7 ms·

Save this comment for the future: comparison is the thief of joy, and in our connected world, comparison is inescapable. Young people are berated with constant

Save this comment for the future: comparison is the thief of joy, and in our connected world, comparison is inescapable. Young people are berated with constant comparison, whether it be beauty standards, financial success (across generations), or romance. One day we'll study this period and affirm that globalization, hyper addictive media and pornography come with dark sides.

xeromal 1y ago
It really does seem as simple as that. I grew up dirt poor in rural appalachia but we were all poor so I didn't care. Really had a good life and it helped shaped my perspective on what matters even though I make good money now.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- bradlys 1y ago
  Weird. I grew up in a similar environment. I didn’t enjoy it at all. Maybe the rampant violent alcoholism and meth just isn’t my thing. Of course, it had other major issues.
  - xeromal 1y ago
    I had a huge family, 100s, and all of us were pretty religious so if anyone was drinking, it was secretly and I never really experienced it. I mostly just experienced hard work, hunting, 4wheeling, and general redneck shit. People were annoyingly religious but that was about the worst of it.
    - bradlys 1y ago
      Yeah, I don't know how much that represents the typical poor rural American life. Certainly doesn't match a lot of the narratives I've seen or heard.
      - xeromal 1y ago
        It was a pretty common life in North Georgia and Southern Tennessee and Southern North Carolina.
logicchains 1y ago
That's victim blaming, to suggest the problem is that young people are comparing themselves to their parents' generation, rather than the problem being that their parents' generation has made the world worse for their children.
- jader201 1y ago
  I don't think the parent comment is passing blame on a particular generation -- they're simply blaming the state of the era we're living in, and the tools that are available to all of us, including the younger generation that has (always had) less self discipline to moderate their behavior and addition to these tools.
- fullshark 1y ago
  They are comparing their lives to completely phony ones on the internet and finding it wanting. The no. 1 job they aspire to is influencer, because they see it as the ideal life, cause it's painted as such.
thomassmith65 1y ago
Globalization was fantastic actually. America is only a few weeks away now from discovering how wrongheaded complaints about it were. The actual problem is inequality, but inequality in right/libertarian thought is supposed to be good. So they * reached for a more comfortable explanation involving 'the other': globalists! * 'they' is a discourse smell, so I will cite some examples: Glenn Beck, Pat Buchanan, Alex Jones, Steve Bannon, Viktor Orban, etc. It has been annoying, for almost two decades, to witness the success of anti-globalization propaganda. Economic inequality surely is contributing to depression in young people. Exposure to wonderful people, products, opportunities and ideas from all around the globe is not.
- peepeepoopoo119 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - thomassmith65 1y ago
    In today's world, capital interests use thinly veiled slave labor while passing on very little of the economic pie to American workers. Exactly, and we will find out very shortly whether going isolationist cures that.
  - wood_spirit 1y ago
    Globalisation is about comparative advantage. Some of America’s comparative advantages that we see a lot of on HN has been designing chips, online services and financial services etc. Also the defence industrial complex. There are probably more. In general todays Americans don’t want to work in factories any more, and factory owners don’t want workers these days either: they want robots. Witness all Musk has said about workers being temporary while he gets robots at Tesla since the start etc.
  - matwood 1y ago
    The US has enjoyed amazing prosperity, but it was squandered by allowing the majority to only go to the 1% instead of spreading it around through programs like universal healthcare and free education. Thinking that workers would still be working if it just wasn't for globalization is completely ignoring automation. Add in that very few people want to do work that is long and dangerous, and it made sense to send it elsewhere and move up the value chain.
keybored 1y ago
I’ll save it as the ultimate “just be positive” slogan as the world gets worse and worse. Young adults got tossed into Covid lockdown as teens and higher education students. They worry about climate change. Wars have always happened but now with Ukraine it’s happening in proximity to the West. The second Trump administration is much worse than the first. The old “getting a better life than your parents” isn’t looking great, in fact it’s trending downward. That people are perhaps more toxically “tuned in” to what everyone else is doing is just the cherry on top of objective reality.
renewiltord 1y ago
Yes, exactly. It's why everyone is obsessed with 'inequality' these days. They all have a better life than my childhood was and I was happy then and I'm happy now. The difference is that I'm not always looking in the other guy's bowl to see if he has more than me.
cayleyh 1y ago
This is related to the evaporation of "free time", socializing irl, and hobbies that I've observed vs. my pre-cellphone/pre-internet youth & young adulthood. Not having social media, work emails & slack, and all the group chats enforced periods of quietness, boredom, and being alone. You went out and socialized and did things in public more often just because you were bored and you couldn't just doomscroll and share memes with the group chat. The overall increase in baseline cognitive social load that is entirely digital and interruptive (notifications!!!) instead of planned irl activities just seems to add to general stress levels and decrease baseline mental wellness.
jajko 1y ago
Bingo, nr 1 reason why older generations now don't grok younger these days. There were always similar scenarios, lets be honest this ain't unique situation generally, despite many trying to claim otherwise, certainly for me and my peers say 25 years ago situation looked almost exactly the same, we just didn't expect to have a great life immediately but work it off gradually. Heck, my first net salary after university (proper CS title) working 100% as Java software dev was what, cca 350-400$ a month? I could afford almost nothing and that was fine and expected. I don't think I need to calculate how many tens of times my salary went up till this day while still doing Java dev. Yet young folks who start are immediately pissed off they only get very high and not ridiculous amounts right out of school, complaining they can't buy some central housing. Buy?!? As said huge disconnect across generations.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

xeromal 1y ago

It really does seem as simple as that. I grew up dirt poor in rural appalachia but we were all poor so I didn't care. Really had a good life and it helped shaped my perspective on what matters even though I make good money now.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
bradlys 1y ago
Weird. I grew up in a similar environment. I didn’t enjoy it at all. Maybe the rampant violent alcoholism and meth just isn’t my thing. Of course, it had other major issues.
- xeromal 1y ago
  I had a huge family, 100s, and all of us were pretty religious so if anyone was drinking, it was secretly and I never really experienced it. I mostly just experienced hard work, hunting, 4wheeling, and general redneck shit. People were annoyingly religious but that was about the worst of it.
  - bradlys 1y ago
    Yeah, I don't know how much that represents the typical poor rural American life. Certainly doesn't match a lot of the narratives I've seen or heard.
    - xeromal 1y ago
      It was a pretty common life in North Georgia and Southern Tennessee and Southern North Carolina.

logicchains 1y ago

That's victim blaming, to suggest the problem is that young people are comparing themselves to their parents' generation, rather than the problem being that their parents' generation has made the world worse for their children.

jader201 1y ago
I don't think the parent comment is passing blame on a particular generation -- they're simply blaming the state of the era we're living in, and the tools that are available to all of us, including the younger generation that has (always had) less self discipline to moderate their behavior and addition to these tools.
fullshark 1y ago
They are comparing their lives to completely phony ones on the internet and finding it wanting. The no. 1 job they aspire to is influencer, because they see it as the ideal life, cause it's painted as such.

thomassmith65 1y ago

Globalization was fantastic actually. America is only a few weeks away now from discovering how wrongheaded complaints about it were. The actual problem is inequality, but inequality in right/libertarian thought is supposed to be good. So they * reached for a more comfortable explanation involving 'the other': globalists! * 'they' is a discourse smell, so I will cite some examples: Glenn Beck, Pat Buchanan, Alex Jones, Steve Bannon, Viktor Orban, etc. It has been annoying, for almost two decades, to witness the success of anti-globalization propaganda. Economic inequality surely is contributing to depression in young people. Exposure to wonderful people, products, opportunities and ideas from all around the globe is not.

peepeepoopoo119 1y ago
[flagged]
- thomassmith65 1y ago
  In today's world, capital interests use thinly veiled slave labor while passing on very little of the economic pie to American workers. Exactly, and we will find out very shortly whether going isolationist cures that.
- wood_spirit 1y ago
  Globalisation is about comparative advantage. Some of America’s comparative advantages that we see a lot of on HN has been designing chips, online services and financial services etc. Also the defence industrial complex. There are probably more. In general todays Americans don’t want to work in factories any more, and factory owners don’t want workers these days either: they want robots. Witness all Musk has said about workers being temporary while he gets robots at Tesla since the start etc.
- matwood 1y ago
  The US has enjoyed amazing prosperity, but it was squandered by allowing the majority to only go to the 1% instead of spreading it around through programs like universal healthcare and free education. Thinking that workers would still be working if it just wasn't for globalization is completely ignoring automation. Add in that very few people want to do work that is long and dangerous, and it made sense to send it elsewhere and move up the value chain.

keybored 1y ago

I’ll save it as the ultimate “just be positive” slogan as the world gets worse and worse. Young adults got tossed into Covid lockdown as teens and higher education students. They worry about climate change. Wars have always happened but now with Ukraine it’s happening in proximity to the West. The second Trump administration is much worse than the first. The old “getting a better life than your parents” isn’t looking great, in fact it’s trending downward. That people are perhaps more toxically “tuned in” to what everyone else is doing is just the cherry on top of objective reality.

renewiltord 1y ago

Yes, exactly. It's why everyone is obsessed with 'inequality' these days. They all have a better life than my childhood was and I was happy then and I'm happy now. The difference is that I'm not always looking in the other guy's bowl to see if he has more than me.

cayleyh 1y ago

This is related to the evaporation of "free time", socializing irl, and hobbies that I've observed vs. my pre-cellphone/pre-internet youth & young adulthood. Not having social media, work emails & slack, and all the group chats enforced periods of quietness, boredom, and being alone. You went out and socialized and did things in public more often just because you were bored and you couldn't just doomscroll and share memes with the group chat. The overall increase in baseline cognitive social load that is entirely digital and interruptive (notifications!!!) instead of planned irl activities just seems to add to general stress levels and decrease baseline mental wellness.

jajko 1y ago

Bingo, nr 1 reason why older generations now don't grok younger these days. There were always similar scenarios, lets be honest this ain't unique situation generally, despite many trying to claim otherwise, certainly for me and my peers say 25 years ago situation looked almost exactly the same, we just didn't expect to have a great life immediately but work it off gradually. Heck, my first net salary after university (proper CS title) working 100% as Java software dev was what, cca 350-400$ a month? I could afford almost nothing and that was fine and expected. I don't think I need to calculate how many tens of times my salary went up till this day while still doing Java dev. Yet young folks who start are immediately pissed off they only get very high and not ridiculous amounts right out of school, complaining they can't buy some central housing. Buy?!? As said huge disconnect across generations.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]