32 ms·

Teenagers are better behaved and less hedonistic (2018)

277 points by pjrule 6y ago

twomoretime 6y ago
After decades of increasingly rebellious movements, it seems like the last few have been rebellion for the sake of rebellion - progress for the sake of progress. Perhaps this is the pendulum swinging back.
- sdegutis 6y ago
  Wasn't James Dean the "Rebel Without a Cause" in 1955?
- searchableguy 6y ago
  I think adults are just too oppressive these days. Expecting their kids to do 10x they did at that age. - concerned teenager
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  - johnchristopher 6y ago
    Indeed, a lot of people here seem to be gifted with 6 years old writing their own lisp compiler in minecraft ("and they have fun !"). ^^
    - cknoxrun 6y ago
      I believe it is more than just a shift in parenting. I am a parent of a 7 year old. The expectations I place on him are to work hard when faced with a task, and don't give up too easily. In terms of activities, the only requirements are swimming (as a life skill, not as a competition), and some kind of musical exposure (something I feel I lacked as a child). He is also required to keep screen time to a reasonable level. Otherwise, he is free to play when he wants in an unstructured way, be as creative as he wants building things at his own volition, and is super independent. However, I am still completely floored at his knowledge of the world compared to my wife and I at his age. I recall in grade 1 being just generally dazed and confused. My son and his peers just know so much more about the world due to technology that it is honestly mind-boggling. It is like speaking with little adults sometimes. Obviously the emotional maturity is still that of a 7 year old (actually I would say lower for my son), but his grasp on reality is extremely mature, and I don't think he is the exception. I believe technology has changed our children completely. They are smarter than ever before, and yearn for more constantly (as we do, addicted to information on our devices). My son is constantly pressuring me to "teach him to code" and I have not said a word about it, or given in to that request yet as I think he needs more time to just play and explore the natural world. I can only conclude that things have changed drastically for children, and it is hard to keep up. There are obviously go-getter parents out there, wanting their kids to be superstars, but I don't know if that is the general trend.
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- mdiesel 6y ago
  From looking at history, it seems to me that every generation brings about social change, and it starts off being criticised by the previous generation as rebellion without cause, or that its gone too far. So far looking back we've yet to go too far. That's not to say that some friction isn't required for stability.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  I would say that it’s more due to the data showing that if you’re not in the top quintile of income/wealth (maybe even top decile), then you’re going to fall further and further behind in the income/wealth gap, and probably also handicapping your descendants chances of being in the portion of society who has increasing wealth/income/security. So the pressure is there because the pressure is actually there in real life. Who can afford to take chances when a medical bill can ruin your family’s chances at having a stable future?
apatters 6y ago
They are more likely to commit suicide as well.
- _630w 6y ago
  I can give some perspective on that. Ignoring the increase in academic pressure and hungry sharks in education (those shady coaching institutes everywhere making you grind 5 hours after school for a single exam). Parents haven't caught up with how their kids interact with the world. Social media is huge for teens and internet which only now some parents are catching up to but they are on Facebook and Facebook is cancer and no one I know in younger generation uses it. I think they are exposed to a lot more information and their parents or schools are unable to help them process it. Kids are uncertain, worried about things their parents can't relate with. Imagine feeling down because your online account got bullied by other adults on reddit because you expressed a perfectly normal but dumb opinion. People don't think about age when they are typing a response online, they just think the other person ought to have "common sense". Few are forced into linkedin/other cancer and build online presence because they think it will lead them to more opportunities and they are probably not wrong. Various recruitment agencies seems to have gone fully online with social media/email spam. Twitter is not healthy for a teenager. Linkedin may not be either (I saw some insane CEO posts). I mean, to give you something to compare. Have you seen marketing posts with misleading titles such as $100 and 6 months for a 3000% return on customer acquisition? (Which turned out to be fraud and fabricated). Huge amount of fabrication in their idols now. They cling to youtubers, Elon Musk, and all the exceptions. Their feed is full of them while seemingly their irl interaction is less than ideal. Some will have a distorted view due to huge differences in the life they live online and people they interact with. Previously, it was less visible as people tend to live in the same economic class neighborhoods. They will know about all the countries with things they can't have in their own. They will be more aware of it but they lack any political power and position to change things affecting them. Surveillance is pushed on them involuntarily which tends to change their behaviour and normalize a specific corporate personality over time. Compare that to being in open office or public speaking 24/7 of your life. Misinformation is pushed from top to bottom instead. I think it was always like that but now kids are more aware, they will feel remorseful and insignificant if they can't do anything. Imagine having parents believing insane rumours on Facebook and stopping you from getting vaccinated. I haven't seen many kids who are anti vaxxers but I have seen enough adults.
TausAmmer 6y ago
Everyone wants a child to be a responsible grown up adult. Stolen childhood.
- dataduck 6y ago
  For almost the entirety of human history, 12 was old enough to get a job and look after a family. It's modernity that's the aberration here. Our obsession with keeping children immature has nothing to do with their well-being, and everything to do with adults deriving a sick emotional satisfaction from it. I think history will judge our obsession with keeping children from growing up in the same way we judge foot binding in ancient China. The anomie that teenagers experience is a result of them having nothing meaningful to do. Those that have meaningful work to do, even in their education, don't suffer nearly such teenage angst, and are much happier for it in both the short and long term.
  - burntoutfire 6y ago
    Can confirm. My life has really dramatically changed for the better once I finished schooling and got a job. While in school (and uni) I felt a lot of ennui - it went away after I got tasked with doing real things that actually matter. Of course, not long after that I learned how imperfect the "grownup" world actually is, and some of the bad feelings came back - but it was still better than being in the infantilised state.
  - nosianu 6y ago
    I grew up in East Germany and we were given lots of opportunity - no pressure, don't claim "child work evil communism" - to work early, for example during holidays. It was a great time every time I could work in actual factories. The bottling part of a brewery, sausage factory, a chemical fiber plant, assembling stuff, various jobs. One of my grandmothers had a SERO collection shop, which was were all kinds of reusable materials from paper to all kinds of bottles (all standardized across the country) were collected for a small reward. Some of the best times I had was when my grandmother gave me some real responsibilities in her shop, including managing the money. I was just above ten. At home my grandfather was a craftsman and I started helping with painting early on too, not at work, just around the home. Helping with real adult work, as in "jobs kind of stuff" and not just chores, especially when I could do it in a real work environment and even get paid, was just the best. I think children like getting adult responsibilities at least as much if not more so than even the best play time. It's a different part of your self that is addressed, if its missing I think one will be less complete. It's conjecture, but I think less shelter and more real responsibilities, including actual "command" over others on a small scale helps tremendously with personal growth. Maybe the opposite tends to create more drones that fit in very well and are easy to work with from a top-down loving boss point of view (more conjecture)? Now, much older, getting more command and responsibilities does nothing for my ego, I pass unless I think it's actually necessary for the company (of which I own a share). But as a child every bit of "adult level" responsibility, especially in a work environment, was bliss.
foldr 6y ago
This generation has fully internalized consumer capitalism. Music is about success, not dropping out. Edit: See e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22985678 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22985678 in this thread.
- Theodores 6y ago
  Music was different during the illegal rave days in the UK. It brought people together to party. Kids were doing the organising and not to make money. You would work with your friends to pull off an event that could be a house party for 25 to 100 people or some event for 200 to 2000 people. Some people got to play records and be the DJ, some got to sell drugs to their mates (mostly at cost), some got to get laid and everyone got to dance. You would have a network of people able to do sound systems, lights, decor and whatever else needed. Publicity was word of mouth with no social media or even mobile phones. Eventually the music died along with the organising capability. Nowadays there are organised festivals with security, laws to obey and profits to make. Kids go to these proper events as spectators rather than participants. There is nothing subversive about it. The culture that went with the rave party scene in the UK was a reaction to the Thatcher government. Temporary autonomous party zones where the police were powerless were wonderfully exciting. Today I don't stumble across the equivalent scene when travelling at night. There is no equivalent going on, young people are just not having the same fun. It is consumer capitalism all the way.
- tachyonbeam 6y ago
  I feel like I'm hearing more and more about tiny houses, sustainability, etc. I feel like there is an increasing anti-capitalist sentiment. Like, I go on dates, and women look down on me for being successful and making money. In order to win points I would have to volunteer or go hiking more often.
  - thundergolfer 6y ago
    Women are almost certainly not looking down on you for being successful and making money. Unless they had literally said that to your face, I would just say it’s something related but more specific about your success and income. Given the context in the rest of comment, that seems likely.
anotheryou 6y ago
The most adult teenagers I know all have seen shit and just skipped being teenagers. It sadly catches up with them.
- new2628 6y ago
  Do you mean "they have seen nothing" or "they have seen things", as in bad (or meaningful or powerful) things?
  - graphpapa 6y ago
    Guessing the latter. It’s a common expression in uk english, not sure about elsewhere.
    - tonyarkles 6y ago
      Also common in Canada. And that definitely jives with my late 90s teenage years, although nuanced. The kids who had the most shit in their lives seemed to go either way: either they put on their grown up pants too young, or they just gave up, figured out the bare minimum income necessary to live, and smoked pot and played video games all day. It’s anecdotal of course and not a broad population study, but it’s how my group of misfit friends seemed to go. I was part of the “grew up and got a job and got my shit together at 15” group, but stayed in touch with the other half of my friends for a while and partied with them occasionally (pretty much until cocaine started showing up at the parties, at which point I thought... nope!)
  - CarVac 6y ago
    To convey the former meaning I'd probably use "haven't seen shit".
franze 6y ago
I became a young father with 19, after way too much party starting from 15. So naturally I was concerned that my son would behave like me at that age. Or even just 50%. So I was kinda dissapaointed how well behaved he is now with 22. Mostly interested in E-Sports, Tinder and his CRM job. Said that, becoming a father at 19 was a great career move. Got a job making websites in the dot-com area as I needed money and was very motivated. So when the first education programms in Europe started ad websites, webprogramming.I had already 7 years experience. There is value in a non standard CV.
- mettamage 6y ago
  I think there are two factors for this in my case: - My environment wasn't batshit crazy, my parents environment was. In part because of their class, in another part because of the time. - They gave me advice that they couldn't get, like "don't smoke, don't do drugs, alcohol is bad for you in the long run, etc." Back then people simply didn't know, or didn't know well enough. I'm sure I'd turn out like them if I'd have lived in their circumstances. The world is simply becoming a better place, and in part it's because around 1945 it was an awefully shitty one to such an extent that the world was still reeling from it in the seventies. I daresay that it takes 2 generations to smooth the sharpest of edges. Disclaimer: armchair historian here.
- legionof7 6y ago
  Wow big props to you though. I'm 19 right now, if I had a kid now, I'd have no idea what to do. Would probs turn out very badly.
  - jl2718 6y ago
    I wish I had done it that way, although I definitely had the wrong partner at the time. I’m older now. There’s never a good time. There’s never a perfect partner. Set priorities and standards early at a minimum acceptable level and take the first match. Optimization will fail you every time. My biggest regrets are all from rejecting ‘good enough’.
- AndrewKemendo 6y ago
ReptileMan 6y ago
So for the first time in world history the people that complain about "youngsters these days are worse" are right.
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  At least in the history as far as we can remember, yeah; another HN article a while ago said that it's likely that for the first time since the industrial revolution, the young generation will be worse off than the previous ones whereas before that it was always an upwards trend. I mean we've had three serious financial crises in our lifetime.
  - ReptileMan 6y ago
    Still not a reason to be tame.
sysbin 6y ago
The fact is competition has been increasing every generation at a ridiculous rate. I like to think society would desire to remove competition as a requirement for everyone and allow basic needs being supplied for a somewhat enjoyable life. Sadly, I think it will take two generations of travesty before anything substantial happens if at all. I predict a lot of suicide & homelessness if not for some disaster and that wipes out a good portion of the population. Kids aren't dumb nowadays with social media showing them how much of an advantage being born into good genetics or financial privilege happens to be. I assume a lot of progress will happen regardless. The newest generation has everything at their fingertips. They get to read past experiences and how to approach things while the information is criticized more so than previous decades.
- naveen99 6y ago
  If you are worried about competition from below, think about how people above should be worried about competition from you. If you are worried about competition from above, think about how people below are worried about competition from you. or you could not worry so much about competition and just keep your eye on the goal which hopefully isn’t just competition.
  - sysbin 6y ago
    I'm not worried but I observe people younger than I and that definitely happen to be. I should say the issue is obviously more complex than the example I gave. In my opinion people are just having to compete too much for little return than the past and it likely brings an emotional toll with it.
- luckylion 6y ago
  > I assume a lot of progress will happen regardless. The newest generation has everything at their fingertips. They get to read past experiences and how to approach things while the information is criticized more so than previous decades. What? Yeah, sure, it's easier to open a tab and google something than to get a book from the public library, but I don't think that's what's stopped people from learning about the past.
_630w 6y ago
I am also curious about the effect of "private" communication channels for kids. They can be hidden to parents and friends irl but still remain public online. I have seen many groups of depressed teens online without adults or someone with experience in them. They all encourage each other to be more depressed because they all have a similarly sad life. The only perspective that gets shared is that life sucks and it isn't getting better. I think before the digital age, it must have been hard to do it irl or not?
- notRobot 6y ago
  > They all encourage each other to be more depressed because they all have a similarly sad life. Huh. Not saying this isn't true, but just sharing my experience: I have never seen this. Instead, I've seen groups of teenagers trying to support and uplift each other.
  - krebs_liebhaber 6y ago
    This has been my experience. If my parents saw what I said/posted to online friends, they would be utterly horrified, and probably feel a sense of guilt because they could never be that intimate with me.
  - searchableguy 6y ago
    I would like to know about the group. I think it depends on the community you are in or the platform you use. Also, by encouragement. I don't mean direct encouragement but subtle topics that may negatively affect your mental health being brought up often. r/teenagers is similar to what you describe, last time I checked.
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- DC-3 6y ago
  > I think before the digital age, it must have been hard to do it irl or not? Isn't this the stereotypical 'goth' group or such like? I reckon sad kids have always found other sad kids to cling together with.
krebs_liebhaber 6y ago
16-year-old here. My experience is probably markedly different from most teenagers in the US (I'm an immigrant who goes to a competitive school full of other immigrants) but I find that, for the most part, this article hits the nail on the head. High School is nothing like the usual media portrayal - I've never heard anyone even talk about a party, nobody's doing anything stronger than weed, nobody's fucking or even dating at all. Smartphone use definitely has a negative effect. I'm in some APs, some Honors, and some regular classes and the #1 difference I've observed between the kids in each cohort is how often they're on their phones. The CP kids leave their phones on their desks and are making out with the damn things whenever they can, sometimes even when the teacher is trying to lecture them. The Honors kids have them under their desks and only use them when they have nothing more pressing to do. The AP kids have them on mute in their backpacks. (I leave mine in my locker, and only use it to listen to music.) Most of the anxiety is over college admissions - not necessarily to the Ivy League (everyone knows that's just luck of the draw), but the "second-tier" schools (Carnegie-Mellon, Rensselaer, Duke, Cornell, etc.) where over-achieving can still net you a good chance of admission. There's a lot of focus on "building your brand" and trying to "stand out" (make your life more "interesting" in the narrow ways that look good on a college application). The more technically-oriented kids are balls-deep in resume-driven development; they follow the tutorial for every trendy tech buzzword possible (mostly data-science and ML stuff) so that they can blog about it on their Squarespace-generated portfolios. I'm a member of the FIRST Robotics Team and, like everyone else there, I do absolutely nothing, because the team has 5 times more people than it actually needs. I once witnessed the entire programming subteam (about 20 people) spend 3 hours trying to flash an SD card. The main thing I notice among my peers is an obsessive (borderline autistic) focus on "getting in" and having good credentials. Enjoying your life and doing things that you take pride in are secondary to the all-encompassing drive to impress people who know nothing about you. I wish I could say I'm above it all, but I've certainly internalized it to some extent - I feel a nagging sense of guilt when playing video games, or reading books that don't imply intellectual clout, or anything else that's internally rewarding but "non-bloggable". If I had to characterize my generation with a pathology, it would be exhibitionism.
- blfr 6y ago
  All that building your brand and trying to convince people of your identity in place of actually having one is not exhibitionism but narcissism. There used to be a very good blog about this being the root of cultural and social rot we see around us. https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/ https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/
DrOctagon 6y ago
Hedonism doesn’t need to be conflated with bad behaviour or rebelliousness. I think a splash if it now and then before you have too many responsibilities should be encouraged.
ulisesrmzroche 6y ago
Wow, that’s so sad. Y’all raising your kids horrible, no bueno whatsoever. America was born in a tavern. Ben Franklin was a real lady killer. Churchill saved our world mostly hungover. Jimmy Hendrix really thought he was a Martian These kids will never amount to anything. Lost generation. Hope there’s a huge backlash...there has to be, human spirit isn’t built for such a sad and pathetic life - hell, at this point, I wouldn’t even call them human The problem is the parents. The modern parent and grandparent are absolute failures.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  > These kids will never amount to anything. I’m not sure that’s what they need to hear.
  - ulisesrmzroche 6y ago
    Of course they do. I’m sure a lot of them feel the same way I do. I mean they’re not even falling in love. What kind of life is that?
    - Cthulhu_ 6y ago
      Depends; a lot of relationships are shallow and meaningless as well, so I can imagine how people would not be interested in them anymore.
- pjc50 6y ago
  Dehumanising and dismissive. "Please do not post shallow dismissals to HN" about tens of millions of people.
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- searchableguy 6y ago
  Your site is down. You will never amount to anything if you can't keep a 99.999% uptime. Go learn about distributed kubernetes instead of calling kids pathetic here. Shoo! :) https://ulisesrmzroche.info/ https://ulisesrmzroche.info/
achow 6y ago
Non-paywall link for folks who are not privileged enough to have subscriptions to all the publications that matter.. https://outline.com/JWArFB https://outline.com/JWArFB
gaspoweredcat 6y ago
id say this is very true, but im not sure its for the better, many seem to have totally missed out on having fun at all while growing up
- deleted 6y ago
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- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  That's a bit judgmental and err, nostalgic? "Back in my day" kinda thing. I mean they still have fun, it's just different from what you grew up with.
gridlockd 6y ago
I knew there was something deeply wrong with kids these days!
qqssccfftt 6y ago
Teenagers have no chance to be badly behaved and significantly less future prospects unless they dedicate their lives to wageslavery as young as possible
nabla9 6y ago
Finland has mandatory military service for males. So every year you most of the young men (mostly age 18 to 20) into a controlled environment and go through standardized testing and observation. - Physical fitness has gone down, overweight goes up. - Intelligence peaked among those who were born in 70's and has been in slight decline last 18 years. Similar results can be seen in other developed countries. - Anxiety disorders and depression have increased. - Social skills have gone up. Young men are more social and better at working together than any time before. - At the same time there is small but growing group of young men with almost no social skills. They can't get friends or maintain friendships or work in a group.
- 101404 6y ago
  > Finland has mandatory military service for males. How is that kind of institutionalized sexism still legal?
  - nabla9 6y ago
    Because there is a law for mandatory service, and nobody wants to extend it to women. Women can volunteer and some of them do.
  - jandrese 6y ago
    Finland has a history of needing to fight off a much larger expansionist neighbor. One who has recently (a few years ago) annexed more territory while the rest of the world sat around and did nothing. Or are you asking why they don't extend the mandatory service to women? The reasons for that are somewhat historic and very _biotruth_. A country that fights a devastating war that wipes out 90% of the men but keeps the women can recover. A country that has 90% of the women wiped out but leaves the men is completely screwed.
    - allannienhuis 6y ago
      But those aren't the two options. If loss of life were equal due to equal participation, you'd get 45% loss of each sex (using your 90% of men figure as the potential loss), which (while still devastating) isn't the same argument for losing the breeding capacity of the country. The reality is that those sorts of rules are very much based on culture tradition ('historic'). It takes a long time for parts of our culture to change. Only a few countries have mandatory service for women (Finland's neighbors Norway and Sweden among them). Israel does as well, but has a large exception on religious grounds. Also, mandatory service doesn't necessarily mean mandatory combat service, although I don't know how those countries just mentioned manage that.
_jal 6y ago
Another vote for the Lead Hypothesis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead–crime_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead–crime_hypothesis
- hckr_news 6y ago
  This was my first thought.
  - BurningFrog 6y ago
    Mine too! It's crazy that almost a century of human history might have been so fundamentally influenced by this one invisible factor.
    - WillDaSilva 6y ago
      Makes you wonder what other hidden environmental factors might be affecting us.
- jopsen 6y ago
  There are many more factors. Steven Pinkers "Better Angels of our Nature" attempts yo highlight many of the reasons we are less violent today. I think poor behavior is often mitigated by the same factors.
- AQuantized 6y ago
  Seems unlikely. Lead typically reduces IQ, but IQ was slightly higher a generation ago in most developed countries.
fallingfrog 6y ago
Let’s not forget that this is all taking place in an environment where wages are going down, the environment is getting worse- this generation is likely to make less money and have a much more difficult life than, say, the boomers. There is no stability anywhere, no guarantees of anything. Once upon a time you could skip college and still get a union job at a mill or something that would allow you to buy a house and support a family comfortably. That’s gone now. That has to be part of it. I often hear boomers complain that kids aren’t taking enough personal responsibility or that they’re entitled and it just makes me crazy. They are growing up in a much harder world than the one the boomers faced and it’s not their fault at all.
namelosw 6y ago
Kids are so less adventurous nowadays. I'm not sure about teenagers, but for college students, it's more obvious. I believe it's because society is less forgiving - young people spent a ton of money or taking loans, work hard at school, cannot find jobs that are not stressful and underpaid. Or couldn't even find jobs at all. One step wrong and they would be screwed.
- Igelau 6y ago
  It's not just that, but we became a culture where your neighbors will call the police if you let your kids walk around the block alone. The Baby Boomers criminalized and curtailed almost all the risk that made childhood and teenage years adventerous. I got to watch things getting systematically removed as I grew up. My brother is a few years older than me and we went through the same junior high. His experience including shop class, wrestling in gym, and dissecting a frog. Mine didn't.
- MivLives 6y ago
  It's harder to be forgotten. One mistake can follow you for the rest of your life, via social media, via background checks.
  - tachyonbeam 6y ago
    I think it's also definitely the case that social media increases peer pressure to conform. If you say the wrong thing, have the wrong political opinion, you will be publicly shamed.
  - krebs_liebhaber 6y ago
    At least in Orwell's 1984 the Tele-Screens were imposed by an external authority. The present day is much worse than he could have ever imagined. Everyone over the age of 13 carries a high-quality camera with them at every waking moment; in fact, they regularly shell out for higher-quality cameras as technology improves! Not only that, but they've been operant-conditioned to take photos and videos of any interesting events and send it to the central servers of spy companies like Facebook and Snap, where they will be stored permanently for the foreseeable future - and they do this all for free!
njovin 6y ago
Y hub
dolguldur 6y ago
The data on drinking might have to account for change in demographics with more muslims among teenagers than previously.
sneilan1 6y ago
I grew up at the beginning of the consumer internet. My parents would tell me to go play outside with the other kids but AOL had just peaked and no one was outside. People were captivated.
kazinator 6y ago
Teens typically look up to pop culture produced by people who are about ten years their senior. For current teens, that consists of vapid millennials. No music, no cool behavior, no new anything. The only cool stuff teens can find is from their grandparents' generation or older. So then all they can do is go to YouTube and post a comment under some 80's video "Sigh, I was born at the wrong time" and then go back to behaving nicely.
- askafriend 6y ago
  > For current teens, that consists of vapid millennials. No music, no cool behavior, no new anything. The only cool stuff teens can find is from their grandparents' generation or older. I think you're just out of touch. I'm sorry, but no one thinks about their grandparents' generation or stuff from their generation. Literally nobody cares. Odd that you think that people do. "Vapid millenials"? Seriously? Sounds a bit like those NYT opinion pieces about Millennials written by confused boomers.
- throw149102 6y ago
  > No Music I presume you're not a fan of lofi? K-pop? Dubstep? Video game soundtracks, in general? There's also an element here of how people express their tastes: Now a days, everyone has infinite access on Spotify/Youtube/Apple music. So I would say that music has become very decentralized. Anyone can put something on Soundcloud or Bandcamp, and anyone can listen to it. So the label of "pop" is maybe not as descriptive as it could be. > No Cool behavior I want to say something sardonic and rude like "So what, like smoking and getting pregnant as teenagers and raping people?" But I literally have no idea what you mean by cool behavior, and that's what my mind goes to when you say "cool". What do you really mean when you say "cool behavior"? > no new anything What do you think of twitch.tv? Or Esports? I presume your thoughts are not positive?
laretluval 6y ago
The species is becoming more and more domesticated.
topkai22 6y ago
A while back (like 2012) I saw a paper making the claim that video games reduce violence. The idea was that video games are so popular amongst the teenage and young men that they end up not getting into trouble on the street. It seems like smartphones are an extension of this observed trend.
Zenst 6y ago
Be mostly due to many things have been curtailed by laws, bylaws and other restrictions. However, online has been an avenue of teenage expression that seems to of taken up the slack in many area's. But hard to compare say 70's childhood experience with todays without factoring in that many aspects of life changed.
bambataa 6y ago
I would be interested to know what teen film people consider most representative of their experience. I love “Dazed and Confused” because it seems like the archetypical US high school experience. I was shocked that the director intended it to convey the boredom of that lifestyle because it seemed approx 1000 times more exciting that my teenager lifestyle in the 00s. American Pie was popular at that time but faaar from reality. I wonder what films teenagers these days relate to.
- Memosyne 6y ago
  I would have to recommend watching Exam (2009)[1]. Being a teenager these days feels like taking an exam where the questions are invisible; everyone is suspicious of or hates you; the timer is ticking down in front of you; and you're constantly being monitored by the cameras whilst simultaneously having to find ways to game the system. 1- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exam_(2009_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exam_(2009_film)
- thirdsun 6y ago
  Good question. I could imagine that "Eighth Grade" would come up a lot if kids at that age answered.
wideasleep1 6y ago
We had Pink Floyd and lawn darts. Damn I'm old.
blunderkid 6y ago
In 30 years if not sooner, humanity will look back and be horrified with this time when we let a whole vulnerable generation fall prey to social media and hyper connectivity while parents bought stocks of the very same recreational drug manufacturers and peddlers who hooked our children to their product.
abhayb 6y ago
It's been 10 years since I was a well behaved and anhedonic teenager. Not only did I fit what the newspaper describes but I actually read the The Economist cover to obituary (the obit is the best part). Now that I'm past that it seems the "wild years" don't so much disappear as move back half a decade.
aaomidi 6y ago
I was raised as a nudist (I'm in my 20s now) and that really helped during my teen years to keep me "focused". This doesn't mean I was focused on my studies or anything. But it did mean I generally gave far less shits about peer pressure than my friends at the time. It's something I highly recommend if you have a close relationship with your immediate family. Let the inhibitions fall and allow the kids to realize they don't have to keep up with everyone.
ge96 6y ago
Graduated in 2010, immediately went to university didn't really know how school/finance worked(personal fault). Just went for phys/eng dual major... failed out(personal problem). I had things in my favor too eg. poor person grants. I picked up debt, I was not into computers/coding before this, it was like a chore to do a C++ class and just did what I needed to get by... luckily the thought of getting rich through making websites/ad revenue entered my mind in 2013 or so and I learned how make websites "full stack" mean while being unaware of sql-injection, xss and trivial stuff like that. My website ideas were dumb as hell but I still learned(LAMP at the time). A few people helped me out a lot Quick is one guy, but yeah, I try to return the favor now/help people asking questions. Anyway I'm an SE now, not quite 6 figures, no degree... I don't know if I lucked out or what... but not having a degree is always on my mind but it does seem to boil down to competence and other possible avenues eg. freelance or your own businesses... I'm still not out of debt but if my life continues I should get out soon. Just funny as I kept dreading my college days ending because my GPA was bad, I had debt and I didn't know how I was going to make it. I had so little clue about life back then... initially I was washing plates and what not, now the amount of money I make for my area is nuts... I can't imagine failing/going back... I don't live in extraordinary means but hard to imagining making 1/4 a 1/3 of what I make per hour. Oh 96 is not indicative of my age I just choose that random number, I'm in my later 20's though I'm pursuing freedom now (FiRe) as the fear of losing my job is always in the back of my mind/having to live on some schedule too... I don't need much.
emmelaich 6y ago
I suspect some of the difference is due to having lead-free fuel these days. And less pollution generally.
dcftoapv 6y ago
I graduated from high school 2010 and spent most of my time sneaking around my parents' back to find alcohol and get in a quicky with my girlfriend. I guess you could say it set me back, but I was never on the ivy track in the first place. I can confidently say that I have a wildy more successful career than our valedictorian and I work for our salutatorian's biggest competitor at the same career level. I am not nearly as smart as either of those people, but if you have drive then you'll turn out just fine. Getting into Harvard is not the end all, and I wouldn't trade those years for anything. I agree that grades are money, but burning out at Harvard will set you back more than 'only' getting into BC.
asdff 6y ago
They also seem to be more depressed. I wonder if there is a relation towards the continued march on restricting behavior and mental health?

277 points by pjrule 6y ago

After decades of increasingly rebellious movements, it seems like the last few have been rebellion for the sake of rebellion - progress for the sake of progress. Perhaps this is the pendulum swinging back.

sdegutis 6y ago
Wasn't James Dean the "Rebel Without a Cause" in 1955?
searchableguy 6y ago
I think adults are just too oppressive these days. Expecting their kids to do 10x they did at that age. - concerned teenager
- deleted 6y ago
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- johnchristopher 6y ago
  Indeed, a lot of people here seem to be gifted with 6 years old writing their own lisp compiler in minecraft ("and they have fun !"). ^^
  - cknoxrun 6y ago
    I believe it is more than just a shift in parenting. I am a parent of a 7 year old. The expectations I place on him are to work hard when faced with a task, and don't give up too easily. In terms of activities, the only requirements are swimming (as a life skill, not as a competition), and some kind of musical exposure (something I feel I lacked as a child). He is also required to keep screen time to a reasonable level. Otherwise, he is free to play when he wants in an unstructured way, be as creative as he wants building things at his own volition, and is super independent. However, I am still completely floored at his knowledge of the world compared to my wife and I at his age. I recall in grade 1 being just generally dazed and confused. My son and his peers just know so much more about the world due to technology that it is honestly mind-boggling. It is like speaking with little adults sometimes. Obviously the emotional maturity is still that of a 7 year old (actually I would say lower for my son), but his grasp on reality is extremely mature, and I don't think he is the exception. I believe technology has changed our children completely. They are smarter than ever before, and yearn for more constantly (as we do, addicted to information on our devices). My son is constantly pressuring me to "teach him to code" and I have not said a word about it, or given in to that request yet as I think he needs more time to just play and explore the natural world. I can only conclude that things have changed drastically for children, and it is hard to keep up. There are obviously go-getter parents out there, wanting their kids to be superstars, but I don't know if that is the general trend.
- deleted 6y ago
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mdiesel 6y ago
From looking at history, it seems to me that every generation brings about social change, and it starts off being criticised by the previous generation as rebellion without cause, or that its gone too far. So far looking back we've yet to go too far. That's not to say that some friction isn't required for stability.
lotsofpulp 6y ago
I would say that it’s more due to the data showing that if you’re not in the top quintile of income/wealth (maybe even top decile), then you’re going to fall further and further behind in the income/wealth gap, and probably also handicapping your descendants chances of being in the portion of society who has increasing wealth/income/security. So the pressure is there because the pressure is actually there in real life. Who can afford to take chances when a medical bill can ruin your family’s chances at having a stable future?

apatters 6y ago

They are more likely to commit suicide as well.

_630w 6y ago
I can give some perspective on that. Ignoring the increase in academic pressure and hungry sharks in education (those shady coaching institutes everywhere making you grind 5 hours after school for a single exam). Parents haven't caught up with how their kids interact with the world. Social media is huge for teens and internet which only now some parents are catching up to but they are on Facebook and Facebook is cancer and no one I know in younger generation uses it. I think they are exposed to a lot more information and their parents or schools are unable to help them process it. Kids are uncertain, worried about things their parents can't relate with. Imagine feeling down because your online account got bullied by other adults on reddit because you expressed a perfectly normal but dumb opinion. People don't think about age when they are typing a response online, they just think the other person ought to have "common sense". Few are forced into linkedin/other cancer and build online presence because they think it will lead them to more opportunities and they are probably not wrong. Various recruitment agencies seems to have gone fully online with social media/email spam. Twitter is not healthy for a teenager. Linkedin may not be either (I saw some insane CEO posts). I mean, to give you something to compare. Have you seen marketing posts with misleading titles such as $100 and 6 months for a 3000% return on customer acquisition? (Which turned out to be fraud and fabricated). Huge amount of fabrication in their idols now. They cling to youtubers, Elon Musk, and all the exceptions. Their feed is full of them while seemingly their irl interaction is less than ideal. Some will have a distorted view due to huge differences in the life they live online and people they interact with. Previously, it was less visible as people tend to live in the same economic class neighborhoods. They will know about all the countries with things they can't have in their own. They will be more aware of it but they lack any political power and position to change things affecting them. Surveillance is pushed on them involuntarily which tends to change their behaviour and normalize a specific corporate personality over time. Compare that to being in open office or public speaking 24/7 of your life. Misinformation is pushed from top to bottom instead. I think it was always like that but now kids are more aware, they will feel remorseful and insignificant if they can't do anything. Imagine having parents believing insane rumours on Facebook and stopping you from getting vaccinated. I haven't seen many kids who are anti vaxxers but I have seen enough adults.

TausAmmer 6y ago

Everyone wants a child to be a responsible grown up adult. Stolen childhood.

dataduck 6y ago
For almost the entirety of human history, 12 was old enough to get a job and look after a family. It's modernity that's the aberration here. Our obsession with keeping children immature has nothing to do with their well-being, and everything to do with adults deriving a sick emotional satisfaction from it. I think history will judge our obsession with keeping children from growing up in the same way we judge foot binding in ancient China. The anomie that teenagers experience is a result of them having nothing meaningful to do. Those that have meaningful work to do, even in their education, don't suffer nearly such teenage angst, and are much happier for it in both the short and long term.
- burntoutfire 6y ago
  Can confirm. My life has really dramatically changed for the better once I finished schooling and got a job. While in school (and uni) I felt a lot of ennui - it went away after I got tasked with doing real things that actually matter. Of course, not long after that I learned how imperfect the "grownup" world actually is, and some of the bad feelings came back - but it was still better than being in the infantilised state.
- nosianu 6y ago
  I grew up in East Germany and we were given lots of opportunity - no pressure, don't claim "child work evil communism" - to work early, for example during holidays. It was a great time every time I could work in actual factories. The bottling part of a brewery, sausage factory, a chemical fiber plant, assembling stuff, various jobs. One of my grandmothers had a SERO collection shop, which was were all kinds of reusable materials from paper to all kinds of bottles (all standardized across the country) were collected for a small reward. Some of the best times I had was when my grandmother gave me some real responsibilities in her shop, including managing the money. I was just above ten. At home my grandfather was a craftsman and I started helping with painting early on too, not at work, just around the home. Helping with real adult work, as in "jobs kind of stuff" and not just chores, especially when I could do it in a real work environment and even get paid, was just the best. I think children like getting adult responsibilities at least as much if not more so than even the best play time. It's a different part of your self that is addressed, if its missing I think one will be less complete. It's conjecture, but I think less shelter and more real responsibilities, including actual "command" over others on a small scale helps tremendously with personal growth. Maybe the opposite tends to create more drones that fit in very well and are easy to work with from a top-down loving boss point of view (more conjecture)? Now, much older, getting more command and responsibilities does nothing for my ego, I pass unless I think it's actually necessary for the company (of which I own a share). But as a child every bit of "adult level" responsibility, especially in a work environment, was bliss.

foldr 6y ago

This generation has fully internalized consumer capitalism. Music is about success, not dropping out. Edit: See e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22985678 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22985678 in this thread.

Theodores 6y ago
Music was different during the illegal rave days in the UK. It brought people together to party. Kids were doing the organising and not to make money. You would work with your friends to pull off an event that could be a house party for 25 to 100 people or some event for 200 to 2000 people. Some people got to play records and be the DJ, some got to sell drugs to their mates (mostly at cost), some got to get laid and everyone got to dance. You would have a network of people able to do sound systems, lights, decor and whatever else needed. Publicity was word of mouth with no social media or even mobile phones. Eventually the music died along with the organising capability. Nowadays there are organised festivals with security, laws to obey and profits to make. Kids go to these proper events as spectators rather than participants. There is nothing subversive about it. The culture that went with the rave party scene in the UK was a reaction to the Thatcher government. Temporary autonomous party zones where the police were powerless were wonderfully exciting. Today I don't stumble across the equivalent scene when travelling at night. There is no equivalent going on, young people are just not having the same fun. It is consumer capitalism all the way.
tachyonbeam 6y ago
I feel like I'm hearing more and more about tiny houses, sustainability, etc. I feel like there is an increasing anti-capitalist sentiment. Like, I go on dates, and women look down on me for being successful and making money. In order to win points I would have to volunteer or go hiking more often.
- thundergolfer 6y ago
  Women are almost certainly not looking down on you for being successful and making money. Unless they had literally said that to your face, I would just say it’s something related but more specific about your success and income. Given the context in the rest of comment, that seems likely.

anotheryou 6y ago

The most adult teenagers I know all have seen shit and just skipped being teenagers. It sadly catches up with them.

new2628 6y ago
Do you mean "they have seen nothing" or "they have seen things", as in bad (or meaningful or powerful) things?
- graphpapa 6y ago
  Guessing the latter. It’s a common expression in uk english, not sure about elsewhere.
  - tonyarkles 6y ago
    Also common in Canada. And that definitely jives with my late 90s teenage years, although nuanced. The kids who had the most shit in their lives seemed to go either way: either they put on their grown up pants too young, or they just gave up, figured out the bare minimum income necessary to live, and smoked pot and played video games all day. It’s anecdotal of course and not a broad population study, but it’s how my group of misfit friends seemed to go. I was part of the “grew up and got a job and got my shit together at 15” group, but stayed in touch with the other half of my friends for a while and partied with them occasionally (pretty much until cocaine started showing up at the parties, at which point I thought... nope!)
- CarVac 6y ago
  To convey the former meaning I'd probably use "haven't seen shit".

franze 6y ago

I became a young father with 19, after way too much party starting from 15. So naturally I was concerned that my son would behave like me at that age. Or even just 50%. So I was kinda dissapaointed how well behaved he is now with 22. Mostly interested in E-Sports, Tinder and his CRM job. Said that, becoming a father at 19 was a great career move. Got a job making websites in the dot-com area as I needed money and was very motivated. So when the first education programms in Europe started ad websites, webprogramming.I had already 7 years experience. There is value in a non standard CV.

mettamage 6y ago
I think there are two factors for this in my case: - My environment wasn't batshit crazy, my parents environment was. In part because of their class, in another part because of the time. - They gave me advice that they couldn't get, like "don't smoke, don't do drugs, alcohol is bad for you in the long run, etc." Back then people simply didn't know, or didn't know well enough. I'm sure I'd turn out like them if I'd have lived in their circumstances. The world is simply becoming a better place, and in part it's because around 1945 it was an awefully shitty one to such an extent that the world was still reeling from it in the seventies. I daresay that it takes 2 generations to smooth the sharpest of edges. Disclaimer: armchair historian here.
legionof7 6y ago
Wow big props to you though. I'm 19 right now, if I had a kid now, I'd have no idea what to do. Would probs turn out very badly.
- jl2718 6y ago
  I wish I had done it that way, although I definitely had the wrong partner at the time. I’m older now. There’s never a good time. There’s never a perfect partner. Set priorities and standards early at a minimum acceptable level and take the first match. Optimization will fail you every time. My biggest regrets are all from rejecting ‘good enough’.
AndrewKemendo 6y ago

ReptileMan 6y ago

So for the first time in world history the people that complain about "youngsters these days are worse" are right.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago
At least in the history as far as we can remember, yeah; another HN article a while ago said that it's likely that for the first time since the industrial revolution, the young generation will be worse off than the previous ones whereas before that it was always an upwards trend. I mean we've had three serious financial crises in our lifetime.
- ReptileMan 6y ago
  Still not a reason to be tame.

sysbin 6y ago

The fact is competition has been increasing every generation at a ridiculous rate. I like to think society would desire to remove competition as a requirement for everyone and allow basic needs being supplied for a somewhat enjoyable life. Sadly, I think it will take two generations of travesty before anything substantial happens if at all. I predict a lot of suicide & homelessness if not for some disaster and that wipes out a good portion of the population. Kids aren't dumb nowadays with social media showing them how much of an advantage being born into good genetics or financial privilege happens to be. I assume a lot of progress will happen regardless. The newest generation has everything at their fingertips. They get to read past experiences and how to approach things while the information is criticized more so than previous decades.

naveen99 6y ago
If you are worried about competition from below, think about how people above should be worried about competition from you. If you are worried about competition from above, think about how people below are worried about competition from you. or you could not worry so much about competition and just keep your eye on the goal which hopefully isn’t just competition.
- sysbin 6y ago
  I'm not worried but I observe people younger than I and that definitely happen to be. I should say the issue is obviously more complex than the example I gave. In my opinion people are just having to compete too much for little return than the past and it likely brings an emotional toll with it.
luckylion 6y ago
> I assume a lot of progress will happen regardless. The newest generation has everything at their fingertips. They get to read past experiences and how to approach things while the information is criticized more so than previous decades. What? Yeah, sure, it's easier to open a tab and google something than to get a book from the public library, but I don't think that's what's stopped people from learning about the past.

_630w 6y ago

I am also curious about the effect of "private" communication channels for kids. They can be hidden to parents and friends irl but still remain public online. I have seen many groups of depressed teens online without adults or someone with experience in them. They all encourage each other to be more depressed because they all have a similarly sad life. The only perspective that gets shared is that life sucks and it isn't getting better. I think before the digital age, it must have been hard to do it irl or not?

notRobot 6y ago
> They all encourage each other to be more depressed because they all have a similarly sad life. Huh. Not saying this isn't true, but just sharing my experience: I have never seen this. Instead, I've seen groups of teenagers trying to support and uplift each other.
- krebs_liebhaber 6y ago
  This has been my experience. If my parents saw what I said/posted to online friends, they would be utterly horrified, and probably feel a sense of guilt because they could never be that intimate with me.
- searchableguy 6y ago
  I would like to know about the group. I think it depends on the community you are in or the platform you use. Also, by encouragement. I don't mean direct encouragement but subtle topics that may negatively affect your mental health being brought up often. r/teenagers is similar to what you describe, last time I checked.
deleted 6y ago
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DC-3 6y ago
> I think before the digital age, it must have been hard to do it irl or not? Isn't this the stereotypical 'goth' group or such like? I reckon sad kids have always found other sad kids to cling together with.

krebs_liebhaber 6y ago

16-year-old here. My experience is probably markedly different from most teenagers in the US (I'm an immigrant who goes to a competitive school full of other immigrants) but I find that, for the most part, this article hits the nail on the head. High School is nothing like the usual media portrayal - I've never heard anyone even talk about a party, nobody's doing anything stronger than weed, nobody's fucking or even dating at all. Smartphone use definitely has a negative effect. I'm in some APs, some Honors, and some regular classes and the #1 difference I've observed between the kids in each cohort is how often they're on their phones. The CP kids leave their phones on their desks and are making out with the damn things whenever they can, sometimes even when the teacher is trying to lecture them. The Honors kids have them under their desks and only use them when they have nothing more pressing to do. The AP kids have them on mute in their backpacks. (I leave mine in my locker, and only use it to listen to music.) Most of the anxiety is over college admissions - not necessarily to the Ivy League (everyone knows that's just luck of the draw), but the "second-tier" schools (Carnegie-Mellon, Rensselaer, Duke, Cornell, etc.) where over-achieving can still net you a good chance of admission. There's a lot of focus on "building your brand" and trying to "stand out" (make your life more "interesting" in the narrow ways that look good on a college application). The more technically-oriented kids are balls-deep in resume-driven development; they follow the tutorial for every trendy tech buzzword possible (mostly data-science and ML stuff) so that they can blog about it on their Squarespace-generated portfolios. I'm a member of the FIRST Robotics Team and, like everyone else there, I do absolutely nothing, because the team has 5 times more people than it actually needs. I once witnessed the entire programming subteam (about 20 people) spend 3 hours trying to flash an SD card. The main thing I notice among my peers is an obsessive (borderline autistic) focus on "getting in" and having good credentials. Enjoying your life and doing things that you take pride in are secondary to the all-encompassing drive to impress people who know nothing about you. I wish I could say I'm above it all, but I've certainly internalized it to some extent - I feel a nagging sense of guilt when playing video games, or reading books that don't imply intellectual clout, or anything else that's internally rewarding but "non-bloggable". If I had to characterize my generation with a pathology, it would be exhibitionism.

blfr 6y ago
All that building your brand and trying to convince people of your identity in place of actually having one is not exhibitionism but narcissism. There used to be a very good blog about this being the root of cultural and social rot we see around us. https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/ https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/

DrOctagon 6y ago

Hedonism doesn’t need to be conflated with bad behaviour or rebelliousness. I think a splash if it now and then before you have too many responsibilities should be encouraged.

ulisesrmzroche 6y ago

Wow, that’s so sad. Y’all raising your kids horrible, no bueno whatsoever. America was born in a tavern. Ben Franklin was a real lady killer. Churchill saved our world mostly hungover. Jimmy Hendrix really thought he was a Martian These kids will never amount to anything. Lost generation. Hope there’s a huge backlash...there has to be, human spirit isn’t built for such a sad and pathetic life - hell, at this point, I wouldn’t even call them human The problem is the parents. The modern parent and grandparent are absolute failures.

saagarjha 6y ago
> These kids will never amount to anything. I’m not sure that’s what they need to hear.
- ulisesrmzroche 6y ago
  Of course they do. I’m sure a lot of them feel the same way I do. I mean they’re not even falling in love. What kind of life is that?
  - Cthulhu_ 6y ago
    Depends; a lot of relationships are shallow and meaningless as well, so I can imagine how people would not be interested in them anymore.
pjc50 6y ago
Dehumanising and dismissive. "Please do not post shallow dismissals to HN" about tens of millions of people.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
searchableguy 6y ago
Your site is down. You will never amount to anything if you can't keep a 99.999% uptime. Go learn about distributed kubernetes instead of calling kids pathetic here. Shoo! :) https://ulisesrmzroche.info/ https://ulisesrmzroche.info/

achow 6y ago

Non-paywall link for folks who are not privileged enough to have subscriptions to all the publications that matter.. https://outline.com/JWArFB https://outline.com/JWArFB

gaspoweredcat 6y ago

id say this is very true, but im not sure its for the better, many seem to have totally missed out on having fun at all while growing up

deleted 6y ago
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Cthulhu_ 6y ago
That's a bit judgmental and err, nostalgic? "Back in my day" kinda thing. I mean they still have fun, it's just different from what you grew up with.

gridlockd 6y ago

I knew there was something deeply wrong with kids these days!

qqssccfftt 6y ago

Teenagers have no chance to be badly behaved and significantly less future prospects unless they dedicate their lives to wageslavery as young as possible

nabla9 6y ago

Finland has mandatory military service for males. So every year you most of the young men (mostly age 18 to 20) into a controlled environment and go through standardized testing and observation. - Physical fitness has gone down, overweight goes up. - Intelligence peaked among those who were born in 70's and has been in slight decline last 18 years. Similar results can be seen in other developed countries. - Anxiety disorders and depression have increased. - Social skills have gone up. Young men are more social and better at working together than any time before. - At the same time there is small but growing group of young men with almost no social skills. They can't get friends or maintain friendships or work in a group.

101404 6y ago
> Finland has mandatory military service for males. How is that kind of institutionalized sexism still legal?
- nabla9 6y ago
  Because there is a law for mandatory service, and nobody wants to extend it to women. Women can volunteer and some of them do.
- jandrese 6y ago
  Finland has a history of needing to fight off a much larger expansionist neighbor. One who has recently (a few years ago) annexed more territory while the rest of the world sat around and did nothing. Or are you asking why they don't extend the mandatory service to women? The reasons for that are somewhat historic and very _biotruth_. A country that fights a devastating war that wipes out 90% of the men but keeps the women can recover. A country that has 90% of the women wiped out but leaves the men is completely screwed.
  - allannienhuis 6y ago
    But those aren't the two options. If loss of life were equal due to equal participation, you'd get 45% loss of each sex (using your 90% of men figure as the potential loss), which (while still devastating) isn't the same argument for losing the breeding capacity of the country. The reality is that those sorts of rules are very much based on culture tradition ('historic'). It takes a long time for parts of our culture to change. Only a few countries have mandatory service for women (Finland's neighbors Norway and Sweden among them). Israel does as well, but has a large exception on religious grounds. Also, mandatory service doesn't necessarily mean mandatory combat service, although I don't know how those countries just mentioned manage that.

_jal 6y ago

Another vote for the Lead Hypothesis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead–crime_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead–crime_hypothesis

hckr_news 6y ago
This was my first thought.
- BurningFrog 6y ago
  Mine too! It's crazy that almost a century of human history might have been so fundamentally influenced by this one invisible factor.
  - WillDaSilva 6y ago
    Makes you wonder what other hidden environmental factors might be affecting us.
jopsen 6y ago
There are many more factors. Steven Pinkers "Better Angels of our Nature" attempts yo highlight many of the reasons we are less violent today. I think poor behavior is often mitigated by the same factors.
AQuantized 6y ago
Seems unlikely. Lead typically reduces IQ, but IQ was slightly higher a generation ago in most developed countries.

fallingfrog 6y ago

Let’s not forget that this is all taking place in an environment where wages are going down, the environment is getting worse- this generation is likely to make less money and have a much more difficult life than, say, the boomers. There is no stability anywhere, no guarantees of anything. Once upon a time you could skip college and still get a union job at a mill or something that would allow you to buy a house and support a family comfortably. That’s gone now. That has to be part of it. I often hear boomers complain that kids aren’t taking enough personal responsibility or that they’re entitled and it just makes me crazy. They are growing up in a much harder world than the one the boomers faced and it’s not their fault at all.

namelosw 6y ago

Kids are so less adventurous nowadays. I'm not sure about teenagers, but for college students, it's more obvious. I believe it's because society is less forgiving - young people spent a ton of money or taking loans, work hard at school, cannot find jobs that are not stressful and underpaid. Or couldn't even find jobs at all. One step wrong and they would be screwed.

Igelau 6y ago
It's not just that, but we became a culture where your neighbors will call the police if you let your kids walk around the block alone. The Baby Boomers criminalized and curtailed almost all the risk that made childhood and teenage years adventerous. I got to watch things getting systematically removed as I grew up. My brother is a few years older than me and we went through the same junior high. His experience including shop class, wrestling in gym, and dissecting a frog. Mine didn't.
MivLives 6y ago
It's harder to be forgotten. One mistake can follow you for the rest of your life, via social media, via background checks.
- tachyonbeam 6y ago
  I think it's also definitely the case that social media increases peer pressure to conform. If you say the wrong thing, have the wrong political opinion, you will be publicly shamed.
- krebs_liebhaber 6y ago
  At least in Orwell's 1984 the Tele-Screens were imposed by an external authority. The present day is much worse than he could have ever imagined. Everyone over the age of 13 carries a high-quality camera with them at every waking moment; in fact, they regularly shell out for higher-quality cameras as technology improves! Not only that, but they've been operant-conditioned to take photos and videos of any interesting events and send it to the central servers of spy companies like Facebook and Snap, where they will be stored permanently for the foreseeable future - and they do this all for free!

njovin 6y ago

Y hub

dolguldur 6y ago

The data on drinking might have to account for change in demographics with more muslims among teenagers than previously.

sneilan1 6y ago

I grew up at the beginning of the consumer internet. My parents would tell me to go play outside with the other kids but AOL had just peaked and no one was outside. People were captivated.

kazinator 6y ago

Teens typically look up to pop culture produced by people who are about ten years their senior. For current teens, that consists of vapid millennials. No music, no cool behavior, no new anything. The only cool stuff teens can find is from their grandparents' generation or older. So then all they can do is go to YouTube and post a comment under some 80's video "Sigh, I was born at the wrong time" and then go back to behaving nicely.

askafriend 6y ago
> For current teens, that consists of vapid millennials. No music, no cool behavior, no new anything. The only cool stuff teens can find is from their grandparents' generation or older. I think you're just out of touch. I'm sorry, but no one thinks about their grandparents' generation or stuff from their generation. Literally nobody cares. Odd that you think that people do. "Vapid millenials"? Seriously? Sounds a bit like those NYT opinion pieces about Millennials written by confused boomers.
throw149102 6y ago
> No Music I presume you're not a fan of lofi? K-pop? Dubstep? Video game soundtracks, in general? There's also an element here of how people express their tastes: Now a days, everyone has infinite access on Spotify/Youtube/Apple music. So I would say that music has become very decentralized. Anyone can put something on Soundcloud or Bandcamp, and anyone can listen to it. So the label of "pop" is maybe not as descriptive as it could be. > No Cool behavior I want to say something sardonic and rude like "So what, like smoking and getting pregnant as teenagers and raping people?" But I literally have no idea what you mean by cool behavior, and that's what my mind goes to when you say "cool". What do you really mean when you say "cool behavior"? > no new anything What do you think of twitch.tv? Or Esports? I presume your thoughts are not positive?

laretluval 6y ago

The species is becoming more and more domesticated.

topkai22 6y ago

A while back (like 2012) I saw a paper making the claim that video games reduce violence. The idea was that video games are so popular amongst the teenage and young men that they end up not getting into trouble on the street. It seems like smartphones are an extension of this observed trend.

Zenst 6y ago

Be mostly due to many things have been curtailed by laws, bylaws and other restrictions. However, online has been an avenue of teenage expression that seems to of taken up the slack in many area's. But hard to compare say 70's childhood experience with todays without factoring in that many aspects of life changed.

bambataa 6y ago

I would be interested to know what teen film people consider most representative of their experience. I love “Dazed and Confused” because it seems like the archetypical US high school experience. I was shocked that the director intended it to convey the boredom of that lifestyle because it seemed approx 1000 times more exciting that my teenager lifestyle in the 00s. American Pie was popular at that time but faaar from reality. I wonder what films teenagers these days relate to.

Memosyne 6y ago
I would have to recommend watching Exam (2009)[1]. Being a teenager these days feels like taking an exam where the questions are invisible; everyone is suspicious of or hates you; the timer is ticking down in front of you; and you're constantly being monitored by the cameras whilst simultaneously having to find ways to game the system. 1- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exam_(2009_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exam_(2009_film)
thirdsun 6y ago
Good question. I could imagine that "Eighth Grade" would come up a lot if kids at that age answered.

wideasleep1 6y ago

We had Pink Floyd and lawn darts. Damn I'm old.

blunderkid 6y ago

In 30 years if not sooner, humanity will look back and be horrified with this time when we let a whole vulnerable generation fall prey to social media and hyper connectivity while parents bought stocks of the very same recreational drug manufacturers and peddlers who hooked our children to their product.

abhayb 6y ago

It's been 10 years since I was a well behaved and anhedonic teenager. Not only did I fit what the newspaper describes but I actually read the The Economist cover to obituary (the obit is the best part). Now that I'm past that it seems the "wild years" don't so much disappear as move back half a decade.

aaomidi 6y ago

I was raised as a nudist (I'm in my 20s now) and that really helped during my teen years to keep me "focused". This doesn't mean I was focused on my studies or anything. But it did mean I generally gave far less shits about peer pressure than my friends at the time. It's something I highly recommend if you have a close relationship with your immediate family. Let the inhibitions fall and allow the kids to realize they don't have to keep up with everyone.

ge96 6y ago

Graduated in 2010, immediately went to university didn't really know how school/finance worked(personal fault). Just went for phys/eng dual major... failed out(personal problem). I had things in my favor too eg. poor person grants. I picked up debt, I was not into computers/coding before this, it was like a chore to do a C++ class and just did what I needed to get by... luckily the thought of getting rich through making websites/ad revenue entered my mind in 2013 or so and I learned how make websites "full stack" mean while being unaware of sql-injection, xss and trivial stuff like that. My website ideas were dumb as hell but I still learned(LAMP at the time). A few people helped me out a lot Quick is one guy, but yeah, I try to return the favor now/help people asking questions. Anyway I'm an SE now, not quite 6 figures, no degree... I don't know if I lucked out or what... but not having a degree is always on my mind but it does seem to boil down to competence and other possible avenues eg. freelance or your own businesses... I'm still not out of debt but if my life continues I should get out soon. Just funny as I kept dreading my college days ending because my GPA was bad, I had debt and I didn't know how I was going to make it. I had so little clue about life back then... initially I was washing plates and what not, now the amount of money I make for my area is nuts... I can't imagine failing/going back... I don't live in extraordinary means but hard to imagining making 1/4 a 1/3 of what I make per hour. Oh 96 is not indicative of my age I just choose that random number, I'm in my later 20's though I'm pursuing freedom now (FiRe) as the fear of losing my job is always in the back of my mind/having to live on some schedule too... I don't need much.

emmelaich 6y ago

I suspect some of the difference is due to having lead-free fuel these days. And less pollution generally.

dcftoapv 6y ago

I graduated from high school 2010 and spent most of my time sneaking around my parents' back to find alcohol and get in a quicky with my girlfriend. I guess you could say it set me back, but I was never on the ivy track in the first place. I can confidently say that I have a wildy more successful career than our valedictorian and I work for our salutatorian's biggest competitor at the same career level. I am not nearly as smart as either of those people, but if you have drive then you'll turn out just fine. Getting into Harvard is not the end all, and I wouldn't trade those years for anything. I agree that grades are money, but burning out at Harvard will set you back more than 'only' getting into BC.

asdff 6y ago

They also seem to be more depressed. I wonder if there is a relation towards the continued march on restricting behavior and mental health?