One big change I've noticed between growing up in a small town and now where I'm in my mid 40s in a big metro city in India is increased "transactional" nature of interactions of my daily life.
Back then we had a deeper ties with all those who served us by which I mean vegetable vendor, carpenter, doctor, knife sharpener, cloth shop, grocer, baker and so on. Whenever we interacted with them it would be a small chit-chat, exchange small updates (how's your son doing, is he married yet?) and then finally do the actual purchase.
It was to an extent that the carpenter would come by and just hand over a big dining table just because he thought our house deserved/needed it. He wouldn't ask for immediate payment either and also in instalments. Some other times he would come by and borrow some money.
All of that is now gone. Every single interaction I have now with vendors is 100% transactional. I don't even know their names nor they mine.
It means that I'm now connected only with my immediate family, that's it. It also means that the generation now growing up know only transactional way of interaction with non family/friends. I guess these things eventually add up to the loss of community.
Everyone is under more pressure thanks to cost of living and Western society being a property-indexed Ponzi scheme which requires endless growth just to keep up. Back when rent/home ownership was affordable and everyone had more "slack" it's easy to add humanity to transactions - you can spare the small opportunity cost even though you'd make more money short-term ignoring humanity and focusing purely on transactionality.
Nowadays when everyone's busy trying to make as much money as possible to be able to make rent or survive in ever-increasing inflation, an extra dining table they didn't give away is one they can sell for money. Similarly, borrowing money is harder/less acceptable because everyone else too is under pressure and is less likely to be able to help (or at least it would cause them more hardship).
I see families struggle with things I don’t recall seeing as a kid or teenager. We all had more people around. We were rarely functioning as such independent family units.
And you’re right, my dad was a carpenter himself and he did all kinds of favours for people. Especially elderly people—mostly women—who couldn’t do the work themselves or easily afford to pay someone to. He would offer lower rates, fit things in for free, and show up at their convenience. It was the right thing to do. That isn’t really possible now, though.
Something I urge my kids to understand is that family is great, but it was never meant to be everything. That isn’t to diminish family, but to encourage one to identify and appreciate what’s so valuable and rewarding in friends and community. Humans are so richly social and so poor at functioning in isolation; there’s no sense in pretending otherwise. We really need each other. The more community erodes, so do we each as well.
Not too different to myself in my mid forties in Scotland though in my case it's still the small town I was born in, the pleasures of working from home.
There used to be local vendors as you describe (what comes to mind is a local shop, an ice cream van, milk man, a fizzy drinks vendor, a butcher/baker), but they've all been replaced by economies of scale (supermarkets and now online).
So now there are no local shops, no weekly vans with their specialist goods. And those half a dozen well known local faces aren't doing their rounds.
A local shop serves as a meeting place where conversations can take place. Even in the 80s in the UK when TV was at its peak, people could have conversations the next day on what they watched last night out of the 4 channels available.
I guess the local social cohesion can be thought of as a necessity when you're going to deal with lots of local people and with recent trends said in the article it's considered optional.
I would call that the difference between a small town and a city, which isn't new. You establish those ties because you see the same grocer regularly - there's only two grocers in town, after all. Meanwhile, in the city, you could buy groceries twice a week and never see the same clerk twice.
Those of us who worked for tech companies trying to make “Uber for X” really accelerated this. Having an app for everything makes life a series of impersonal transactions.
I don't mean to be so brutal about it, but these small social interactions were simply never valued that much by the majority and maybe even seen as a nuisance.
I don't really agree. I live in a big city in Spain but I know the local bakery girls where i get my morning bread (they always keep a loaf of my favourite apart), the 2 Indian guys in the mini mart next door often accept packages for me, the staff in all the clubs I visit know me really well and always give me a hug when I come, I always have a chat with the lady in the bigger supermarket I frequent, etc. In fact most of my interactions are not just transactional. Only those with taxi drivers etc. The restaurants I visit frequently all know my preferences. The old guy with his antique workshop down the road often offers me a can of beer while we sit and have a chat. I absolutely do feel part of the community. And I live in a big city center.
Maybe in India things are different but there it's not like that at all. Ps As you mentioned people asking about your son getting married, one thing I noticed is that the focus on marriage in India is very strong, some of my coworkers in Bangalore who are from smaller villages are pretty much disowned if they don't get married by the age of 23. I know when I was 23 I was just backpacking around the world and enjoying life, not thinking about babies or families. In fact I never did get married and I'm almost 50.
I think that pressure would take its toll too. Young people like to be free and don't want to be tied down. It certainly made some of my coworkers there very stressed with the pressure because they just wanted to go clubbing. One friend's parents didn't even know she had a boyfriend for years. There seems to be a huge disconnect there between generations.
I live in a major city outside the US and the culture here is very non-transactional with the neighbourhood vendors. Sometimes I forget to have enough cash and I they'll suggest I pay later (and always do). I'll be given excellent and free advice from my pharmacy, free fruit samples from the fruit grocer, good discounts on places I frequent. These are owner-run businesses, obviously the supermarket doesn't give me any preferential treatment. I love this city, it's very warm and generous, maybe because they have an incredibly strong social system but also because the municipality works to encourage owner-run businesses.
> Whenever we interacted with them it would be a small chit-chat, exchange small updates (how's your son doing, is he married yet?) and then finally do the actual purchase. All of that is now gone. Every single interaction I have now with vendors is 100% transactional. I don't even know their names nor they mine.
Interesting note: economics would quantify this as a significant productivity increase. You can now get more tasks done per day!
Lesson: economics does not fully capture human values.
Yes! We just moved out of Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn and my biggest lament was losing this type of community. Wrote about it here: https://baugues.com/last-days-nyc
I love being in big cities (overseas) because I actually can cultivate this sort of community / friendship with the locals.
I go to the same coffee shops and get to know the folks there, bring them interesting coffee to try, etc.
I will say that this only has worked for me in other countries, not the USA. I think folks here are too burnt out by the lack of safety nets and such, I really don't blame them.
I've noticed an uptick recently of large brands to start referring to themselves as "The [Brand] Community". The author pointed out Youtube here (who in an Orwellian manner calls their ToS "community guidelines") but I've also seen it with many other multi-million dollar companies such as Reddit, Twitter, etc.
Young people today are reaching out for real support structures, but only receiving manipulation from corporations that want them to watch ads, while occasionally arguing with pseudo-anonymous internet strangers.
About 9 years ago I traveled to the US from India for education. Smartphones were still not very common in India cause data was not as cheap as it is today. When I was in the bus commuting everyone’s head was buried in their phones. I thought to myself this is such a sad thing. Look outside talk to each other but the every single person had an iPhone and was doing something on the phone.
Fast forward to 2024 and every person home here in India is constantly on their phones. In the gym, in the car, at work, everywhere. Naturally kids are also getting hooked on devices.
How can you talk to someone when they aren’t even looking at you or paying attention ? Communities and real physical social interaction keep people mentally healthy. All these apps and devices are doing is keeping people away from each other instead.
Of course no one wants to admit this but people are addicted to devices and distractions. The sooner they dissociate, the better.
I've personally noticed that my own value of autonomy has often contributed to a reduction in social activity and community integration. I used to be very selective of what I did with others. If I had an invite from friends and the activity didn't seem immediately interesting to me, I'd decline. I've since learned to say yes more (but not always) to invites and particularly consider ones that are more outside my comfort zone. This does however require a sacrifice of my individualism that is so heavily prized in western culture.
Just a data point: In Valencia, Spain, in the 80s, children played in the street with no much supervision from parents. Occasionally we would stop the football match to let a car drive by. Forgetting your keys at home was no issue, you could get a glass of milk in ten different places while you wait for other (more attentive) members of your family.
Nowadays there is hardly a place to park your car. Parents don't allow kids to play in the street. And the ones that interact with each other are the ones who lived there in that period. It's very difficult for newcomers to integrate.
What are the reasons for this? My take: cars and lack of stay at home mums. They built the social network at that time. They took care of each other children, the were there to help each other. Nowadays households have both adults working (so nobody even asks for salt to the neighbor, all order a pizza instead).
I’m so glad it’s finally happening but also it’s wild to me this conversation feels like it’s just beginning. The Anxious Generation book seems to have been what was needed for people to see what, to me anyways, was common sense and actually question their silly iPad at 6months old parenting styles.
As it’s picking up steam, I’ve been hearing stories recently about how our local “school district decided to ban phones from classrooms” and just yesterday it was “the school will no longer allow food delivery services to drop off food”. Like, educators, WTF, why was that ever an option? In my days long ago, 80s-90s primary school, there was a zero tolerance policy for this stuff. Why was it ever deemed allowable? I can see letting kids keep their phone in their locker or create some storage solution for it. For emergency purposes. But in emergencies, the parent should be able to call the office and they can fetch the kid. It worked just fine in the days of landlines.
It’s hard for me to understand the parenting styles that demanded and allowed this stuff to take place, because I’m sure it was parent driven. But there’s so much else to the parenting styles that are contributing to all this stuff. Banning outdoor play and independence is why they’re online so much and why the arcades and third places all disappeared.
I say all this as a parent of an almost 6 year old boy, doing everything I can to shield him from the wacky parenting style that seems to be the norm and provide him places of community and activities away from screens. He won’t have a phone until he drives, or maybe just a basic flip phone if we think we need a communication line to reach him when he’s a bit older.
Second comment. Sorry if excessive but it's relevant. I'm a computer teacher for elementary and intermediate school grades. You know what drives kids absolutely insane and agitated? The schools IT guy turning their laptops and Mac desktops into locked down consumption devices.
The kids aren't even permitted to change their wallpaper. Those in tech with authority need to loosen up on control of systems, hardware and services if they want kids to be less agitated.
The books the authors cite are great and worth reading.
Some personal observations:
- The USA lacks a unified cultural identity now. There are lots of reasons for this. But, it's considered taboo to express a love of the USA - which hurts our community + culture.
- People put a lot of effort into work, and work is becoming more transactional. No more "life-long employment with the buddies" kind of situation.
- America went from poor to rich, but still behaves like a developing economy. Public healthcare + public education + low-income housing availability are poor, while there's a big class of people who can afford private education + private healthcare + McMansions. I think this deteriorates the idea of "we're all in this together" because there's such unequal opportunity.
- Wars used to be a way to unify a country, but we're in the era of proxy wars - which don't have the same aligning effect.
Speaking as a non-American who visited for the first time last year:
> But, it's considered taboo to express a love of the USA
American flags _everywhere_' Like seriously, I visited both liberal areas (Seattle) and conservative areas (Spokane's surrounds) and y'all patriotic as _fuck_.
> Wars used to be a way to unify a country...
Also because the US is just not threatened by anyone. I'd hope that going back to being the Arsenal of Democracy for Ukraine (and maybe Taiwan or South Korea if things go bad) would've tied the US together, but man I was wrong there.
> But, it's considered taboo to express a love of the USA
I don't agree. Every sporting event still plays the national anthem and often has soldiers or military involvement or mentions
I see US flags all the time, all over the place.
There are certain forms of "love" of the USA that are more politically one-sided that may be more taboo if you live in an area where most people are on the other side.
> - America went from poor to rich, but still behaves like a developing economy. Public healthcare + public education + low-income housing availability are poor, while there's a big class of people who can afford private education + private healthcare + McMansions. I think this deteriorates the idea of "we're all in this together" because there's such unequal opportunity.
America has had a long history of unequal opportunity. It's kind of founded with unequal opportunity (slavery) and continued to shoot itself in the foot in order to ensure inequality (closing public schools instead of allowing integrated schools is why we have a rise of private schooling to begin with, HOAs existed primarily to ensure the community could enforce that no one could allow a black family to move in by selling their property to blacks). I think of America as a country that is constantly being challenged with the ideals it claims as having against the society it builds which falls short of those ideals. But I don't think this inequality has to do with the recent youth mental health crisis... America has endeavored to be more and more equal by the year.
I don't disagree with the comment, but whenever people talk about a "love of the USA", I always want to ask what is it that you love? To stereotype a bit, I'm guessing that it will not be the federal government (despite a strong reverence for the flag of that government).
> it's considered taboo to express a love of the USA - which hurts our community + culture.
Nearly every bullet point the article listed for what makes a strong community was basically just a descriptor for cultural homogeneity, which also touches on a rather controversial taboo. This sort of critique of diversity would be considered hate speech by some.
The US _always_ lacked a cohesive cultural identity, it has always been manifold.
Basically the rise of television and movies post-WWII-ish depicted a single culture but it was just excluding everyone except essentially WASPs. This had nothing to do with reality and was just racism. Before the world wars there was even a considerable amount of greater cultural diversity among European immigrants and descendants, German being spoken very widely across the country and quite a bit more of people retaining the culture of their ancestors.
> it's considered taboo to express a love of the USA
American here. First-generation immigrant. Came from Germany at age 5.
This misses a crucial part of the problem. It is considered taboo to express a love of the USA in certain social circles. In others, it is considered taboo not to express a love of the USA. The problem is that the two sides have very different ideas of what "loving the USA" means. Among the first group (liberals) the USA is envisioned as an inclusive melting pot where all are welcome. Among the second group, the USA is envisioned as a set of values to which one is required to subscribe in order to be included; to include those who do not subscribe to these values would change the character of the nation to the point where it would not longer be the USA. These values include innocuous things like baseball and hot dogs, to abstract ideals like "freedom", less abstract ideals like capitalism, and quasi-religious ideals like "family values". Lately these have started to morph into religious ideals up to and including the (false) idea that an essential part of the national character is to be a Christian theocracy.
So it's not that expressing a love of the USA is taboo, it's that conservatives have managed to co-opt loving the USA and make it part of their brand. Expressing love for the nation, flying the flag, singing the national anthem, etc. are nowadays seen as expressing tacit support for conservatism in general, and the Republican party and Donald Trump in particular. This is the reason that liberals avoid them.
For me personally, I have always felt that some of the common rituals associated with "loving the USA" were kind of weird. Take the Pledge of Allegiance, for example. I get pledging allegiance to the nation, but to the flag? That has always struck me as bizarre. The flag is just a symbol, a token. Why would anyone pledge allegiance to a flag? But to question this, especially as a minor in a public school, turns out to be unwise.
When I grew up in China, students in a school were divided into fixed classes. Those classes formed great communities, as we spent hours every day for at least three years and some for 6 years. Each class had a head teacher, who fostered the sense of community too. No one would mock people for geeking out. No one would mock people for not being good at sports. No one would mock those who struggled at academics. At least not openly. We loved each other and still do. Our bond was so strong that we had regular reunions every few years, and most of my classmates would make it. We had multiple couples who were high-school sweat hearts, even though dating in high school was a taboo in China then. The concepts like nerds, like queen bees, like sports jockeys, like that those who can get drugs and drinks are popular... They were all new and parts of the culture shock to me when I moved to the US.
I recently joined my local Elks club and the experience has been amazing.
Being social is effortless. I just show up at the lodge and people I know will be there.
As a parent I can let the kids run wild with other kids within the safe confines of the lodge and have adult conversations.
If I don’t have plans, I don’t need to sit home reading the internet. I go to the lodge.
It’s weird that groups like the Elks have declined so much in recent decades, because it feels they really are the solution to a problem everyone complains about.
(1) A 'youth mental health crisis' may or may not actually exist. Consider the 'chronic pain crisis' marketing that preceded the opiate epidemic in the USA, and the concomittant boom in opiate drug prescriptions, sales and profits. Similarly the 'attention deficit crisis' was very profitable for the makers of amphetamines and their derivatives, from Ritalin to Adderall to Desoxyn. Here's CDC on opiate prescriptions in the USA, 2006-2015:
(2) A 'youth mental health crisis' may actually be a 'youth are looking at the dystopian world besest by war and climate chaos and not feeling good about their future prospects' - which means their mental health is probably fine and their views are entirely rational. See the famous "this koala is having a mental crisis' cartoon:
Kids don't even play video games together in the same room any more. LAN parties were a thing in the 90s but everyone was in the same room(ish). Even when playing console games people don't game together in the same room or home.
That's kinda odd. Online gaming is cool but my favorite gaming memories are playing with the person sitting next to me.
I miss those days, and wish kids knew what it was like to play games together as a physical experience AND a digital one.
I'm surprised that the definition of 'community' he uses here so strongly revolves around a shared identity and activity, and that what is shared is what defines a community.
For one, I don't really think communities where people share the same interests or ritual really does the trick, otherwise so-called YouTube 'communities' or Twitch stream 'communities' or even strangers you play games with online would be all that's needed. In those cases, whether it happens in real life or online wouldn't really matter. I think some people can tick all the boxes he has here with an online group and still feel lonely from it. Some people still feel lonely going to church every Sunday.
There certainly needs to be a common thread--that's what you get out of place-based communities, for example: we all experience the same weather--but what I feel really combats loneliness and creates belonging is having to connect with people that are different you and, importantly, to witness and connect with people because of their difference, and that these connections are made because you have no choice. The richness and complexity of life and all of the kinds of sorrows and joys that you get to see and relate to yourself and relate to others is what is sorely missing from incidental, emergent, real-life community. I suppose I'm basically just describing the Breakfast Club experience.
Like kids don't feel lonely because there isn't an authority figure around that can boss them around. That makes for a more ... socially conditioned ...? person, and maybe a wiser, more carefully-guided person, but not necessarily a less lonely person. It's not the bossing around that makes them feel like they're in a community, it's the fact that there is someone with a different experience with whom they share some connection, and it's a coincidence that it's an authoratative one.
No, absolutely not. Young people are more connected than they have ever been before, just now they are connected in some of the most unhealthy and detrimental manners possible. Instead of connecting with friends in real life, they form communities on social media, in discord channels, in video games, etc. The consequences are just barely starting to show themselves.
As for the why, I think they are many reasons. The Internet is obviously an attractive and addictive place, but cities have gotten so much worse as well. Where I live the playgrounds I used to go to as a child are now full of drug dealers...
The upstream cause of this is, essentially, "the rent is too damn high". Not necessarily in a sense of housing prices, but -
In order to have a community, that community needs a space. (The early 'net was interesting in that "space" was cheap/nearly free - IRC, forums, etc, which might be one reason it took over as a social space to begin with)
Extremely consistently, I see efforts at forming communities fail simply due to a lack of regular space in which to have them, and from what little I know talking to organizers, it pretty much always comes down to the cost of the space - the rent. This remains true even if the space itself wants to be cheap/free - it has to pay it's own rent, which means it needs dollars from everyone using it.
AFAIK, religious institutions get around this through (1) advantageous tax laws and (2) long-term ownership.
The articles thesis on loss of community plays a role but has always existed in some context depending upon the individuals location.
The primary cause (in my opinion) of the youth mental health crisis and falling happiness rates was the introduction of the smart phone. Blaming social media is a clever cop out, it's the actual device and inability of people to stop looking at it.
Totally abnormal to human life. Will we adapt to it over time? Possible, but many people will be lost along the way.
I think it's less the lack of community, and more the lack of the ability to feel like you matter.
Before the world was globalized, anybody could do something that would stand out in their community.
On a global scale, virtually no one is good or big enough for anyone to care about.
It doesn't matter anymore if you're the best soprano in the choir or the best basketball player on your team. You need to be one of the best in the world. And that's not realistic.
That would mean the winners will be those who turn towards a local community. Which makes sense. I often wondered how lawyers who are terrible at their craft can stay in business. Thing is, they just don’t compete. They build relationships with local clients over decades. And those clients, once they know, like and trust these lawyers, don’t even see how bad they are. I guess the same applies to AI experts, etc..
Who knew utterly destroying cities and replacing them with gated communities with no accommodations for children whatsoever, and borderline criminalizing any activity which isn't closely supervised would have knock-on effects.
Risk is an important ingredient to a fulfilling life. As we continue to de-risk our lives, we lose our ability to evaluate risk and aggressively criminalize what we do not understand because we perceive it to be dangerous.
There are many types of activities which, while not criminalized yet, are “anti-social” in certain environments and can cost you your job.
What percentage of the population do you think lives in a gated community? I know its common in some areas with particularly high amounts of break ins like South Africa and Brazil, but they're fairly rare in the USA.
[+] [-] vishnugupta|1 year ago|reply
Back then we had a deeper ties with all those who served us by which I mean vegetable vendor, carpenter, doctor, knife sharpener, cloth shop, grocer, baker and so on. Whenever we interacted with them it would be a small chit-chat, exchange small updates (how's your son doing, is he married yet?) and then finally do the actual purchase.
It was to an extent that the carpenter would come by and just hand over a big dining table just because he thought our house deserved/needed it. He wouldn't ask for immediate payment either and also in instalments. Some other times he would come by and borrow some money.
All of that is now gone. Every single interaction I have now with vendors is 100% transactional. I don't even know their names nor they mine.
It means that I'm now connected only with my immediate family, that's it. It also means that the generation now growing up know only transactional way of interaction with non family/friends. I guess these things eventually add up to the loss of community.
[+] [-] Nextgrid|1 year ago|reply
Nowadays when everyone's busy trying to make as much money as possible to be able to make rent or survive in ever-increasing inflation, an extra dining table they didn't give away is one they can sell for money. Similarly, borrowing money is harder/less acceptable because everyone else too is under pressure and is less likely to be able to help (or at least it would cause them more hardship).
[+] [-] steve_adams_86|1 year ago|reply
I see families struggle with things I don’t recall seeing as a kid or teenager. We all had more people around. We were rarely functioning as such independent family units.
And you’re right, my dad was a carpenter himself and he did all kinds of favours for people. Especially elderly people—mostly women—who couldn’t do the work themselves or easily afford to pay someone to. He would offer lower rates, fit things in for free, and show up at their convenience. It was the right thing to do. That isn’t really possible now, though.
Something I urge my kids to understand is that family is great, but it was never meant to be everything. That isn’t to diminish family, but to encourage one to identify and appreciate what’s so valuable and rewarding in friends and community. Humans are so richly social and so poor at functioning in isolation; there’s no sense in pretending otherwise. We really need each other. The more community erodes, so do we each as well.
[+] [-] ricardo81|1 year ago|reply
There used to be local vendors as you describe (what comes to mind is a local shop, an ice cream van, milk man, a fizzy drinks vendor, a butcher/baker), but they've all been replaced by economies of scale (supermarkets and now online).
So now there are no local shops, no weekly vans with their specialist goods. And those half a dozen well known local faces aren't doing their rounds.
A local shop serves as a meeting place where conversations can take place. Even in the 80s in the UK when TV was at its peak, people could have conversations the next day on what they watched last night out of the 4 channels available.
I guess the local social cohesion can be thought of as a necessity when you're going to deal with lots of local people and with recent trends said in the article it's considered optional.
[+] [-] ip26|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] habosa|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] sublinear|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] wkat4242|1 year ago|reply
Maybe in India things are different but there it's not like that at all. Ps As you mentioned people asking about your son getting married, one thing I noticed is that the focus on marriage in India is very strong, some of my coworkers in Bangalore who are from smaller villages are pretty much disowned if they don't get married by the age of 23. I know when I was 23 I was just backpacking around the world and enjoying life, not thinking about babies or families. In fact I never did get married and I'm almost 50.
I think that pressure would take its toll too. Young people like to be free and don't want to be tied down. It certainly made some of my coworkers there very stressed with the pressure because they just wanted to go clubbing. One friend's parents didn't even know she had a boyfriend for years. There seems to be a huge disconnect there between generations.
[+] [-] telesilla|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] naasking|1 year ago|reply
Interesting note: economics would quantify this as a significant productivity increase. You can now get more tasks done per day!
Lesson: economics does not fully capture human values.
[+] [-] emchammer|1 year ago|reply
"Do you have a telephone number with us?"
"It's going to ask you a question." (About how much tip to add to your bill)
[+] [-] Chris2048|1 year ago|reply
Are there no other ways to make friends via social activities?
[+] [-] gregorymichael|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] diob|1 year ago|reply
I love being in big cities (overseas) because I actually can cultivate this sort of community / friendship with the locals.
I go to the same coffee shops and get to know the folks there, bring them interesting coffee to try, etc.
I will say that this only has worked for me in other countries, not the USA. I think folks here are too burnt out by the lack of safety nets and such, I really don't blame them.
[+] [-] TbobbyZ|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] weberer|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] bustling-noose|1 year ago|reply
Fast forward to 2024 and every person home here in India is constantly on their phones. In the gym, in the car, at work, everywhere. Naturally kids are also getting hooked on devices.
How can you talk to someone when they aren’t even looking at you or paying attention ? Communities and real physical social interaction keep people mentally healthy. All these apps and devices are doing is keeping people away from each other instead.
Of course no one wants to admit this but people are addicted to devices and distractions. The sooner they dissociate, the better.
[+] [-] xhrpost|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] fergonco|1 year ago|reply
Nowadays there is hardly a place to park your car. Parents don't allow kids to play in the street. And the ones that interact with each other are the ones who lived there in that period. It's very difficult for newcomers to integrate.
What are the reasons for this? My take: cars and lack of stay at home mums. They built the social network at that time. They took care of each other children, the were there to help each other. Nowadays households have both adults working (so nobody even asks for salt to the neighbor, all order a pizza instead).
[+] [-] conductr|1 year ago|reply
As it’s picking up steam, I’ve been hearing stories recently about how our local “school district decided to ban phones from classrooms” and just yesterday it was “the school will no longer allow food delivery services to drop off food”. Like, educators, WTF, why was that ever an option? In my days long ago, 80s-90s primary school, there was a zero tolerance policy for this stuff. Why was it ever deemed allowable? I can see letting kids keep their phone in their locker or create some storage solution for it. For emergency purposes. But in emergencies, the parent should be able to call the office and they can fetch the kid. It worked just fine in the days of landlines.
It’s hard for me to understand the parenting styles that demanded and allowed this stuff to take place, because I’m sure it was parent driven. But there’s so much else to the parenting styles that are contributing to all this stuff. Banning outdoor play and independence is why they’re online so much and why the arcades and third places all disappeared.
I say all this as a parent of an almost 6 year old boy, doing everything I can to shield him from the wacky parenting style that seems to be the norm and provide him places of community and activities away from screens. He won’t have a phone until he drives, or maybe just a basic flip phone if we think we need a communication line to reach him when he’s a bit older.
[+] [-] hnpolicestate|1 year ago|reply
The kids aren't even permitted to change their wallpaper. Those in tech with authority need to loosen up on control of systems, hardware and services if they want kids to be less agitated.
[+] [-] philip1209|1 year ago|reply
Some personal observations:
- The USA lacks a unified cultural identity now. There are lots of reasons for this. But, it's considered taboo to express a love of the USA - which hurts our community + culture.
- People put a lot of effort into work, and work is becoming more transactional. No more "life-long employment with the buddies" kind of situation.
- America went from poor to rich, but still behaves like a developing economy. Public healthcare + public education + low-income housing availability are poor, while there's a big class of people who can afford private education + private healthcare + McMansions. I think this deteriorates the idea of "we're all in this together" because there's such unequal opportunity.
- Wars used to be a way to unify a country, but we're in the era of proxy wars - which don't have the same aligning effect.
[+] [-] dukeyukey|1 year ago|reply
> But, it's considered taboo to express a love of the USA
American flags _everywhere_' Like seriously, I visited both liberal areas (Seattle) and conservative areas (Spokane's surrounds) and y'all patriotic as _fuck_.
> Wars used to be a way to unify a country...
Also because the US is just not threatened by anyone. I'd hope that going back to being the Arsenal of Democracy for Ukraine (and maybe Taiwan or South Korea if things go bad) would've tied the US together, but man I was wrong there.
[+] [-] ativzzz|1 year ago|reply
I don't agree. Every sporting event still plays the national anthem and often has soldiers or military involvement or mentions
I see US flags all the time, all over the place.
There are certain forms of "love" of the USA that are more politically one-sided that may be more taboo if you live in an area where most people are on the other side.
[+] [-] KittenInABox|1 year ago|reply
America has had a long history of unequal opportunity. It's kind of founded with unequal opportunity (slavery) and continued to shoot itself in the foot in order to ensure inequality (closing public schools instead of allowing integrated schools is why we have a rise of private schooling to begin with, HOAs existed primarily to ensure the community could enforce that no one could allow a black family to move in by selling their property to blacks). I think of America as a country that is constantly being challenged with the ideals it claims as having against the society it builds which falls short of those ideals. But I don't think this inequality has to do with the recent youth mental health crisis... America has endeavored to be more and more equal by the year.
[+] [-] silverquiet|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] hot_gril|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
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[+] [-] AmericanChopper|1 year ago|reply
Nearly every bullet point the article listed for what makes a strong community was basically just a descriptor for cultural homogeneity, which also touches on a rather controversial taboo. This sort of critique of diversity would be considered hate speech by some.
[+] [-] colechristensen|1 year ago|reply
The US _always_ lacked a cohesive cultural identity, it has always been manifold.
Basically the rise of television and movies post-WWII-ish depicted a single culture but it was just excluding everyone except essentially WASPs. This had nothing to do with reality and was just racism. Before the world wars there was even a considerable amount of greater cultural diversity among European immigrants and descendants, German being spoken very widely across the country and quite a bit more of people retaining the culture of their ancestors.
[+] [-] jeffbee|1 year ago|reply
This is why we need to pursue annexation by Mexico, so we can finally be a country with some culture.
[+] [-] anon291|1 year ago|reply
Only in some circles.
[+] [-] lisper|1 year ago|reply
American here. First-generation immigrant. Came from Germany at age 5.
This misses a crucial part of the problem. It is considered taboo to express a love of the USA in certain social circles. In others, it is considered taboo not to express a love of the USA. The problem is that the two sides have very different ideas of what "loving the USA" means. Among the first group (liberals) the USA is envisioned as an inclusive melting pot where all are welcome. Among the second group, the USA is envisioned as a set of values to which one is required to subscribe in order to be included; to include those who do not subscribe to these values would change the character of the nation to the point where it would not longer be the USA. These values include innocuous things like baseball and hot dogs, to abstract ideals like "freedom", less abstract ideals like capitalism, and quasi-religious ideals like "family values". Lately these have started to morph into religious ideals up to and including the (false) idea that an essential part of the national character is to be a Christian theocracy.
So it's not that expressing a love of the USA is taboo, it's that conservatives have managed to co-opt loving the USA and make it part of their brand. Expressing love for the nation, flying the flag, singing the national anthem, etc. are nowadays seen as expressing tacit support for conservatism in general, and the Republican party and Donald Trump in particular. This is the reason that liberals avoid them.
For me personally, I have always felt that some of the common rituals associated with "loving the USA" were kind of weird. Take the Pledge of Allegiance, for example. I get pledging allegiance to the nation, but to the flag? That has always struck me as bizarre. The flag is just a symbol, a token. Why would anyone pledge allegiance to a flag? But to question this, especially as a minor in a public school, turns out to be unwise.
[+] [-] g9yuayon|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] robotelvis|1 year ago|reply
Being social is effortless. I just show up at the lodge and people I know will be there.
As a parent I can let the kids run wild with other kids within the safe confines of the lodge and have adult conversations.
If I don’t have plans, I don’t need to sit home reading the internet. I go to the lodge.
It’s weird that groups like the Elks have declined so much in recent decades, because it feels they really are the solution to a problem everyone complains about.
[+] [-] photochemsyn|1 year ago|reply
(1) A 'youth mental health crisis' may or may not actually exist. Consider the 'chronic pain crisis' marketing that preceded the opiate epidemic in the USA, and the concomittant boom in opiate drug prescriptions, sales and profits. Similarly the 'attention deficit crisis' was very profitable for the makers of amphetamines and their derivatives, from Ritalin to Adderall to Desoxyn. Here's CDC on opiate prescriptions in the USA, 2006-2015:
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6626a4.htm
(2) A 'youth mental health crisis' may actually be a 'youth are looking at the dystopian world besest by war and climate chaos and not feeling good about their future prospects' - which means their mental health is probably fine and their views are entirely rational. See the famous "this koala is having a mental crisis' cartoon:
https://www.reddit.com/r/lostgeneration/comments/avf6kh/this...
[+] [-] brightball|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] boot13|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] NickC25|1 year ago|reply
That's kinda odd. Online gaming is cool but my favorite gaming memories are playing with the person sitting next to me.
I miss those days, and wish kids knew what it was like to play games together as a physical experience AND a digital one.
[+] [-] cooolbear|1 year ago|reply
For one, I don't really think communities where people share the same interests or ritual really does the trick, otherwise so-called YouTube 'communities' or Twitch stream 'communities' or even strangers you play games with online would be all that's needed. In those cases, whether it happens in real life or online wouldn't really matter. I think some people can tick all the boxes he has here with an online group and still feel lonely from it. Some people still feel lonely going to church every Sunday.
There certainly needs to be a common thread--that's what you get out of place-based communities, for example: we all experience the same weather--but what I feel really combats loneliness and creates belonging is having to connect with people that are different you and, importantly, to witness and connect with people because of their difference, and that these connections are made because you have no choice. The richness and complexity of life and all of the kinds of sorrows and joys that you get to see and relate to yourself and relate to others is what is sorely missing from incidental, emergent, real-life community. I suppose I'm basically just describing the Breakfast Club experience.
Like kids don't feel lonely because there isn't an authority figure around that can boss them around. That makes for a more ... socially conditioned ...? person, and maybe a wiser, more carefully-guided person, but not necessarily a less lonely person. It's not the bossing around that makes them feel like they're in a community, it's the fact that there is someone with a different experience with whom they share some connection, and it's a coincidence that it's an authoratative one.
[+] [-] constantcrying|1 year ago|reply
As for the why, I think they are many reasons. The Internet is obviously an attractive and addictive place, but cities have gotten so much worse as well. Where I live the playgrounds I used to go to as a child are now full of drug dealers...
[+] [-] RangerScience|1 year ago|reply
The upstream cause of this is, essentially, "the rent is too damn high". Not necessarily in a sense of housing prices, but -
In order to have a community, that community needs a space. (The early 'net was interesting in that "space" was cheap/nearly free - IRC, forums, etc, which might be one reason it took over as a social space to begin with)
Extremely consistently, I see efforts at forming communities fail simply due to a lack of regular space in which to have them, and from what little I know talking to organizers, it pretty much always comes down to the cost of the space - the rent. This remains true even if the space itself wants to be cheap/free - it has to pay it's own rent, which means it needs dollars from everyone using it.
AFAIK, religious institutions get around this through (1) advantageous tax laws and (2) long-term ownership.
[+] [-] hnpolicestate|1 year ago|reply
The primary cause (in my opinion) of the youth mental health crisis and falling happiness rates was the introduction of the smart phone. Blaming social media is a clever cop out, it's the actual device and inability of people to stop looking at it.
Totally abnormal to human life. Will we adapt to it over time? Possible, but many people will be lost along the way.
[+] [-] onlyrealcuzzo|1 year ago|reply
Before the world was globalized, anybody could do something that would stand out in their community.
On a global scale, virtually no one is good or big enough for anyone to care about.
It doesn't matter anymore if you're the best soprano in the choir or the best basketball player on your team. You need to be one of the best in the world. And that's not realistic.
[+] [-] leobg|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] astrodust|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] grahamjameson|1 year ago|reply
There are many types of activities which, while not criminalized yet, are “anti-social” in certain environments and can cost you your job.
[+] [-] Semaphor|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] llm_trw|1 year ago|reply
US birth rates started dropping off not a generation later.
[+] [-] weberer|1 year ago|reply