every single study on social media use shows how destructive it is for the psyche but we're supposed to pretend that's not related to the increases in depression and suicide? Why?
Every single study on social media use shows how destructive it is for the psyche but we're supposed to pretend that's not related to the increases in depression and suicide? Why?
Suicide is not necessarily a sign life is worse. It can also be a sign suicide is perceived as “normal”.
Look at the occurrences of suicides on the Golden Gate Bridge. When newspapers talked about it, it spiked. They made a pact not to talk about it, it tanked.
Look at the occurrences of suicides on the Golden Gate Bridge. When newspapers talked about it, it spiked. They made a pact not to talk about it, it tanked.
You're right, but that example is a method of suicide, not suicide rates.
https://www.hhs.gov/answers/mental-health-and-substance-abus...
https://www.hhs.gov/answers/mental-health-and-substance-abus...
Mental health is just one aspect of life, but issues in just this one aspect can cause death.
It could be an indicator that people are less able to cope, and there is some really good causal evidence that social media causes anxiety in young girls.
Fortitude and coping skills are learned through adversity (sometimes with the help of parents or a therapist, most often with a lot of hopefully lower cost failure), but suffering you cannot grow from is unnecessary and not of value. With that said, social media is an unnecessary toxin children and teens are exposed to. You wouldn’t let them bathe in PFAS, and social media is similar: ubiquitous but also toxic with extended exposure.
Note "objectively". Subjectively, their lives are worse. Why? Coddling of the American Mind is a great book that I think has part of the answer. Personally, I also think social media, general political polarization, and general grievance/doom focus of left-wing politics are too blame, in some order. Objectively speaking, their lives are better or at least not worse on most metrics, and far better than most of the world. Perhaps due to all of the above they don't have a good reference to judge against.
Life was objectively better than it was during the 2019 than during the great recession. If anything is gaslighting, it's denying that reality. That period of time is also when teen suicides started dramatically increasing. Many people notice that it also coincides with the rise of social media, so that's an obvious culprit, and scientists have conducted studies that suggest that this may be the case. However, that's not good enough for far leftists, so they weaponize issues like teen suicides and global warming to raise awareness to class consciousness, despite having no objective data supporting the notion that abolishing capitalism will somehow fix these issues.
Let's say a service is written Go, but it's inefficient. Some engineers are diagnosing the problem. It's not helpful to deny their work by proclaiming that Go is shit, and any solution that doesn't involve rewriting the service in Rust is counterproductive, especially when you know that very few people would agree with you.
Let's say a service is written Go, but it's inefficient. Some engineers are diagnosing the problem. It's not helpful to deny their work by proclaiming that Go is shit, and any solution that doesn't involve rewriting the service in Rust is counterproductive, especially when you know that very few people would agree with you.
> [Lorenz] went on to suggest that the young people of the 1950s enjoyed objectively superior material prospects than young people do today
This is why I think culture is more important than policy. Lorenz’s point is obviously non-sensical. She mentions the “safety net.” But Medicaid didn’t exist in the 1950s. There were no federal student loans. There were no food stamps. Almost nobody went to college. Etc.
But it’s a mistake to say Lorenz is wrong on the facts and leave it at that. She sincerely believes that young people today are worse off than young people in the 1950s. It’s a common refrain expressed by young people.
So what has changed since the 1950s? Culture. We have made massive changes to how society is structured. We have changed what we tell young people about the meaning and purpose of life. We have eliminated social roles and duties and obligations that used to apply to young people. In many cases we have replaced those personal obligations (e.g. to take care of elders) with abstract government funded systems. And maybe those changes aren’t all conducive to the well being of young people.
This is why I think culture is more important than policy. Lorenz’s point is obviously non-sensical. She mentions the “safety net.” But Medicaid didn’t exist in the 1950s. There were no federal student loans. There were no food stamps. Almost nobody went to college. Etc.
But it’s a mistake to say Lorenz is wrong on the facts and leave it at that. She sincerely believes that young people today are worse off than young people in the 1950s. It’s a common refrain expressed by young people.
So what has changed since the 1950s? Culture. We have made massive changes to how society is structured. We have changed what we tell young people about the meaning and purpose of life. We have eliminated social roles and duties and obligations that used to apply to young people. In many cases we have replaced those personal obligations (e.g. to take care of elders) with abstract government funded systems. And maybe those changes aren’t all conducive to the well being of young people.
> There were no federal student loans.
This is a hilarious one to include on your list because it shows you are missing the forest for the trees. Federal student loans didn't exist because they didn't need to exist as college was cheaper, living a middle class life didn't require college, and low paying jobs still paid a high enough percentage of living costs to allow people to pay their way through college by working. Today college is more of a requirement, most young people and families can't afford tuition so they need to take out loans, and low paying jobs do not pay enough to get out in front of that loan debt. The current situation is objectively worse.
This is a hilarious one to include on your list because it shows you are missing the forest for the trees. Federal student loans didn't exist because they didn't need to exist as college was cheaper, living a middle class life didn't require college, and low paying jobs still paid a high enough percentage of living costs to allow people to pay their way through college by working. Today college is more of a requirement, most young people and families can't afford tuition so they need to take out loans, and low paying jobs do not pay enough to get out in front of that loan debt. The current situation is objectively worse.
Colleges may have been cheaper 50 years ago, but it was also roughly half as common to go to college. It was especially uncommon for women and POC to enroll. Overall, the government is subsidizing colleges more, but the subsidy is spread thinner. In-state tuition without assistance tends to be $6000-12,000, which isn't much in the grand scheme of things.
As a slight tangent, student loans and grants tend to be the least efficient form of subsidy for higher education because they incentivize colleges to increase tuitions to make them more resort-like.
As a slight tangent, student loans and grants tend to be the least efficient form of subsidy for higher education because they incentivize colleges to increase tuitions to make them more resort-like.
In-state tuition without assistance tends to be $6000-12,000 _per year_. My college bill is ~$11.5k/yr at a state school (not including housing, which I pay $1200/mo for - above average for college but dead average for 1b apartments).
Working for my university's housing and dining services (a major employer of students), I would make $8.50/hr my first year, with potential $0.25-$0.50 raises each year. At $8.50/hr, it would take 1350 hours to pay for my tuition alone before taxes. Full time employees work 2080 hours/yr but also get paid vacation while student employees do not.
So I would argue that state school tuition is a bit much in the grand scheme of things.
Working for my university's housing and dining services (a major employer of students), I would make $8.50/hr my first year, with potential $0.25-$0.50 raises each year. At $8.50/hr, it would take 1350 hours to pay for my tuition alone before taxes. Full time employees work 2080 hours/yr but also get paid vacation while student employees do not.
So I would argue that state school tuition is a bit much in the grand scheme of things.
People I know who went to college 40-50 years ago talk about paying for college by working summer jobs at the grocery store. People I know who graduated in the last 10 years talk about how they're still paying off loans.
Certainly to be an unpopular take: It's the God-shaped hole in western hearts. While religious affiliation has been in decline since the mid-1970s, the rate of decline between 2017-2022 has sharply accelerated [1]. The distribution of previously-religious but now unaffiliated skews heavily to the younger age brackets [2]. Younger generations are simple much less religious than older generations.
Therefore, (American) culture has changed with the decline of religion in a very unfortunate way. Religion created communities and communities supported families and people in emotional, physical, and economic terms. That support system is eroding at an increasing rate. Then beyond that at an individual level, meaning and contentment now rely on the individual creating meaning or deriving it from some worldly source instead of coming from a higher power. Then when that source lets down the person, nihilism becomes attractive. So what is someone to do? In American politics you can only rely on the government less than half the time. Even the best non-profit and civic organizations are prone to corruption. If the person looks inward what happens when they let themselves down? Like it or not, religious modalities play a fundamental part in Western psychology - in other words, people need "a bigger reason" than themselves. Anecdotally the young people in my church (as far as I know) are the happiest young people I know - much happier than many of the children at my kids' school and friends' kids.
[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/wp-content/uploads/site...
[2] https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/the-decline-of-...
Therefore, (American) culture has changed with the decline of religion in a very unfortunate way. Religion created communities and communities supported families and people in emotional, physical, and economic terms. That support system is eroding at an increasing rate. Then beyond that at an individual level, meaning and contentment now rely on the individual creating meaning or deriving it from some worldly source instead of coming from a higher power. Then when that source lets down the person, nihilism becomes attractive. So what is someone to do? In American politics you can only rely on the government less than half the time. Even the best non-profit and civic organizations are prone to corruption. If the person looks inward what happens when they let themselves down? Like it or not, religious modalities play a fundamental part in Western psychology - in other words, people need "a bigger reason" than themselves. Anecdotally the young people in my church (as far as I know) are the happiest young people I know - much happier than many of the children at my kids' school and friends' kids.
[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/wp-content/uploads/site...
[2] https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/the-decline-of-...
I'm not religious but I think about this often. I know multiple young families that aren't "very religious" but seek out a church as soon as they move to a new place, for the community.
There are some secular community groups and activities but nothing that really replaces organized religion. Especially in the way that a church community cuts through a cross-section of society while most other communities are organized around more specific subsets and interests.
There are some secular community groups and activities but nothing that really replaces organized religion. Especially in the way that a church community cuts through a cross-section of society while most other communities are organized around more specific subsets and interests.
> In many cases we have replaced those personal obligations (e.g. to take care of elders) with abstract government funded systems.
I can almost guarantee that young people don't have social security on the top of their minds. It's school school school internship work, that's it. Those bars are raised each year. Leisure time is social media and video games. All that got amplified in 2020. Not hard to see why they're depressed.
[Edit] I was standard college undergrad class of 2018, and right on the cutoff for gen Z. Our high school and college class was clearly more studious than class of 2016, and clearly less than class of 2020. I was also right there when childhood became virtual, starting with the iPhone and Facebook in middle school.
I can almost guarantee that young people don't have social security on the top of their minds. It's school school school internship work, that's it. Those bars are raised each year. Leisure time is social media and video games. All that got amplified in 2020. Not hard to see why they're depressed.
[Edit] I was standard college undergrad class of 2018, and right on the cutoff for gen Z. Our high school and college class was clearly more studious than class of 2016, and clearly less than class of 2020. I was also right there when childhood became virtual, starting with the iPhone and Facebook in middle school.
> I can almost guarantee that young people don't have social security on the top of their minds. It's school school school internship work, that's it. Those bars are raised each year. Leisure time is social media and video games. All that got amplified in 2020. Not hard to see why they're depressed.
You’re assuming a level of insight into people’s meta-knowledge of their own mental state that I don’t think is warranted. Maybe they’re not thinking of social security, but maybe there’s mental health benefits to caring for elderly grandparents at home that people don’t appreciate.
As to leisure—in the 1950s, half of 16-19 year olds had jobs. Today it’s around 30%. Maybe having a real, if menial job is more fulfilling than playing video games or doing bullshit box checking exercises for college applications? That’s a cultural change too.
You’re assuming a level of insight into people’s meta-knowledge of their own mental state that I don’t think is warranted. Maybe they’re not thinking of social security, but maybe there’s mental health benefits to caring for elderly grandparents at home that people don’t appreciate.
As to leisure—in the 1950s, half of 16-19 year olds had jobs. Today it’s around 30%. Maybe having a real, if menial job is more fulfilling than playing video games or doing bullshit box checking exercises for college applications? That’s a cultural change too.
It's incredibly ironic that you're accusing the parent post of "assuming a level of insight into people’s meta-knowledge of their own mental state" while up and down the thread you're making gigantic reactionary assumptions about what cultural factors are causing teens to feel less fulfilled today. It feels good and easy to pine for the "good old days" where 50% of kids flipped burgers at McDonald's or whatever but the fact of the matter is, given how many confounding variables there are, you're just as clueless as anyone else about this.
If we're going to make random stabs in the dark and bring in our own bargain basement personal opinions into this, I can tell you at least that interacting with my abusive family much less has only been fantastic for my mental health. Obviously this isn't the case for everyone, but maybe that's not important and I should just universalize this viewpoint like you, right?
If we're going to make random stabs in the dark and bring in our own bargain basement personal opinions into this, I can tell you at least that interacting with my abusive family much less has only been fantastic for my mental health. Obviously this isn't the case for everyone, but maybe that's not important and I should just universalize this viewpoint like you, right?
> while up and down the thread you're making gigantic reactionary assumptions about what cultural factors are causing teens to feel less fulfilled today. It feels good and easy to pine for the "good old days"
To be clear, Taylor Lorenz is the one pining about the 1950s. She’s the one saying “things are worse now” and arguing that changes since then are making young people unhappy.
TFA rejects Lorenz’s premise by pointing out that the economically, young people aren’t worse off. I’m simply pointing out that, unless you want to dismiss Lorenz’s (quite common) view altogether, it’s worth looking at what other things have changed.
To be clear, Taylor Lorenz is the one pining about the 1950s. She’s the one saying “things are worse now” and arguing that changes since then are making young people unhappy.
TFA rejects Lorenz’s premise by pointing out that the economically, young people aren’t worse off. I’m simply pointing out that, unless you want to dismiss Lorenz’s (quite common) view altogether, it’s worth looking at what other things have changed.
Taking care of elderly family members at home went away well before the recent dip in mental health and falls in line with the decline of family values. I'm personally saddened by the change, but I don't think it explains much here.
I'm guessing fewer 16-19yo have jobs mainly because school is more important now. College attendance is way up. But more importantly, the whole phone / social media thing is life-sucking even for kids who don't actively engage in it.
I'm guessing fewer 16-19yo have jobs mainly because school is more important now. College attendance is way up. But more importantly, the whole phone / social media thing is life-sucking even for kids who don't actively engage in it.
> So what has changed since the 1950s?
Income inequality has increased greatly from it's low in the 1950s. This means more people make less than X% of the median wage.
Housing has become much more expensive versus average wages.
Minimum wage has not increased with inflation.
Fallback jobs that require little training and can be done by most people have become fewer and fewer. The remaining jobs have less of a path upwards.
The top Federal tax bracket was 90% in the 1950s and it's under 40% now.
Etc. etc.
Income inequality has increased greatly from it's low in the 1950s. This means more people make less than X% of the median wage.
Housing has become much more expensive versus average wages.
Minimum wage has not increased with inflation.
Fallback jobs that require little training and can be done by most people have become fewer and fewer. The remaining jobs have less of a path upwards.
The top Federal tax bracket was 90% in the 1950s and it's under 40% now.
Etc. etc.
What has changed since the 1970s is a greater proportion of productivity improvement has gone to capital vs labour. This means working people have to work much harder for comparatively less.
Ascribing the resulting unhappiness to departing from some sort of communal idyll where young people 'knew their place' is rather regressive I'd suggest.
Ascribing the resulting unhappiness to departing from some sort of communal idyll where young people 'knew their place' is rather regressive I'd suggest.
> What has changed since the 1970s is a greater proportion of productivity improvement has gone to capital vs labour.
The evidence just doesn't support this. There are analyses that purport to, but they look at wages rather than total compensation (including benefits)
The evidence just doesn't support this. There are analyses that purport to, but they look at wages rather than total compensation (including benefits)
Do you think adding ~10k/year/person for very good group health insurance[0] fully closes that gap? I recall the divergence being a good deal larger than that. At the median, that's about a 20% boost in wages; still doesn't close the gap here, for instance: https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/
[0] 2020-2021 prices from a previous employer's details
[0] 2020-2021 prices from a previous employer's details
This chart tracks the income (including benefits) of "production/nonsupervisory workers" and compares it to per capita GDP. This is not quite the same claim as the one I was replying to, which is that labor in general gets a smaller share of the national income than it used to.
Productivity is up due to technology, not increased working hours. Americans work a lot less now than they did in the 1950s: https://www.humanprogress.org/senator-sanders-and-the-averag.... In fields where technology doesn’t help, productivity is basically flat for decades.
Likewise, capital’s share of GDP is flat since the 1950s and if you factor out real estate, has declined from 25% to under 20%. https://www.brookings.edu/bpea-articles/deciphering-the-fall...
I would also posit that moving far away from grandma and not being forced to socialize with mixed-age communities at church had a much greater impact on ordinary people than whether capital has 20% or 25% share of GDP.
Likewise, capital’s share of GDP is flat since the 1950s and if you factor out real estate, has declined from 25% to under 20%. https://www.brookings.edu/bpea-articles/deciphering-the-fall...
I would also posit that moving far away from grandma and not being forced to socialize with mixed-age communities at church had a much greater impact on ordinary people than whether capital has 20% or 25% share of GDP.
Yes, but the big increase in reported mental health issues started around 2007 or so.
Not communal idyll but a shift in expectations.
The internet, social media, higher living standards, globalization, etc. all of these things have moved people out of their local bubble and into a global worldview. It's much easier to be depressed when your expectations are 10x those of your parents or grandparents because you are now growing up in a more stable time and have more exposure to what is possible.
There will be exceptions but talk to older boomers or ideally the silent gen then talk to a recent college grad. I'm not playing "whose suffering is the greatest" or "greater suffering invalidates lesser suffering" but there is a massive difference in perspective and expectations.
I fall into the expectations trap myself and talking to older family members helps me get grounded, avoid doom-spiraling, and appreciate the freedom and opportunities that exist today.
The internet, social media, higher living standards, globalization, etc. all of these things have moved people out of their local bubble and into a global worldview. It's much easier to be depressed when your expectations are 10x those of your parents or grandparents because you are now growing up in a more stable time and have more exposure to what is possible.
There will be exceptions but talk to older boomers or ideally the silent gen then talk to a recent college grad. I'm not playing "whose suffering is the greatest" or "greater suffering invalidates lesser suffering" but there is a massive difference in perspective and expectations.
I fall into the expectations trap myself and talking to older family members helps me get grounded, avoid doom-spiraling, and appreciate the freedom and opportunities that exist today.
I wouldn't call most of what you're talking about "cultural" I'd put it down to relativity and zero-sum (to most players) rat-races.
No medicaid; but also health care was far simpler and cheaper. That meant some died, yes, but less of a constant weight of "because I don't have a better job I won't be protected like those higher income people are."
No student loans; less need for them. Almost nobody went to college - but they got jobs anyway.
Not having to take out a bunch of debt to go to college to do a job that doesn't require specialized knowledge is a materially better prospect even in a pure economic sense than having to do a bunch more work to get a mostly-unrelated credential for squarely-lower-middle-to-middle-class-jobs. It's simply lower personal cost.
You had much lower costs because the frontier was much more accessible and growing cheaply, too. Fewer people in the country. More un- or barely-developed land in growing areas. Less competition for more resources = lower personal cost. Materially better.
We also have new forms of peer-to-peer mass communication so any relative advantage someone has today is magnified and amplified. None of your old buddies were hopping on private jets and traveling across the world doing influencer stuff and able to shove it in your face constantly back then. We've coupled increasing inequality with increasing visibility of that inequality. I don't think you have to pull in broad cultural things beyond just (failing) keeping up with the Joneses.
No medicaid; but also health care was far simpler and cheaper. That meant some died, yes, but less of a constant weight of "because I don't have a better job I won't be protected like those higher income people are."
No student loans; less need for them. Almost nobody went to college - but they got jobs anyway.
Not having to take out a bunch of debt to go to college to do a job that doesn't require specialized knowledge is a materially better prospect even in a pure economic sense than having to do a bunch more work to get a mostly-unrelated credential for squarely-lower-middle-to-middle-class-jobs. It's simply lower personal cost.
You had much lower costs because the frontier was much more accessible and growing cheaply, too. Fewer people in the country. More un- or barely-developed land in growing areas. Less competition for more resources = lower personal cost. Materially better.
We also have new forms of peer-to-peer mass communication so any relative advantage someone has today is magnified and amplified. None of your old buddies were hopping on private jets and traveling across the world doing influencer stuff and able to shove it in your face constantly back then. We've coupled increasing inequality with increasing visibility of that inequality. I don't think you have to pull in broad cultural things beyond just (failing) keeping up with the Joneses.
Some things are better, sure. But an awful lot of things are worse. I do think that on the whole, things have gotten worse. Not for me personally so much as for my children and their peers.
> There were no federal student loans.
True -- but by the same token, it was possible to "work your way through college". This is largely impossible now.
> There were no federal student loans.
True -- but by the same token, it was possible to "work your way through college". This is largely impossible now.
> True -- but by the same token, it was possible to "work your way through college". This is largely impossible now.
It can be done, if you are willing to do Community College and then head to a state university to finish up. We asked our friend's daughter, who was choosing which college to attend about going to a local state university. She replied, "what do I tell my friends?" as in it was beneath her. Which was funny as both her parents went to state universities.
It can be done, if you are willing to do Community College and then head to a state university to finish up. We asked our friend's daughter, who was choosing which college to attend about going to a local state university. She replied, "what do I tell my friends?" as in it was beneath her. Which was funny as both her parents went to state universities.
That depends on where you are, I think. Community colleges are certainly less expensive, but they are very expensive nonetheless. And state colleges are often not much cheaper than others.
The cost of education across the board has risen to an insane level, well above the rate of inflation.
The cost of education across the board has risen to an insane level, well above the rate of inflation.
True, I'm from California where Community College is currently free for all high school graduates. When I went, it was cheap enough to be basically free.
> There were no federal student loans.
The GI Bill from WW2 and Korea led to an explosion in college students. Before that, college was simply too expensive for anyone but the very rich to attend, and then...you get lots of people going on the military's dime.
The GI Bill from WW2 and Korea led to an explosion in college students. Before that, college was simply too expensive for anyone but the very rich to attend, and then...you get lots of people going on the military's dime.
9% of the American population served in WWII, and I'm assuming less than that took advantage of the GI Bill. So this was not universal by any means.
Those that did basically exploded the number of people attending college. So even if it wasn't universal, it was a contributing factor to education accessibility.
> So what has changed since the 1950s?
Trajectory of how well off average American will be in x years?
Trajectory of how well off average American will be in x years?
To add numbers to this:
A teenager in 1950s would be 40-50 when the productivity-wage breakdown happened [1]. Their generation not only benefited, they caused that for juiced returns on their stocks.
A teenager today was born an entire generation after that decoupling — and has only known a world where their parents were exploited by 1950s teenagers.
I don’t think it’s surprising that a generation where hard work was rewarded was more optimistic than one born to parents for whom that didn’t apply.
[1] - https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/
A teenager in 1950s would be 40-50 when the productivity-wage breakdown happened [1]. Their generation not only benefited, they caused that for juiced returns on their stocks.
A teenager today was born an entire generation after that decoupling — and has only known a world where their parents were exploited by 1950s teenagers.
I don’t think it’s surprising that a generation where hard work was rewarded was more optimistic than one born to parents for whom that didn’t apply.
[1] - https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/
I think that chart should be expressed in gold not in dollars to fully appreciate what's happening.
This phenomenon is probably not unique to the USA.
Or maybe those changes are fine. You have no idea, I have no idea! But I surely don't know how you're saying this with such certainty!
> We have eliminated social roles and duties and obligations that used to apply to young people. In many cases we have replaced those personal obligations (e.g. to take care of elders) with abstract government funded systems. And maybe those changes aren’t all conducive to the well being of young people.
Wait, are you trying to say that kids these days don't work hard enough?
Wait, are you trying to say that kids these days don't work hard enough?
> So what has changed since the 1950s? Culture.
Culture always changes. That's expected.
What wasn't expected is the near-total collapse of the middle class and the redistribution of wealth to the rich. That's more of a punch in the gut than the most baroquely decorated food made in a jello mold (50s culture).
Culture always changes. That's expected.
What wasn't expected is the near-total collapse of the middle class and the redistribution of wealth to the rich. That's more of a punch in the gut than the most baroquely decorated food made in a jello mold (50s culture).
What percentage people owned their own homes back then, and what percentage of income did people they spend on their houses mortgages? I'm willing to bet those statistics are telling.
Home ownership is up significantly since 1950: https://dqydj.com/historical-homeownership-rate-united-state...
> So what has changed since the 1950s?
I think that a major component of the overall mental health crisis for young people is the fact that more and more teens understand mental illness, are able to identify their struggles, and getting a diagnosis for things like anxiety and depression is easy enough- but the situation for treatment, at least in the US, is absolutely abysmal. I was diagnosed with a few learning disabilities at 8, anxiety later on so have been seeing psychologists and psychiatrists for a very long time now. I can afford top-tier care out-of-pocket and am very experienced at navigating this landscape, and at 32, I still struggle to find competent psychiatrists. It's a very complicated field which requires a certain nuance in practice but I usually come across mental health professionals entrenched in pop psychology, not science, so I just have a great therapist and have neurologists handle my meds now. This scenario becomes even more difficult for adolescents because many psychiatrists and psychiatrists do not see adolescents, and even fewer will see children.
tldr; adolescents are more aware of their mental health struggles than they were just 10 years ago but access to proper mental health care has not improved, and finding a psychiatrist or psychologist who is taking new patients is twice as hard as it was before covid
I think that a major component of the overall mental health crisis for young people is the fact that more and more teens understand mental illness, are able to identify their struggles, and getting a diagnosis for things like anxiety and depression is easy enough- but the situation for treatment, at least in the US, is absolutely abysmal. I was diagnosed with a few learning disabilities at 8, anxiety later on so have been seeing psychologists and psychiatrists for a very long time now. I can afford top-tier care out-of-pocket and am very experienced at navigating this landscape, and at 32, I still struggle to find competent psychiatrists. It's a very complicated field which requires a certain nuance in practice but I usually come across mental health professionals entrenched in pop psychology, not science, so I just have a great therapist and have neurologists handle my meds now. This scenario becomes even more difficult for adolescents because many psychiatrists and psychiatrists do not see adolescents, and even fewer will see children.
tldr; adolescents are more aware of their mental health struggles than they were just 10 years ago but access to proper mental health care has not improved, and finding a psychiatrist or psychologist who is taking new patients is twice as hard as it was before covid
> There were no federal student loans. [..] Almost nobody went to college.
How much did college cost? How necessary was a college degree for success?
How much did college cost? How necessary was a college degree for success?
My mom, in the late 60's, paid for her master's degree at an accredited university with a summer waitressing job. It enabled her to get a career as a teacher.
Separately, my father built a 2k square-foot house on 5 acres of land for $10k in the 70's (about $100k adjusted for inflation). He did this on a telephone lineman's budget without a degree.
Separately, my father built a 2k square-foot house on 5 acres of land for $10k in the 70's (about $100k adjusted for inflation). He did this on a telephone lineman's budget without a degree.
There was the GI bill, which both of my grandfathers used to get professional degrees essentially for "free" (one accountant and one doctor). I guess it wasn't really "free" because one of them had to fight through North Africa and Italy to get it, and the other one had to drop a few bombs on Germany before spending the rest of the war in a POW camp.
Only about 9% of the US population was in the military during WW2. The percentage dropped with future wars.
Notably, the GI bill's college funding mostly benefited white veterans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._Bill#Racial_discriminatio...
Both the UC and CUNY system were famously tuition free until things like this started happening:
1960: The Master Plan for Higher Education in California maintains that tuition at University of California and state colleges should be free, but that fees are necessary to help cover non-instructional costs. “The two governing boards reaffirm the long established principle that state colleges and the University of California shall be free to all residents of the state.”
1966: Ronald Reagan assumed office of Governor of California and changed the course of the state’s higher education system. In his eight years, he cut state funding for college and universities and laid the foundation for a tuition-based system.
According to a New York Times article from 1982, during his eight years as governor, “Reagan fought hard in the legislature to impose tuition at four-year colleges. He lost the battle to lobbyists for the university, … However, the Legislature agreed to increase student registration fees.”
[0]https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/what-happened-to-ca...
1960: The Master Plan for Higher Education in California maintains that tuition at University of California and state colleges should be free, but that fees are necessary to help cover non-instructional costs. “The two governing boards reaffirm the long established principle that state colleges and the University of California shall be free to all residents of the state.”
1966: Ronald Reagan assumed office of Governor of California and changed the course of the state’s higher education system. In his eight years, he cut state funding for college and universities and laid the foundation for a tuition-based system.
According to a New York Times article from 1982, during his eight years as governor, “Reagan fought hard in the legislature to impose tuition at four-year colleges. He lost the battle to lobbyists for the university, … However, the Legislature agreed to increase student registration fees.”
[0]https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/what-happened-to-ca...
From the article:
>Lorenz isn’t wrong to suggest that economic conditions can influence the prevalence of mental distress. Unemployment and poverty are both major risk factors for depression. Recessions are associated with elevated rates of suicide. And there is some evidence that robust social-welfare states improve mental health by reducing material insecurity. It is therefore reasonable to suspect that America’s relatively stingy social safety net and elevated level of child poverty are implicated in its youth mental-health crisis.
lmao he agrees with her main point and then goes on to just shrug his shoulders in the next paragraph.
>Lorenz isn’t wrong to suggest that economic conditions can influence the prevalence of mental distress. Unemployment and poverty are both major risk factors for depression. Recessions are associated with elevated rates of suicide. And there is some evidence that robust social-welfare states improve mental health by reducing material insecurity. It is therefore reasonable to suspect that America’s relatively stingy social safety net and elevated level of child poverty are implicated in its youth mental-health crisis.
lmao he agrees with her main point and then goes on to just shrug his shoulders in the next paragraph.
The whole point of the article is that, although in general economic conditions can negatively impact mental health, in this case the increase in mental health problems does not coincide with a deterioration in overall economic conditions.
The point of the article seems more like NY Mag getting clicks by having one of their writers throw together a rebuttal to some recently popular tweets. I think the lack of seriousness is highlighted by the paragraph I quoted along with other bits from the author like this one:
>Thus it is possible that the social pathologies cited by Lorenz are preconditions for today’s mental-health crisis.
and
>It’s possible that Lorenz’s general intuitions may someday be validated.
and
>What we can say with confidence is that we do not know and that we owe it to those suffering in our mental-health crisis to be honest about that fact.
It’s clickbait meant to congratulate people that disagreed with Lorenz before they clicked on the article. Its substance is considerably less strong or confident than the headline assigned by the editor.
>Thus it is possible that the social pathologies cited by Lorenz are preconditions for today’s mental-health crisis.
and
>It’s possible that Lorenz’s general intuitions may someday be validated.
and
>What we can say with confidence is that we do not know and that we owe it to those suffering in our mental-health crisis to be honest about that fact.
It’s clickbait meant to congratulate people that disagreed with Lorenz before they clicked on the article. Its substance is considerably less strong or confident than the headline assigned by the editor.
It is repackaging the case being made that social media is the key driver for the startling increase in mental health problems.
And the evidence for that case seems to grow stronger by the day.
Beyond that, it’s simply good writing style to address the strong points of the argument you want to rebut, before rebutting it. You seem to be set on finding on something more nefarious than that going on here.
And the evidence for that case seems to grow stronger by the day.
Beyond that, it’s simply good writing style to address the strong points of the argument you want to rebut, before rebutting it. You seem to be set on finding on something more nefarious than that going on here.
“Writing flashy headlines for less than groundbreaking content” isn’t a nefarious conspiracy, it’s just a hallmark of kind of mediocre media. It’s not some big conspiracy, it’s just boring.
If I were to write an article about how I think [person a] could possibly be right or wrong about [topic x] for understandably valid reasons in either direction, I wouldn’t title it “No, [opinion of person a on topic x] is wrong” because that would be stupid.
If I were to write an article about how I think [person a] could possibly be right or wrong about [topic x] for understandably valid reasons in either direction, I wouldn’t title it “No, [opinion of person a on topic x] is wrong” because that would be stupid.
Yeah I cackled. Quite literally the skinner "am I out of touch" / "no it's the children who are wrong" meme.
> The logic here is absolutely astounding. People _killing themselves_ is not an indicator that life is worse?
This is not the claim.
The word “objective” does a lot of important heavy lifting here, and there are strong arguments to be made that subjective experience has gotten significantly worse, while most “objective” factors have continued to improve as the world modernizes.
The trouble is that evolutionary psychology is such that the major changes to how humans live and communicate leave us in an environment that looks less and less like the environment we evolved in.
This is why there is so much interest in the impact of social media. There is evidence that even among those who are in an objectively “good” circumstance when defining “good” based on safety, financial security and other commons measures, individuals are just as susceptible to the negativity and distorted reality that dominates modern social life.
This is not the claim.
The word “objective” does a lot of important heavy lifting here, and there are strong arguments to be made that subjective experience has gotten significantly worse, while most “objective” factors have continued to improve as the world modernizes.
The trouble is that evolutionary psychology is such that the major changes to how humans live and communicate leave us in an environment that looks less and less like the environment we evolved in.
This is why there is so much interest in the impact of social media. There is evidence that even among those who are in an objectively “good” circumstance when defining “good” based on safety, financial security and other commons measures, individuals are just as susceptible to the negativity and distorted reality that dominates modern social life.
If it can be measured it is objective.
And I find it odd that the objective criteria the author chooses ("it was not an objective collapse in living standards, employment prospects, or opportunities for material security.") are mostly not applicable to teens, but to adults.
And to the extent they are applicable to teens, well teen employment has dropped quite a bit since the Great Recession, and is just now returning to what is was in 2007: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/06/21/after-dropp...
The percent of children living in "poverty" also increased by a few percentage points (about 1/4 to 1/3 in relative percent) after the Great Recession, and didn't fall back to trend until around 2017. This would have affected today's teens during formative times in their childhood: https://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/line/43-children-in-po...
And I find it odd that the objective criteria the author chooses ("it was not an objective collapse in living standards, employment prospects, or opportunities for material security.") are mostly not applicable to teens, but to adults.
And to the extent they are applicable to teens, well teen employment has dropped quite a bit since the Great Recession, and is just now returning to what is was in 2007: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/06/21/after-dropp...
The percent of children living in "poverty" also increased by a few percentage points (about 1/4 to 1/3 in relative percent) after the Great Recession, and didn't fall back to trend until around 2017. This would have affected today's teens during formative times in their childhood: https://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/line/43-children-in-po...
"Between 2007 and 2018, the suicide rate among Americans ages 10 to 24 increased by nearly 60 percent."
Right around the time social media garbage bloomed. Weird coincidence.
Right around the time social media garbage bloomed. Weird coincidence.
Also from the article - "The rate of major depressive episodes among U.S. adolescents increased by more than 52 percent between 2005 and 2017." Unless we're suggesting that Facebook was popular enough right at the start to change teen moods (I think it was still limited to colleges at this time?) I feel like there's more layers to this. I'm not saying social media isn't a problem, but I wonder if it's also just a lot of "growing up post 9/11" baggage?
Or post the 2008 crash where everything governments did for young people was slashed...
+1 to this
How many teens had to watch their parent come home and announce that they got laid off from their job and that this year there wasn't going to be a yearly family trip?
How many teens had to watch their parent come home and announce that they got laid off from their job and that this year there wasn't going to be a yearly family trip?
Yearly vacations are a fairly modern thing. My older relatives have stories about not being able to afford food, either due to the depression, or rationing during the war. Car ownership in the US broke 50% mid-century. The majority of my silent-generation relatives never, in their entire lives, traveled more than 100 miles from their birthplace.
Poverty and unemployment continue to exist in other places around the globe, often in places with very low suicide rates.
Poverty and unemployment continue to exist in other places around the globe, often in places with very low suicide rates.
I believe that humans adapt to their environment and I think any one can live a happy life without X or Y luxury, in this case a family trip.
What I’m talking about is a sudden change in normalcy - since you were a kid every year there was a trip. Now there’s not a trip.
If I put you in a loincloth with a club in the wilderness, you might be pretty upset at that. But literally millions (billions?) of our cro magnon ancestors did it just fine.
What I’m talking about is a sudden change in normalcy - since you were a kid every year there was a trip. Now there’s not a trip.
If I put you in a loincloth with a club in the wilderness, you might be pretty upset at that. But literally millions (billions?) of our cro magnon ancestors did it just fine.
I wonder if it's the change in the trend rather than the change in the state. My great grandparents came to the US as immigrants with zero wealth in the early 1900's. My grandparents were children during the depression, lived their formative years during WWII and raised "baby boomer" children, and had a modest but comfortable retirement. My dad was the first person in his family to go to college and had a relatively prosperous professional career and a nice big house in the suburbs and we got to experience ~yearly vacations.
I realize that there are many life stories here and this may not be reflective of everybody's expectations, but when I was young (pre-9/11) it felt like part of the zeitgeist that "every generation has it a little better than the last" (at least, in the material sense). Now there seems to be a prevailing sentiment that for the first time in living memory people's conditions in the aggregate are trending downward rather than upwards.
I realize that there are many life stories here and this may not be reflective of everybody's expectations, but when I was young (pre-9/11) it felt like part of the zeitgeist that "every generation has it a little better than the last" (at least, in the material sense). Now there seems to be a prevailing sentiment that for the first time in living memory people's conditions in the aggregate are trending downward rather than upwards.
There were so many recessions before 2008.
>no family trip this year
Rich kid problems.
Rich kid problems.
> everything governments did for young people
This is the first time I've heard of this argument. What kinds of things are you referring to?
This is the first time I've heard of this argument. What kinds of things are you referring to?
I personally think that mental health in teens is deteriorating because western society throws teenagers into adulthood and forces adult decision-making choices upon them with nearly constant propaganda. Look at all the shit that's happening at school where kids are advised not tell their parents about certain, sometimes even life-altering, decisions they're struggling with. The social media aspect of it adds fuel to the fire by further isolating every teen and allowing them to wallow in their fears and sadness by putting them into bubbles of same-thinkers.
A few years back when political derangement was seemingly at its peak, my 14-year-old cousins were feverously arguing politics and social issues with adults at family functions. It was astounding to me, not because I was shocked that they had an opinion on any of it, but because they wasted their precious youth on stupid adult issues when they have their entire adulthood ahead of them to worry about it. This is an incredible weight to bare for adults, let alone children.
A few years back when political derangement was seemingly at its peak, my 14-year-old cousins were feverously arguing politics and social issues with adults at family functions. It was astounding to me, not because I was shocked that they had an opinion on any of it, but because they wasted their precious youth on stupid adult issues when they have their entire adulthood ahead of them to worry about it. This is an incredible weight to bare for adults, let alone children.
> kids are advised not tell their parents about certain, sometimes even life-altering, decisions they're struggling with
As a parent of a teen a huge part of this comes from the experienced shared by their friends. When a kiddo shares that they're struggling with a life-altering decision with a parent they're taking a risk they will be disowned, kicked out, or that the decision isn't theirs to make and that their parent is the sole-authority on their decision making.
When they share it with a teacher in confidence, the risk of the above occurring are less. Kiddos aren't dumb; they're minimaxing[1] - reducing the possibility of worse case outcomes.
When they share it with their friends, they absolutely pass around stories of the kiddo that went to their parents and now has to live with an aunt or grandparent now because that other kid made the decision to confide in their parents.
Let's be frank, there are certain lines folks have, which if their kiddo came to them for support in those cases, they would tell them wasn't metaphysically possible.
We would all like to believe that parents have infinite grace with their kids, but there are real life case that get shared amongst kids, that serve as living counter-examples.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimax
As a parent of a teen a huge part of this comes from the experienced shared by their friends. When a kiddo shares that they're struggling with a life-altering decision with a parent they're taking a risk they will be disowned, kicked out, or that the decision isn't theirs to make and that their parent is the sole-authority on their decision making.
When they share it with a teacher in confidence, the risk of the above occurring are less. Kiddos aren't dumb; they're minimaxing[1] - reducing the possibility of worse case outcomes.
When they share it with their friends, they absolutely pass around stories of the kiddo that went to their parents and now has to live with an aunt or grandparent now because that other kid made the decision to confide in their parents.
Let's be frank, there are certain lines folks have, which if their kiddo came to them for support in those cases, they would tell them wasn't metaphysically possible.
We would all like to believe that parents have infinite grace with their kids, but there are real life case that get shared amongst kids, that serve as living counter-examples.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimax
I'm interested in the explanation for this:
https://sprc.org/sites/default/files/Slide21-n.PNG
https://sprc.org/sites/default/files/Slide21-n.PNG
Notice how the problems share a common thread? It's simply better messaging from anti-capitalists.
Everyone's lives has problems, but find a way to thread them together that frames them under a unified message, and you've done a lot more to advance a message. What's not going to work is telling people their lives are actually ok, and the alternative messages, "The problem is actually you," or "That other group is making your life worse," either turn the problem inward which doesn't do anything to help suicide rates, or foments identity tensions which teens find unpalatable.
If you want teen suicide rate to fall, out-message the most powerful message. Or I mean, actually abolish capitalism and prove them wrong, or right.
Everyone's lives has problems, but find a way to thread them together that frames them under a unified message, and you've done a lot more to advance a message. What's not going to work is telling people their lives are actually ok, and the alternative messages, "The problem is actually you," or "That other group is making your life worse," either turn the problem inward which doesn't do anything to help suicide rates, or foments identity tensions which teens find unpalatable.
If you want teen suicide rate to fall, out-message the most powerful message. Or I mean, actually abolish capitalism and prove them wrong, or right.
So the author spent the article responding to Twitter takes from journalists and looking at stats from economists who are pretty much all old and financially secure... I didn't see anywhere where the author looked at what teenagers themselves say is bothering them, either with interviews or studies. Maybe we should get their opinion before concluding that they're being irrational?
Yes it is. But anyone publicly commenting on this is wading into the biggest political cesspool ever, so you aren't going to get a clear answer.
Adolescence is where the kid-friendly world created by parents, educators and others begins to really give way to the reality of the adult world, and how f'd up it can be and is. Adults have put the transition behind them for the most part and assimilated.
Life may not have gotten much worse. The expectations of what the world is like may have been dumbed down during prior childhood.
Life may not have gotten much worse. The expectations of what the world is like may have been dumbed down during prior childhood.
I wouldn't read this unless I thought that measuring the value of my life by politics or economics was valid and complete. 'objectively' here is a qualifier used like a weasel word limiting scope in a manner that also limits the meaningfulness of the conclusion.
Article spends entire time "debunking" a political pundit who posts "hot takes" on Twitter, doesn't interview a single teen.
Maybe, just maybe, the answer is multi-faceted. Maybe we should take the things kids say at face value if we want to pretend that we are being intellectually honest. Sure, humans are notoriously bad at describing their own qualia and reasons for why they feel the things they do, but listening should surely be our starting point, right?
Furthermore, why is it that capitalism can't both increase our material quality of life, while also alienating us from things that our ancestors enjoyed in abundance? Relationships, the family, simple and fulfilling labor that had an immediate impact on your surroundings, connection with nature, more leisure time, etc. There's no conversion ratio of semiconductor chips to time spent with loved ones. Guess which of the two humans can't live without?
Maybe instead of having a knee-jerk reaction to anti-capitalism, we should objectively look at neoliberal capitalism and see what the negative externalities are of a system that assumes the driving force between human interactions to be economic (one of which is the commodification of everything including relationships).
This article should be titled "picking a fight with Taylor Lorenz" and nothing else.
Maybe, just maybe, the answer is multi-faceted. Maybe we should take the things kids say at face value if we want to pretend that we are being intellectually honest. Sure, humans are notoriously bad at describing their own qualia and reasons for why they feel the things they do, but listening should surely be our starting point, right?
Furthermore, why is it that capitalism can't both increase our material quality of life, while also alienating us from things that our ancestors enjoyed in abundance? Relationships, the family, simple and fulfilling labor that had an immediate impact on your surroundings, connection with nature, more leisure time, etc. There's no conversion ratio of semiconductor chips to time spent with loved ones. Guess which of the two humans can't live without?
Maybe instead of having a knee-jerk reaction to anti-capitalism, we should objectively look at neoliberal capitalism and see what the negative externalities are of a system that assumes the driving force between human interactions to be economic (one of which is the commodification of everything including relationships).
This article should be titled "picking a fight with Taylor Lorenz" and nothing else.
> see what the negative externalities are of a system that assumes the driving force between human interactions to be economic (one of which is the commodification of everything including relationships)
Absolutely agreed. We've gone from a community-based culture where you took care of your neighbors because it's the right thing to do to "rugged individualism" where things like healthcare are "privileges" you have to _earn_ through labor.
I think we need to stop making the assumption that all the systems we have today are the best and take a long hard look at what upholds society, piece by piece.
Absolutely agreed. We've gone from a community-based culture where you took care of your neighbors because it's the right thing to do to "rugged individualism" where things like healthcare are "privileges" you have to _earn_ through labor.
I think we need to stop making the assumption that all the systems we have today are the best and take a long hard look at what upholds society, piece by piece.
Being a good neighbor is a fundamental part of being a man of good character and maintaining a working society.
Taking care of a neighbor is none of my business because other peoples' lives are none of my business.
Being a good neighbor and taking care of a neighbor are two very different things.
Taking care of a neighbor is none of my business because other peoples' lives are none of my business.
Being a good neighbor and taking care of a neighbor are two very different things.
> Taking care of a neighbor is none of my business because other peoples' lives are none of my business.
For a lot of human history this was simply not the case. I am not saying that this level of social cohesion is better or worse for mental health, but you can't use your own cultural viewpoints to debunk the previous commenter's claim. You have this view because you have been conditioned to have it in our current society.
For a lot of human history this was simply not the case. I am not saying that this level of social cohesion is better or worse for mental health, but you can't use your own cultural viewpoints to debunk the previous commenter's claim. You have this view because you have been conditioned to have it in our current society.
What we're saying is that they aren't, though.
Let me put it this way then: Individualism and a community are not mutually exclusive.
When taking care of a neighbor is none of your business, what you have with them is not community.
What you have with them is not the community you envision.
Arguments over definitions don't add to the conversation.
Yes that would be preposterous. What adds to the conversation is to snipe arguably at least 2nd if not 3+rd comment regarding the use of the word, then simply say the comment doesn't add to the conversation and nothing more. I truly appreciate this non-hypocritical value add.
The previous commenters are disagreeing over whether "community" (in the locale sense) is distinct from "neighborhood". Not (from what I see) the extent to which "unified body" or "common interests" are present when the individuals of such a body do not see to the interests of members of the body.
The fundamental argument between jackson1442, Dalewyn, and giraffe_lady is this argument as to whether a "good neighbor" can exist if a community does not exist. Dalewyn is saying "yes", jackson1442 and giraffe_lady are saying "no".
You're stating that "community" encompasses both. And by stating that you're effectively ignoring the definition of the term that giraffe_lady and jackson1442 are using. If ignoring this distinction was not your intent, then your original comment needed to be more verbose.
The fundamental argument between jackson1442, Dalewyn, and giraffe_lady is this argument as to whether a "good neighbor" can exist if a community does not exist. Dalewyn is saying "yes", jackson1442 and giraffe_lady are saying "no".
You're stating that "community" encompasses both. And by stating that you're effectively ignoring the definition of the term that giraffe_lady and jackson1442 are using. If ignoring this distinction was not your intent, then your original comment needed to be more verbose.
>The fundamental argument between jackson1442, Dalewyn, and giraffe_lady is this argument as to whether a "good neighbor" can exist if a community does not exist. Dalewyn is saying "yes", jackson1442 and giraffe_lady are saying "no".
"Good neighbor" and "taking care of your neighbor" are simply figures of speech. If someone is taking them to literally mean a neighbor and subsequently literally a neighborhood, they are demonstrating a gross lack of understanding in the subject matter.
Being a "good neighbor" means being a man of good character. What is a man of good character? Treating others with kindness and professionalism, respecting property and privacy, reciprocating generosity and respect, and protecting the weak and helping those truly in need. None of this is mutually exclusive with individualism.
"Taking care of your neighbor" means to proactively involve yourself in the lives of others, which may or may not be appreciated depending on the recipient (anecdata: I know many people who don't) and is either way none of your business to initiate.
I am making this distinction between "a good neighbor" and "taking care of your neighbor" in my original comment because the two are very different things, and the commenter I replied to was conflating the latter with the former.
"Good neighbor" and "taking care of your neighbor" are simply figures of speech. If someone is taking them to literally mean a neighbor and subsequently literally a neighborhood, they are demonstrating a gross lack of understanding in the subject matter.
Being a "good neighbor" means being a man of good character. What is a man of good character? Treating others with kindness and professionalism, respecting property and privacy, reciprocating generosity and respect, and protecting the weak and helping those truly in need. None of this is mutually exclusive with individualism.
"Taking care of your neighbor" means to proactively involve yourself in the lives of others, which may or may not be appreciated depending on the recipient (anecdata: I know many people who don't) and is either way none of your business to initiate.
I am making this distinction between "a good neighbor" and "taking care of your neighbor" in my original comment because the two are very different things, and the commenter I replied to was conflating the latter with the former.
> "Taking care of your neighbor" means to proactively involve yourself in the lives of others
It often means this given the type of person most likely to "take care of their neighbor", but it doesn't have to. Rare people can make it known that they are willing to help with anything a neighbor may ask for help with without actively butting in. It's difficult to do without making it seem like you're sincere and not just saying a platitude, but I am sure that it can be done, and has been done.
I'm neither community or neighbor oriented, so I don't have a horse in this race.(1) I just thought I'd comment on this particular statement of yours.
(1) - To the extent I butted into the conversation with my comment toward notch898a it was mostly an experiment.
It often means this given the type of person most likely to "take care of their neighbor", but it doesn't have to. Rare people can make it known that they are willing to help with anything a neighbor may ask for help with without actively butting in. It's difficult to do without making it seem like you're sincere and not just saying a platitude, but I am sure that it can be done, and has been done.
I'm neither community or neighbor oriented, so I don't have a horse in this race.(1) I just thought I'd comment on this particular statement of yours.
(1) - To the extent I butted into the conversation with my comment toward notch898a it was mostly an experiment.
giraffe used the pattern of "X is not A"
I used the same pattern to further weaken it to "X is not A of type B" (which, logically, must be true if giraffe's statement is true).
They've said it's not 'A.' My statement was COMPATIBLE in fact with their original statement being true, it just leaves open the door that it may not be. It's certainly possible something could be both not a community and not the community they envision, and in fact if it weren't a community it couldn't possibly be the one they envision. Nothing I said necessarily conflicts with their definition.
Given that the comment I responded to and my comment used very similar patterns with mine only weakening the 'not' possibilities I'm really struggling to understand why my comment suddenly crossed the line to you. It didn't even assert the previous comment or definition was incorrect.
I used the same pattern to further weaken it to "X is not A of type B" (which, logically, must be true if giraffe's statement is true).
They've said it's not 'A.' My statement was COMPATIBLE in fact with their original statement being true, it just leaves open the door that it may not be. It's certainly possible something could be both not a community and not the community they envision, and in fact if it weren't a community it couldn't possibly be the one they envision. Nothing I said necessarily conflicts with their definition.
Given that the comment I responded to and my comment used very similar patterns with mine only weakening the 'not' possibilities I'm really struggling to understand why my comment suddenly crossed the line to you. It didn't even assert the previous comment or definition was incorrect.
> I'm really struggling to understand why my comment suddenly crossed the line to you.
1) I've seen the "arguments over definitions don't add to HN" morale stated here before and decided to try it out when it seemed pertinent.
2) I wasn't too on board with giraffe_lady either, and yours was just the figurative last straw. Also if I'm going to try to interject in what I think is a non-productive back and forth I figured I'd do so at the end of the chain, not with multiple comments throughout the chain.
1) I've seen the "arguments over definitions don't add to HN" morale stated here before and decided to try it out when it seemed pertinent.
2) I wasn't too on board with giraffe_lady either, and yours was just the figurative last straw. Also if I'm going to try to interject in what I think is a non-productive back and forth I figured I'd do so at the end of the chain, not with multiple comments throughout the chain.
As a neoliberal/capitalist, I would suggest that capitalism is an incomplete theory and that we are still flushing things out.
The huge rise in material standard of living from the 1850s to 1970s in the US made a dramatic improvement in people’s real quality of life.
But since the 70s the improvements are very marginal. I speculate that’s because most of the consumer improvements are in the domain of status consumption goods, which by definition is zero sum. Material abundance beyond a certain point is in and of itself corrosive because it’s just status seeking / competitive signaling.
The huge rise in material standard of living from the 1850s to 1970s in the US made a dramatic improvement in people’s real quality of life.
But since the 70s the improvements are very marginal. I speculate that’s because most of the consumer improvements are in the domain of status consumption goods, which by definition is zero sum. Material abundance beyond a certain point is in and of itself corrosive because it’s just status seeking / competitive signaling.
I would tend to agree with this with the addition of the fact that labor rights have degenerated too.
The relationship between working people and let's say "capital" used to be more tenuous. This had ramifications for political stability in the late 1800s and early 1900s, but by the middle of the century we had a decent balance of power between laborers and companies, mediated by the government.
Union membership + secret societies were a huge building block of everyday life. If you haven't ever walked through a graveyard, I encourage you to do so. Look at the headstones of people who died before the 1980s. A huge number belong to a secret society or trade union group (for the sake of simplicity let's ignore the uncomfortable racial aspects many of these organizations may have had, they were still pillars of community even if they were racist pillars of community)
Contrasted with up until very recently where the norm was about bragging how hard you work (for someone else). Rugged individualism, not collectivism, is what some would consider to be the highest virtue today. Not to say this is a root cause, but just an example of change that can be analyzed in some weighted equation.
The relationship between working people and let's say "capital" used to be more tenuous. This had ramifications for political stability in the late 1800s and early 1900s, but by the middle of the century we had a decent balance of power between laborers and companies, mediated by the government.
Union membership + secret societies were a huge building block of everyday life. If you haven't ever walked through a graveyard, I encourage you to do so. Look at the headstones of people who died before the 1980s. A huge number belong to a secret society or trade union group (for the sake of simplicity let's ignore the uncomfortable racial aspects many of these organizations may have had, they were still pillars of community even if they were racist pillars of community)
Contrasted with up until very recently where the norm was about bragging how hard you work (for someone else). Rugged individualism, not collectivism, is what some would consider to be the highest virtue today. Not to say this is a root cause, but just an example of change that can be analyzed in some weighted equation.
I don't think it has much to do with material abundance or status consumption as much as it is simply inequality. The productivity vs. real wage gap[1] that began in the early 1970s is well documented. Productivity gains since then have been largely captured by shareholders rather than workers. Quality of life is relative. While a poor person today may personally have more material abundance than a King in the 1300s or a middle class clerk in the early 1800s, their quality of life is still worse because it is measured relative to everyone else today.
1: https://www.epi.org/publication/understanding-the-historic-d...
1: https://www.epi.org/publication/understanding-the-historic-d...
If it's an incomplete theory, it's been incomplete for the 400-500 years or so it's existed. No more excuses then, the "theory" needs to be fixed and practiced before the whole planet goes to an early grave.
Can't agree that the improvements since the 70s have been marginal. The internet is one of the greatest quality of life improvements humanity has ever created, especially relative to its cost.
I posted this comment elsewhere, but I think the marginal utility of our advancements is definitely decreasing.
The internet itself is just a method of getting information, most of which is garbage.
To use an analogy, let's say the telephone just got invented. Hey I can call my brother in Tampa, this rocks! But now you get spam calls every day, every time you try to use your phone you have to listen to an ad to call your brother. People call you at random times of the night telling you they are going to kill you.
Hyperbole, but you can see how a QOL of life improvement can also just be another vector for the bullshit you already have to put up with every day.
The internet itself is just a method of getting information, most of which is garbage.
To use an analogy, let's say the telephone just got invented. Hey I can call my brother in Tampa, this rocks! But now you get spam calls every day, every time you try to use your phone you have to listen to an ad to call your brother. People call you at random times of the night telling you they are going to kill you.
Hyperbole, but you can see how a QOL of life improvement can also just be another vector for the bullshit you already have to put up with every day.
Certainly the internet brings new problems that we have to grapple with, but overall I can't agree that it's net negative. Riffing on your phone example, are you really claiming that dealing with spam calls is bad enough to counteract the huge gains you get from being able to talk to your family and friends whenever you want? Imo that's not even close to true.
There's certainly a lot more bullshit to deal with today than there was in the past, and I can respect how leads to some level of existential angst and mental health issues, but I can't agree that it has overall made life worse.
There's certainly a lot more bullshit to deal with today than there was in the past, and I can respect how leads to some level of existential angst and mental health issues, but I can't agree that it has overall made life worse.
I do think that life is better with the internet, but a counterpoint I'd like to make is that humans are very quick to adapt to material change.
Someone who goes from making $600 to $8000 a month will see their stress levels reduced but the $8000 will quickly become just a number for them.
To use another analogy, programmers will always quickly squander the gains made by the chips. I bitch and moan about webpack and React because I've never written a GUI in C, the intermittent gains are invisible to me.
Now for kids born after the internet's invention, they don't even understand the benefits of having the internet. Those are invisible. The negative effects are crystal clear though.
In my example, I am not saying webpack made life worse, but that it's easy to see what's wrong with it and hard to see what's right.
Someone who goes from making $600 to $8000 a month will see their stress levels reduced but the $8000 will quickly become just a number for them.
To use another analogy, programmers will always quickly squander the gains made by the chips. I bitch and moan about webpack and React because I've never written a GUI in C, the intermittent gains are invisible to me.
Now for kids born after the internet's invention, they don't even understand the benefits of having the internet. Those are invisible. The negative effects are crystal clear though.
In my example, I am not saying webpack made life worse, but that it's easy to see what's wrong with it and hard to see what's right.
On the whole I would disagree.
1. Humans seem to do best in social groups of ~50 people. Connecting everyone to everyone doesn’t seem to be working very well from a societal standpoint.
2. https://www.theonion.com/report-90-of-waking-hours-spent-sta...
Does the internet make us more productive? Sure. Does this improve the human condition? Not clear. Will the sum total gains eventually outweigh the costs? Maybe. But then again, it may also destroy civilization. Generative AI distributed over the internet has the capability to unravel everything.
1. Humans seem to do best in social groups of ~50 people. Connecting everyone to everyone doesn’t seem to be working very well from a societal standpoint.
2. https://www.theonion.com/report-90-of-waking-hours-spent-sta...
Does the internet make us more productive? Sure. Does this improve the human condition? Not clear. Will the sum total gains eventually outweigh the costs? Maybe. But then again, it may also destroy civilization. Generative AI distributed over the internet has the capability to unravel everything.
This is the shift from "capitalism efficiently allocating resources to fulfill needs" to "capitalism manufacturing wants".
Would appreciate reading recommendations in this area if anyone has any.
Would appreciate reading recommendations in this area if anyone has any.
Matthew Yglesias wrote about this today as well, and his take was interesting. Paywall though :/
https://www.slowboring.com/p/why-are-young-liberals-so-depre...
https://www.slowboring.com/p/why-are-young-liberals-so-depre...
FWIW, it appears it's a free read for those of us who have never visited before.
It's a very thought-provoking article and one that deserves more time than just might lunch break to ponder. In particular, this quote at the end of the article articulates an increasing discomfort I've been feeling around conversations about harm:
> I am increasingly convinced that there are tremendously negative long-term consequences, especially to young people, coming from this reliance on the language of harm and accusations that things one finds offensive are “deeply problematic” or event violent. Just about everything researchers understand about resilience and mental well-being suggests that people who feel like they are the chief architects of their own life — to mix metaphors, that they captain their own ship, not that they are simply being tossed around by an uncontrollable ocean — are vastly better off than people whose default position is victimization, hurt, and a sense that life simply happens to them and they have no control over their response. That isn’t to say that people who experience victimization or trauma should just muscle through it, or that any individual can bootstraps their way into wellbeing. It is to say, though, that in some circumstances, it is a choice to process feelings of discomfort or even offense through the language of deep emotional, spiritual, or even physical wound, and choosing to do so may make you worse off. Leaning into the language of “harm” creates and reinforces feelings of harm, and while using that language may give a person some short-term power in progressive spaces, it’s pretty bad for most people’s long-term ability to regulate their emotions, to manage inevitable adversity, and to navigate a complicated world.
It's a very thought-provoking article and one that deserves more time than just might lunch break to ponder. In particular, this quote at the end of the article articulates an increasing discomfort I've been feeling around conversations about harm:
> I am increasingly convinced that there are tremendously negative long-term consequences, especially to young people, coming from this reliance on the language of harm and accusations that things one finds offensive are “deeply problematic” or event violent. Just about everything researchers understand about resilience and mental well-being suggests that people who feel like they are the chief architects of their own life — to mix metaphors, that they captain their own ship, not that they are simply being tossed around by an uncontrollable ocean — are vastly better off than people whose default position is victimization, hurt, and a sense that life simply happens to them and they have no control over their response. That isn’t to say that people who experience victimization or trauma should just muscle through it, or that any individual can bootstraps their way into wellbeing. It is to say, though, that in some circumstances, it is a choice to process feelings of discomfort or even offense through the language of deep emotional, spiritual, or even physical wound, and choosing to do so may make you worse off. Leaning into the language of “harm” creates and reinforces feelings of harm, and while using that language may give a person some short-term power in progressive spaces, it’s pretty bad for most people’s long-term ability to regulate their emotions, to manage inevitable adversity, and to navigate a complicated world.
It is different from saying, "If we teach people to recognize ways they've been harmed, then they feel bad, so we shouldn't teach them how to recognize harm"?
Framed another way, it looks like the language of harm is winning in the marketplace of ideas and the language of "those aren't actually that bad," is losing.
Framed another way, it looks like the language of harm is winning in the marketplace of ideas and the language of "those aren't actually that bad," is losing.
The important language is the language of "actions you can take by yourself and with others to meaningfully address your problems in a variety of ways".
That just doesn't pass the smell test. It sounds like what you want to say is that, "people should spend their effort on fixing things they have control over," but instead it's coming out as, "language that expresses concepts that people can't affect is less important."
It's trivial to find a counter example to the argument expressed literally. I can't change the laws of physics. Therefore the language used to express the laws of physics is less important. The conclusion doesn't make any sense because the argument doesn't make any sense.
It's trivial to find a counter example to the argument expressed literally. I can't change the laws of physics. Therefore the language used to express the laws of physics is less important. The conclusion doesn't make any sense because the argument doesn't make any sense.
When compared to the "language of harm" and the language of "everything's really kind of okay".
This third language is the language of "I don't like the status quo, or a change to the status quo. How do I deal with this?" You can deal with it through:
- Changing your point of view.
- Changing your circumstances.
- Tackling it head on to stop it.
- Team with others to address it.
That's all that I meant. The first two options kind of go with the "it's not so bad" language, and the last three with the "language of harm" (yes, option 2 kind of belongs to both). So it's really not an alternative to either, but the means of moving on from the other two.
This third language is the language of "I don't like the status quo, or a change to the status quo. How do I deal with this?" You can deal with it through:
- Changing your point of view.
- Changing your circumstances.
- Tackling it head on to stop it.
- Team with others to address it.
That's all that I meant. The first two options kind of go with the "it's not so bad" language, and the last three with the "language of harm" (yes, option 2 kind of belongs to both). So it's really not an alternative to either, but the means of moving on from the other two.
> If there were more Republicans working as professors, we’d probably balance out this line of inquiry with papers asking whether rising levels of shootings and homicides also contribute to racial disparities in mental health. But there aren't. So even when all the research being done is good, we primarily see research looking at the questions that progressives think are interesting.
A study was conducted examining exactly this question. It turns out the bias is even worse: Not only are the 'wrong' questions unlikely to be asked, studies get rejected if they get the wrong results:
The authors also submitted different test studies to different peer-review boards. The methodology was identical, and the variable was that the purported findings either went for, or against, the liberal worldview (for example, one found evidence of discrimination against minority groups, and another found evidence of "reverse discrimination" against straight white males). Despite equal methodological strengths, the studies that went against the liberal worldview were criticized and rejected, and those that went with it were not. - https://theweek.com/articles/441474/how-academias-liberal-bi...
A study was conducted examining exactly this question. It turns out the bias is even worse: Not only are the 'wrong' questions unlikely to be asked, studies get rejected if they get the wrong results:
The authors also submitted different test studies to different peer-review boards. The methodology was identical, and the variable was that the purported findings either went for, or against, the liberal worldview (for example, one found evidence of discrimination against minority groups, and another found evidence of "reverse discrimination" against straight white males). Despite equal methodological strengths, the studies that went against the liberal worldview were criticized and rejected, and those that went with it were not. - https://theweek.com/articles/441474/how-academias-liberal-bi...
Surprised nobody is mentioning climate change. Young people are supposed to be contributing and centering their lives around a kind of societal structure which is increasingly seen as doomed. The constant acceleration of capital is bumping up against the material finitude of an increasingly depleted Earth.
Conservatives have a vision of the doomed future, built around walls and hoarding resources against impending scarcity. But liberals don't really have a good answer outside of "bring the super-rich to heel and use their resources to invest in mitigations," a view which is anathema to politicians who depend on the super-rich to continue holding power.
People are depressed because there doesn't seem to be a future.
Conservatives have a vision of the doomed future, built around walls and hoarding resources against impending scarcity. But liberals don't really have a good answer outside of "bring the super-rich to heel and use their resources to invest in mitigations," a view which is anathema to politicians who depend on the super-rich to continue holding power.
People are depressed because there doesn't seem to be a future.
Yeah I think this is a big part of the core thing. The author is trying to explain it away because a bunch of quantitative metrics are better or improving. But regardless, it feels more hopeless now. It feels like the world is going to end and we're powerless to affect it, it feels like our lives are grist for engine of wealth accumulation.
Surprise, people's feelings are based on how things feel and regardless of what numbers say the world feels worse than it used to. We've optimized the hopefulness out of our changes.
Surprise, people's feelings are based on how things feel and regardless of what numbers say the world feels worse than it used to. We've optimized the hopefulness out of our changes.
This style of article -- the attempt to will truths into existence through the imposition of a specific perspective -- is always so patronizing...
Any time the word "objectively" is bandied around, you should be extremely skeptical. Very often, it is used to impose a values system pre-emptively on the conversation, and then make its argument from illusorily high ground. A true discussion on the subject would of course start with "what are the values we are trying to encourage in a healthy society, and how does that view differ between teens and other people?" which NY Mag doesn't seem interested in examining.
I suspect this is because the imposition of an external values system itself is what's killing teens. You will have to take me at my word that I have personal experience with this question among people who are in this demographic.
To me, teen suicide is making my life worse. It's making your life worse, too. If we want to play this game of counterfactuals, let's take it to its logical ends: how much will we miss these potential future inventors, stewards of good will, and powerhouses of industry when they are gone?
Also, objective measures are pointless when suicide is and only ever will be a subjective experience motivated by subjective viewpoints. If the point is "look how great everything is out here, outside of your little poisoned head!" then we can expect a spike, not a reduction, in suicides.
I didn't even have high hopes for this article but wow, this is an astonishingly out-of-touch take. Shame on the author, truly, for this.
Especially this part:
> It seems possible that the story of the teen-suicide crisis will come to resemble that of the opioid epidemic. Perhaps in a few years, we will find the U.S. economy’s structural inequities had less to do with American adolescents’ declining mental health than did the sudden introduction of a highly addictive (digital) technology.
Come on! There has been vigorous debate over exactly these things, and where they fit into our society (incentive structures for doctors and pharma companies to push their products on vulnerable populations, incentive structures for social media companies to promote or demote certain kinds of potentially harmful content) precisely because this is a question of societal values! The question "Do we subject unwitting populations to things we know will harm them?" can be answered in different ways. In our current society, we've decided that permitting companies to act in these ways is in our best interest in order to legitimize this method of organizing capital markets (the profit motive) and refusing to apply different rules for different companies or industries on the basis of appeals to "free market" principles.
I will note that, without access to the internal research of e.g. Meta or e.g. Purdue Pharma, the "consumers" of such "technologies" are literally, legally incapable of consenting to the set of possible outcomes that may result from their use. Furthermore, especially in the case of opioids, the people making the decision to accept such products are by definition under duress, as opioids are typically prescribed for constant and unbearable pain.
Any time the word "objectively" is bandied around, you should be extremely skeptical. Very often, it is used to impose a values system pre-emptively on the conversation, and then make its argument from illusorily high ground. A true discussion on the subject would of course start with "what are the values we are trying to encourage in a healthy society, and how does that view differ between teens and other people?" which NY Mag doesn't seem interested in examining.
I suspect this is because the imposition of an external values system itself is what's killing teens. You will have to take me at my word that I have personal experience with this question among people who are in this demographic.
To me, teen suicide is making my life worse. It's making your life worse, too. If we want to play this game of counterfactuals, let's take it to its logical ends: how much will we miss these potential future inventors, stewards of good will, and powerhouses of industry when they are gone?
Also, objective measures are pointless when suicide is and only ever will be a subjective experience motivated by subjective viewpoints. If the point is "look how great everything is out here, outside of your little poisoned head!" then we can expect a spike, not a reduction, in suicides.
I didn't even have high hopes for this article but wow, this is an astonishingly out-of-touch take. Shame on the author, truly, for this.
Especially this part:
> It seems possible that the story of the teen-suicide crisis will come to resemble that of the opioid epidemic. Perhaps in a few years, we will find the U.S. economy’s structural inequities had less to do with American adolescents’ declining mental health than did the sudden introduction of a highly addictive (digital) technology.
Come on! There has been vigorous debate over exactly these things, and where they fit into our society (incentive structures for doctors and pharma companies to push their products on vulnerable populations, incentive structures for social media companies to promote or demote certain kinds of potentially harmful content) precisely because this is a question of societal values! The question "Do we subject unwitting populations to things we know will harm them?" can be answered in different ways. In our current society, we've decided that permitting companies to act in these ways is in our best interest in order to legitimize this method of organizing capital markets (the profit motive) and refusing to apply different rules for different companies or industries on the basis of appeals to "free market" principles.
I will note that, without access to the internal research of e.g. Meta or e.g. Purdue Pharma, the "consumers" of such "technologies" are literally, legally incapable of consenting to the set of possible outcomes that may result from their use. Furthermore, especially in the case of opioids, the people making the decision to accept such products are by definition under duress, as opioids are typically prescribed for constant and unbearable pain.
Are you sure?
Just last week an article that rising number of teens (girls and boys) are being sextorted, or sexually coerced.
More and more girls are getting raped before adulthood, let alone the rising likelihood that an attractive single woman will get raped in a major metropolitan.
America has several converging cultural epidemics.
It’s all in the meme stream.
Just last week an article that rising number of teens (girls and boys) are being sextorted, or sexually coerced.
More and more girls are getting raped before adulthood, let alone the rising likelihood that an attractive single woman will get raped in a major metropolitan.
America has several converging cultural epidemics.
It’s all in the meme stream.
Arguing that life is objectively better because you are going to make a better salary than in the fifties is plain gaslighting, but I don't believe there are a lot of people who will still fall for this trick.