
Teenagers are growing more anxious and depressed - known
http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21731693-could-they-hold-culprit-their-hands-teenagers-are-growing-more-anxious-and
======
enord
Did this trend start with social media? We are doing lots of stuff to
teenagers these days that we didnt do before. They are beholden to
expectations far narrower than we were.

We treat them as adults in school (by making them responsible for their own
performance through grading and measuring) from a very young age, yet we don't
really cut the umbelical cord (grant them autonomy) until they're in their
twenties.

Socially they're expected to act in their long term interest, at the expense
of social and emotional self-realization (i.e. "maturing") for a long time,
and the only alternative is failure (now on prominent display on social media
heh...)

~~~
ifdefdebug
I think more dangerous than social media is the omnipresence of image
recording devices. When I made a mistake as a teenager, people might laugh at
me for a day or two, sooner or later it was forgotten. Today's teenager make a
mistake and if they are unlucky, their shame gets immediately exposed to the
whole world, forever.

I think this has to contribute a lot to today's anxiousness of teenagers - who
hasn't been caught yet, should feel in constant danger. I would be anxious
about this if i was a teenager today.

My kid is one and a half right now, in a few years I will have to explain him
how important it is not to get taped doing stupid things...

~~~
nostromo95
Hopefully “don’t take pictures/videos of your peers/friends without their
(implied) permission” becomes a more widely distributed social more for the
next generation. Can’t believe it isn’t already.

~~~
YaxelPerez
Why would any teenager pass up the opportunity to post a video that will
garner lots of attention?

~~~
sannee
Maybe because he/she isn't a dick? :)

------
brndnmtthws
If you take a train or a bus, or are in any other public space, you may notice
that a bunch of people (young and old) spend their time staring into their
phones. And most of the time, if you glance at their phone, you'll see they're
on Instagram. They're staring into this machine fantasizing about some image
of how great life is, meanwhile their real life is passing them by. And they
wonder why they're not getting all the likes.

As the current president would say, SAD.

~~~
greeneggs
Or, perhaps they are being inspired. Planning their own art or adventure. If
you're sitting on a train, why not? (Is reading a book equally objectionable,
or is going to a museum?) It's rather offensive to judge people about whom you
know nothing. (As is quoting President Trump as if he is an authority on
anything.)

~~~
Snackchez
As this is n = 1, take this with a grain of salt, but as a high school teacher
I can tell you that's definitely not what teenagers are doing with their
phones the majority of the time. Your view is very optimistic; for the most
part, kids are sending each other snaps and checking IG for high school drama,
fashion, make up, gossip, memes, and those fitness inspo pics. That last
observation comes from the fact that apart from teaching math, I occasionally
teach a fitness class and get kids showing me these ridiculously fit (usually
not natural) people pics on IG. They also really like YouTube.

~~~
saagarjha
That may be what _most_ of your students are doing, but does not preclude the
fact that there are ways to use social media (including Instagram)
effectively, and that there are certainly people who are doing this.

~~~
Snackchez
Yes, agreed. But what I'm saying is that, I don't believe the average teenager
uses social media in a "healthy" nor "educational" type of way.

------
SolaceQuantum
Having directed this to my teenaged younger sibling (he is intelligent and
expressive) he explained in his view, teenagers have a poor prognosis for
their career prospects and are aware of this. Technology allows them to be
aware that life doesn’t look good for them, that they cannot look forward to
retirement, to a stable long term career, that the amount of education and
debt they will need to accrue is ever-increasing, that their success in this
society will rely on using and stepping on others who will now have less as a
result, if not in their own community then in the international stage. He
attends one of the best schools in the nation and he believes most of his
peers feel the same pressures both of their career prospects and their place
in the greater international stage and all the things that are wrong with it
that they cannot change because they cannot be in a position to change with
any sense of ease (e.g. to have enough money to buy jeans not made via human
exploitation requires an amount of success that feels as if it is becoming
rarer,and even then how do you help people who cannot afford them to avoid
exploiting other humans)

All in all, I think a growing awareness of the worlds problems and their
individual struggles to be in a position for themselves is a pretty good
reason for teenagers to feel more anxious and depressed.

~~~
downandout
_> their success in this society will rely on using and stepping on others who
will now have less as a result_

That reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of economics. While there are
indeed predatory business models where this is true - casinos etc. - most
highly successful people and businesses become successful by _creating_ value,
not siphoning it from others.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
Highly successful businesses like Apple, which are closely related to Foxconn
and the horrors of labor there. That we know many elements that go into our
technology may be sourced from dubious environments, unsafe working
conditions, potentially human rights violations and war. That’s what he meant
when I asked him. By consuming anything in the system one is contributing to
the systems oppression internationally, and there isn’t an easy way to stop.

~~~
downandout
_Foxconn and the horrors of labor there_

Would you prefer that they starve to death because they have no work? I assure
you, that's worse than working at Foxconn.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
So teenagers have to comfort themselves by knowing that they subject people to
either starve or dehumanizing living conditions/work that strips people of any
sense of self or comfort. This definitely helps with anxiety and depression.

------
hacker_9
I'd say this is more a problem with human nature, that social media is just
exposing at a whole new level. It's basic biology to want to be the best, in
order to attract the best mate etc. Social media has blown open a world where
not only is there always someone better, more attractive, more fun, more
social-able etc than you but also that the levels these people reach will
always be unobtainable for you.

~~~
0xBA5ED
This is how I feel about all the people on HN who are vastly smarter than me.

~~~
k4ch0w
I like being around the guys here on HN. I don't mind that they are smarter
than I. You always learn something new and are surrounded by the latest in
Tech. I'd say just surrounding yourself with the people here will in turn make
you smarter/knowledgeable.

~~~
0xBA5ED
Oh, I agree. I learn a lot here. It's the best corner of the web.

~~~
maneesh
Have you seen any other forums with smart people on the web?

~~~
0xBA5ED
Nothing this active. I'd love to know if there are more hotspots like this
one.

------
throwaway413
My wife just left me due to the rabbit hole that Instagram has taken her down.
She’s a completely different person now. Social media addiction is real, and
scary.

~~~
PuffinBlue
Can you expand on this? I don't really understand how x lead to y as i don't
have much idea about social media addiction at all or its effects.

~~~
throwaway413
We moved to a new city. I work full time (from home) as a SWE. She is a stay
at home mom. She met new people on IG in our new city, made friends. I thought
it was great.

My wife has a hole deep inside her from years of childhood abuse. She has no
career, is early 20s like myself, and has yet to figure herself out.

As the months went by, she filled that hole more and more with her connections
on IG and less with our family/relationship. Her follower count grew from a
few hundred to 10,000. She started spending more and more time taking videos
for her followers.

It got to the point where I would come home from work, ask how her day was,
she’d say “fine.” And then about an hour later or later that night, there
would be a multi paragraph long post of hers about her day. She put more
effort into her relationship with IG than she did with us. It makes sense, I
mean shit, every single post she would get hundreds of comments saying all
sorts of nice things. I tried to keep up. But IG filled that hole in her heart
much faster than I could.

Keep in mind we weren’t just some random marriage. We were best friends for a
year before we even started dating.

She decided she is “pansexual” and “polyamorous” and no longer wanted to be
“tied down”. She refused to leave me because I pay all the bills. So I
suffered for a few months while she brought home different people. Eventually
I got my own apartment and walked out.

Even though I technically walked out at the end, she left me mentally long
ago. She now spends all her free time with her IG cliques instead of getting a
job or going to school...or anything worthwhile really. Just more photoshoots.
More posting. More spending.

She doesn’t have an remorse or regret to her. She thinks she is on the path to
her greatness, blah blah blah, monogamy is ownership, all these things she
just keeps repeating from memes she reads from “woke” accounts. Fake facts and
stats from “sources” that are just anonymous accounts posting bullshit.
Millenials (my generation) browse this shit, read it, and believe it without
any doubt in their heads. Meanwhile I’m paying about ~$4k a month in just rent
and car bills for her. Not including anything else.

OH and did I mention - the main girls she hangs out with from IG, 4 of them,
are ALL going through divorces in the past two months. 4 of them. And they
don’t see any connection between them. Either they are lying to my face and
have some sort of secret pact going on to be single...or that’s some seriously
strong groupthink right there.

Social media echo chambers are real.

Edit - I left out this private details because I originally deemed it
unnecessary to share, but I think it might explain why I’m being so “nice”.
She thinks she’s lesbian, or bi. She’s been bringing home women. She has a
girlfriend now. If it was guys then yeah I think it would be easier to just be
all pissed off. But the fact that it’s women, rational or not, for some reason
makes it more confusing for me to deal with. Sorry for leaving this out.

Thank you for all the feedback and advice. All if it is extremely helpful.

~~~
stijnh
> Meanwhile I’m paying about ~$4k a month in just rent and car bills for her.
> Not including anything else.

You are contributing to her horrific lifestyle. You need to cut everything
off. There is no other way to save her and yourself.

~~~
dudul
How is he supposed to do so? If they were indeed married and went through a
divorce there is likely a court order forcing him to pay for her lifestyle.

~~~
hiram112
Yep. In California or New York, it's typically a year of alimony for each 2
years of marriage. At 10 years, it's lifetime. So he definitely dodged a
bullet.

But for a few years, he's probably on the hook for half his income since she
was stay-at-home with no career.

~~~
sjg007
There's still going to be child support for sure but after the kid starts
going to school she will be expected to get a job, if able, and if she
remarries then generally you won't have to pay alimony anymore.

------
adtac
These days I use facebook just for its messenger. On my computer, I skip
facebook.com and go to messenger.com directly. On mobile (I refuse to install
their apps), I go to mbasic.facebook.com because Facebook doesn't let me
access the messenger tab in the mobile facebook website, nagging me to install
their messenger app.

Messenger is a really useful tool to stay connected. Pretty much everyone I
know is available there, so using it is a net positive for me. Can't say the
same about the news feed itself.

(I know that the article isn't talking about Facebook in particular, but I
just thought this is worth sharing.)

~~~
fit2rule
Messenger is at least as good as a decent IRC server, with your friends all
agreeing to use an IRC client app, instead.

Super weird to see that we're coming full circle; it used to be that you had
to install a special app to chat with your friends, same as it ever was today
..

~~~
chrisseaton
> with your friends all agreeing to use an IRC client app

I can’t imagine what world you live in where this is a realistic options. I
couldn’t even persuade my tech friends to do this, let alone my wider friend
group who work in different fields.

~~~
fit2rule
Its basically a no-brainer to set up an IRC app .. if you can install
Messenger, you can easily set up a jabber or IRC client. The hard part is
sending the URL to your friends so they can just easily join you, but who
needs friends like that? ;)

------
cbanek
I'm sad to say that I think this is the intended result of social media from
the corporate/business point of view.

Instead of TV, with its advertisements being broad and un-targeted, people are
building their own hell by searching for what they want. Then the machines
learn get an idea what they want, and show it to them. Part of the nature of
advertising is convincing people they need these things, otherwise they will
be "out" (old, poor, unpopular, etc.).

Instead of maybe one ad in an hour (or a day) triggering you, you're bombarded
with reminders of what could be, if you could afford it. Of course the
promises are unrealistic and easily broken, but I don't think most people have
the mental tools to realize that at the time.

There's all this great positive content out there too! Educational videos,
science, all that. But it seems the impact of bad things outweighs the good,
which just seems to be human nature - we regret things a lot more than we are
thankful for what we do not regret. Even if they aren't selling anything to
us.

It's true that we're comparing across the world now, and there will be someone
better than you. But that's almost always been true, although for a lot of the
time you didn't know who was better, or they were simply some distant name
written in a book, easily forgotten. For example, I think few will rival
Aristotle, but nobody seems to care about that.

Fear and regret are powerful motivators, but dangerous ones as well. If you
can't act for some reason (lack of money, lack of opportunity/ability) it just
seems to gnaw at you until you snap. I don't think it's any different than TV,
except now amplified via personalization.

------
u_int16
Mayhaps not just Teenagers.

My grandfather has slowly been slipping into a deep depression. Not trying to
slap correlations with a causal label, but man oh man how he has started to
rely on social media.

To continue being anecdotal: getting rid of my Facebook has (after a few
years) greatly helped me feel butter (intentional typo, you betcha).

------
menacingly
To me, this overall cheapening of life is a problem bigger than social media.

Before recorded music, getting to hear a performance was an event in itself. I
can only imagine it was savored. Now, the constant, high-speed bombardment of
new music has made our tastes fickle and cheapened the experience. It's not
"bad", but it has changed that part of being a person.

We've done it to everything. Food, film, clothing, books, and social
interaction. These things we criticize are just specific symptoms of the
overall trend, but I can't imagine a scenario where it doesn't happen. It's an
unavoidable outcome of our increasing the pace and availability of things.
Again, not even sure it's bad, it just feels weird. I don't know how you scale
a civilization any other way.

As you get older, it's common to think of yourself as having been born "too
late" for something, and I try to be mindful of that tendency. However, it's
one thing to lament not being able to be a cowboy, it's another to wistfully
look back on life having any manageable pace.

------
rayiner
Is there any real research that suggests iPhones are the cause? Couldn’t it be
things that are much more mundane: we just went through an enormous recession,
which caused a lot of money problems in families. We’re at an unprecedented
point in the level of acrimony in politics, which is filtering down into
parents’ everyday conversations. We’re on the precipice of being destroyed by
global warming and pretty much all experts agree that today’s kids will have a
lower standard of living than their parents. Maybe kids are anxious and
depressed because they’re reading the news (on their iPhones?) and realize how
fucked they are?

------
alva
I think a large part of it is due to excessive exposure to life of the rich
and successful. Seeing these images through Instagram feels more like a
personal interaction than through a magazine, not to mention the frequency.

I have felt this myself having for a period followed the 'it' group in my
city. These people were in the best clubs, restaurants, yachts, holiday
destinations almost all the time surrounding by beautiful and what appears to
be interesting people. Hard not to feel deprived when your monkey mind
perceives that as somewhat normal. Despite a very, very small number of people
who have this lifestyle, there are enough for this type of life to appear
pervasive.

In the past our exposure to this subset of people was extremely limited.
Fashion and gossip magazines would do profiles giving a small glimpse into the
world. Generally the incredible lives some people have was hidden.

I think it is probably best not to be frequently reminded of a lifestyle that
is likely out of your reach. If one thinks not obtaining this lifestyle is a
failure (work on this thought if you do!), don't reopen the wound several
times a day.

------
have_faith
The internet has become a world wide soap opera that we are all characters in.
ISP's sell a subscription service to minutely episodes of the whole spectrum
of human emotion. I also get as much negative and positive feedback as I
desire and can take a hit whenever I open my phone.

------
roman_savchuk
“People only post what they want you to see, so it can seem like their life is
better than yours.”

Not mention how often these displays of a better person/better life are
exaggerations or straightforward lies.

------
tc7
So what is it about "Social Media" that's causing this? Article has a passing
mention of coveting exotic holidays. (I haven't read the mentioned book.)

So is it (just) comparison? "Everyone else's life is amazing / I'm the only
one who's faking it."

What about unhealthy levels of screen usage in general? Do kids who play video
games instead of going outside/socializing face-to-face feel the same way (to
some extent)?

Maybe media (news/commentary) intake through these services contributes? We
all have our echo chambers of ever-spiraling outrage at the Evil of the Other
Side -- does this add to feeling powerless, or that the future is hopeless?
Certainly aren't being exposed to reasoned debate...

Broader, do our modern technologies now allow more complete, socially
acceptable escape from 'real life'? And the further we get from non-virtual
interactions with _anything_ the more ill we become?

------
amriksohata
Don't forget the effect modern day food with all the added estrogen in diary,
antibiotics given to animals, pesticides, added sugar and palm oils all now in
their gut, mix in less sleep and social media and no wonder their moods are
screwed. You are what you eat.

------
dawhizkid
I find instagram to be, by far, the most damaging to my mental health of all
the social networks. The explore feed must be optimized to relentlessly show
"all the people I wish I could be but will never be."

~~~
exodust
Are you saying that if you were unaware those people existed, your mental
health would benefit?

I don't understand. "Ignorance is bliss" surely can't be an antidote to
depression.

~~~
dawhizkid
The point is that it's so easy to fall into the trap of comparing yourself to
the artificial lives of professional "influencers" on Instagram who are
selling you a lifestyle for their own gain. It isn't so much "ignorance is
bliss" so much as realizing the life they sell isn't really real. Even among
"non-influencers" everyone is optimizing posts to show the happiest parts of
their lives, which is a tiny slice of our reality.

When you're feeling depressed or anxious, being bombarded with a feed of
artificially happy people only makes you more depressed or anxious.

------
danschumann
I think it takes a tiny bit of courage to look around the room, to have
thoughts in public, and to have an image of "I'm not constantly busy". There
are millions of George Costanzas, who are constantly acting busy in and high
demand, not because they don't want more work, but.. well I don't know why.
Maybe they actually ARE busy with social media, but I always look at them like
they're pretenders.

Being free is better than acting busy.

~~~
exodust
Actually I think in this case the problem is yours.

Imagine if you were actually doing something on your phone, somewhat important
or necessary in some way. And you found out the person near you was assuming
you were pretending, that you were acting, in other words you are fake. Not
very nice of them to assume that is it?

------
jpster
Columbine, 9/11, the financial crisis and student debt were all mentioned in
this article as possible contributors to teens’ depression. What about climate
change? The young will bear the brunt of of it, they know it and they can see
that “no one” cares enough to do anything substantive about it. This could be
a strong dynamic in this depression trend, too.

------
mnr
I have always felt that seeing other people’s success and happiness is not the
cause of this type of behavioral change. I think that social media causes
damage in two ways.

First of all, the feed/timeline/wall delivery system of information delivery
must have some play in this. On instagram, I follow friends, family,
coworkers, artists, creators, meme curators, technical brands, etc. They all
deliver very different content, but I’m generally exposed to them in the same
feed. So while I scroll through my feed, I do so much context switching that I
get attention-motion sickness. I enjoy the post as I scroll though but I don’t
retain anything. I could scroll through hundreds of posts in just a few
minutes, and I’ll hardly remember any of what I’ve seen. It’s like an exercise
in half paying attention, or an exercise of forgetting. But, we do it every
single day, all the time. The information highway has gone from an open
platform for sharing to a fast lane of content mixed with brands and ads
shooting right through my conscious.

Then, we have the nerve to call it social. Yes, there’s a lot to say about the
amount of connectivity these platforms have given us. But they’ve also changed
the conversation we have. Sure, when I directly interact with people on these
platforms, I’m doing something kinda social. But you know what’s not social?
Staring at, or talking to a wall. No matter who has wiped their shit on it.
I’m no biologist, but I know humans have mirror neurons which fire when
interacting with other humans/things. So, we have a mechanism(s) in the body
that respond to actual face to face interaction. How does an abstraction of
technology interact with those mechanisms? I can only assume that the iPhone
does not account for this in their UX meetings.

It is a little silly to me to assume that the staggering rates of depression
and suicide come from reflection on the content these kids are seeing on
social media. Social media, when used as designed, does not offer the time to
reflect.

(I want to say that there are obvious other dangerous aspects of social media
that may lend themselves to dangerous behavior as a result of reflection, such
as obsession and stalking, bullying, etc)

------
indubitable
Rather than just e-devices alone, I wonder about the shift in parenting and
style of education today. One of the most marked shifts in society today has
been the change in direction towards treating everybody as special. Yet
children know who the 'smart' kids are, they know who the athletic kids are,
they know who the artistic kids are, and so on. How is a kid supposed to feel
when he's constantly told he's special, yet he knows he's not particularly
great at anything? A wall full of participation trophies isn't going to change
that disconnect; unless the child is completely obtuse, it's going to be a
reminder of all his failures to ever achieve.

Now enter the internet _on top of this_ and it's a perfect storm. The media
loves stories, however fake they may often be, of wunderkind 11 year old
creates nuclear reactor in basement during downtime between giving violin
solos at Carnegie Hall and solving world hunger. And the image crafting of
social media only further adds to all of this.

Most people are not special, and _that is okay._ Even when I was young this
sort of treating everybody as special had already started to seep into
education. The anecdote of Einstein failing at math in high school was one
that came up more than a couple of times. Of course he didn't. His response to
that rumor, perhaps started by a misunderstanding of a grade change scale, was
a laugh and comment that he never failed in math and statement that before he
was fifteen he'd mastered differential and integral calculus. It's similar
with efforts to posthumously diagnose him with various sorts of disabilities,
or even attributing, in part, his success to his wife who failed to achieve a
teaching certification -- unable to pass the mathematics component, she gave
up after two attempts.

Ultimately I think we should treat _nobody_ as special. And require people
prove it through their own deeds. There should be every possible opportunity
for anybody to achieve such merit, but people should not be expected to be
special. It's simply unrealistic and, even if it may make us (as in the
parents and teachers creating this facade) feel better about ourselves, I
don't think it's achieving the intended effect.

------
vowelless
There is more social isolation, less meaningful relationships, less sex, debt,
overwork, medication and a DDoS on your attention via YouTube, Netflix, CNN,
foxnews. It's not just social media and not just teens.

------
osrec
Comparatives are too easy to draw these days because of social media. Everyone
has an image of the most popular/successful person in their face all the time.
It's hard not to compare yourself! And when you fall short in comparison, it
makes you feel unhappy. Then it makes you feel like you need some moonshot
idea to elevate your standards - that puts pressure on you and invariably
drives anxiety. I see growing levels of anxiety in the interns I hire - and
ironically, I see them resorting to social media to find solace of some kind!

~~~
exodust
I still don't see how comparing to success causes unhappiness. This theory is
too convenient and is spreading like a disease.

When you see someone who is popular and successful, the normal and healthy
response is admiration and inspiration. If you fail to have your own wins of
some kind, then this could be the source of unhappiness, but that is because
you didn't have a win, not because others did.

~~~
osrec
It causes unhappiness because it highlights that you are relatively worse off.
And I wasn't talking about comparisons between yourself and some random
celebrity, but moreso a comparison between yourself and a person you might
have been at college with. If that person is doing exceptionally well, and
you're doing just okay, there is a strong chance it will stir up jealously and
negativity rather than admiration. This is also the topic of multiple sitcoms,
which generally tend to zoom in on relatable facets of human nature ;)

------
genericacct
As opposed to growing more anxious and depressed due to television watching?

~~~
tonyedgecombe
Or just about any other media, if you listened to my parents you would think
the world is about to end.

------
vorotato
Wages stagnating, costs of college increasing, and most teenagers are pretty
upset about the political climate, but I'm sure it's social media. Sure the
markets have improved, but that improvement hasn't really been reflected in
wage growth.

------
dgudkov
It very well can be because teenagers are more vulnerable to the flood of
shallow and sensationalist information pouring on them from media, amplified
by social networks. Even for adults it can be hard to keep positive thinking
after watching/reading news nowadays. No wonder teens struggle with it even
more.

------
borplk
One way to think about some of this stuff is that "the society has changed too
much too quickly for our biology to catch up".

------
timthelion
I believe that social media is a symptom, not the cause, of the great
loneliness that our modern aloneness has caused. We are alone much of the
time, especially in American suburbia. Even when we are in the city filled
with people, these people are just blank faces whom we do not know. We are
seeking any form of connection that we can get. And when the only connection
to others that we have is through the computer, we become addicted to it.

That said, I believe that once addicted to social media, the bubble of safety
that we feel from "eating social junk food". The screen bubble, can become
alluring and some people fall into it. I remember at the Prague hackerspace,
how we'd all be sitting around the table, and I'd be confused, why people were
laughing and interacting without words. It was a while till I realized that
they were chatting on IRC.

~~~
hux_
The cause is 30-40 years of a mindless consumption culture. It has given us
growth but at a price. The good news is we it seems to be hitting it limits.
And that's when things change. For the better.

~~~
timthelion
While I hate consumerism, I wonder why you say that it has caused our
loneliness. Wouldn't it be possible to buy large numbers of board games, and
other social goods while not becoming isolated? It actually seems to me that
consumption is for the most part social. I mean, if I spend all day at home on
reddit, what do I need to buy besides cereal and soylent powder? But if I'm
going out all the time, I'll buy clothing to keep up with the local fashions,
I'll buy wine to bring as a gift, ect. Even the constant home improvement,
that basement cinema and the pool room, are initially understood as social
purchases. "We need this patio so we can have parties." "I'm gona invite all
my friends over and we'll play X-Box."

~~~
taway_1212
Consumerism requires very high prioritisation of one’s career (as otherwise
you won’t be able to afford all the nice stuff), which means working very
hard, moving around the country/world for better jobs etc. This must come at
the cost of friendships and family bonds.

~~~
timthelion
I believe that it is actually unhappiness and loneliness which are the drivers
of consumerism and not the other way around. I believe that happy people are
lazy and I think that is why western civilization has outstripped the others.
I think, that since our social bonds have been destroyed, we work hard to try
to seek happiness that the other civilizations already have. And then our
civilization spreads, like a disease, infecting other civilizations and making
them unhappy and hardworking as well.

I think that this is a relatively new phenomena, which occurred during the
urbanization caused by the industrial revolution. Urbanization caused social
bonds to be broken, and people became unhappy and hard working.

There is a super creepy tshirt from one startup I know, which has the text
"the pyramids were not built by happy people". I've always wanted to ask them
about what this means. But I've never had the nerve.

But it has always haunted me.

~~~
paganel
> I believe that happy people are lazy

I’m now reading Marx’s “Grundrisse” and at some point, while he has just
started explaining the essence of capital, he mentions the story of an English
priest who on visiting the island of Jamaica complains that everyone in there
is lazy, that they don’t want to work more in order to achieve more in life
than just obtaining their daily food, and that was the way to disaster. When
asked by said English priest on why they were working just enough to put some
food on the table the Jamaicans answered him that there’s no reason for them
to work more than strictly necessary, they’re happy with what they have.

Marx’s book was written in the 1850s so that I reckon that the English
priest’s story dates from the early to the mid-1800s, i.e. when the Industrial
Revolution was on full throttle in Britain.

------
Kenji
Governments all over the world will use the agenda "social media is bad,
people need to be protected from it" to regulate how we interact with each
other over digital media. This will stifle our ability to communicate and
organize against laws and government actions that are not right.

Meanwhile school homework gets more and more ridiculous and children get
medicated with who knows what kind of psychoactive substances because they
cannot deal with it, but no, that's not the cause of teenager mental health
problems.

~~~
visarga
> Meanwhile school homework gets more and more ridiculous

Parents need to adjust their expectations, or the kids are caught between a
rock and a hard place. The school won't show mercy.

~~~
fwn
> The school won't show mercy.

I guess this is very specific to the US phenomenon explained in the article.

In my German schooling history, cheating the homework was trivial and well
established. Everyone got the degree and it was a running gag that grades are
inflated. If you fail you can just switch systems and do the degree somewhere
else; no hard feelings. If you don't want to switch (because let's say you
can't get another school to take you in the area and want to continue to live
with your parents) there is a second educational path (zweiter Bildungsweg)
which allows you do retry to get the degree.

From my perspective, the pressure I was feeling was entirely self-made and -
in retrospective - unnecessary.

Therefore: I would love to see evidence whether or not those findings get
approved in other educational systems like in the German speaking countries.

------
riledhel
Is a TL;DR version for the people on the other side of the paywall?

~~~
known
[http://archive.is/jsxCD](http://archive.is/jsxCD)

