
Teenagers now better behaved and less hedonistic but lonelier and more isolated - prostoalex
https://www.economist.com/news/international/21734365-they-are-also-lonelier-and-more-isolated-teenagers-are-better-behaved-and-less
======
noobermin
Something I think that needs to be discussed more is the fact that loneliness
in society is actually starting to become a real social issue. People who are
lonely are seemingly told by society that their loneliness is internal and
must ultimately be their fault...but given the fact that studies like the
above show that it is becoming much more prevalent in society seems to suggest
there might be societal/structural causes that are effecting the trend, or at
least positively affecting its growth in society.

I don't see many articles pointing it out so I think it's good seeing one that
does.

~~~
jimktrains2
I wonder how much of it is the rise of the exurbs, where you live by many
people, but never talk to them and there is very little community to speak of.

~~~
manigandham
It's even worse in dense cities where you may share a building with thousands
but not know any of them. It seems the more crowded a location is, the more
isolated the people within become.

~~~
jimktrains2
I've always found the opposite to be true.

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tzahola
Teenagers have always rebelled against the rules and ideas imposed on them by
their parents/grandparents.

This does _not_ mean that they will be more lenient/hedonistic than their
parents though! We’re seeing the counterexample in the coming generations.

It’s pretty funny to see people’s dismissive reactions in this thread. So much
for not being bigoted like your parents, eh? :)

~~~
schiffern
Not saying I fully buy into it, but this shift is exactly as predicted by
Strauss–Howe generational theory.[1] The younger, more conformist _Artist
archetype generation_ ('Gen Z,' b2005-????) shows different behavior from the
older, more individualistic _Hero archetype generation_ ('Gen Y,' b1982-2004).

The cutoff isn't exactly distinct (some people put it after 9/11/2001), so
depending on who you ask either Gen Z is just entering teenage years (2005),
or most teenagers are already Gen Zers (2001).

Heck, it even predict HN's (Gen Yers) general reaction of disdain for the
"overprotected" and "timid" generation. Take comfort though: it also predicts
that Gen Y will be a dominant generation ("independent behavior + attitudes in
defining an era"), while Gen Z will be recessive ("dependent role in defining
an era").

Here are the descriptions. I added the actual and projected dates of the
latest cycle in parentheses:

> Hero generations enter childhood after an Awakening (1961–1981), during an
> Unraveling (1982-2004), a time of individual pragmatism, self-reliance, and
> laissez faire. Heroes grow up as increasingly protected post-Awakening
> children, come of age as team-oriented young optimists during a Crisis
> (2005-2025), emerge as energetic, overly-confident midlifers (2025-2044),
> and age into politically powerful elders attacked by another Awakening
> (2045-2064).

> Artist generations enter childhood after an Unraveling (1982-2004), during a
> Crisis (2005-2025) a time when great dangers cut down social and political
> complexity in favor of public consensus, aggressive institutions, and an
> ethic of personal sacrifice. Artists grow up overprotected by adults
> preoccupied with the Crisis, come of age as the socialized and conformist
> young adults of a post-Crisis world (2025-2044), break out as process-
> oriented midlife leaders during an Awakening (2045-2065), and age into
> thoughtful post-Awakening elders (2065-2084).

"History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes."

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss-
Howe_generational_theo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss-
Howe_generational_theory)

------
jeandejean
For once, an article that doesn't stigmatize teenagers too much, but rather
speak about society changes. Usually it's all about criticizing teenagers
because they do this or that badly, but when they're better behaved, adults
necessarily try to explain how that's wrong...

Just give the teens a break! Let them live, learn and play the way they want.

~~~
sideshowb
I think it's right to ask whether observed changes are healthy, so long as you
don't default to saying "change is bad, mmkay".

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BjoernKW
Indolent and conformist perhaps is another way to describe this.

I fail to see how this a good thing.

A young generation perpetuating pointless taboos imposed on them rather than
making their own experiences frankly is a sad development.

~~~
ikeyany
Is there anything wrong with waiting to have sex with someone you're invested
in? I've found those types of experiences to be worth it, long-term. It's
interesting that some see that as naive--it's the opposite if anything. Easy
sex is fun but it would seem hard to invest in anyone but myself.

~~~
icebraining
Why would investing in someone but yourself require giving up sex with others?
That dichotomy between the unattached bachelor and the loving monogamous
spouse seems to be just another of those taboos.

~~~
ikeyany
You're not required to "give up sex with others" if you don't want to. Hell,
many people are okay with polyamory or casual sex in general.

I was merely stating that committing sexually can in fact be a good thing, and
that the parent comment cannot speak for everyone.

------
kjgkjhfkjf
Alternatively, perhaps the trend is that teenagers nowadays tend to lie less
when they're asked about how much sex they have.

------
spodek
" _Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority,
they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise;
they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents,
chatter before company, gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers._ "

This quote is hundreds of years old, often misattributed to Socrates, but
applies perennially. It describes not values degrading, but changing. To
people who value one thing, a younger generation valuing other things feels
like degradation since other values seem worse, but there aren't that many
human values. Eventually generations cycle through them all and repeat.

~~~
coldtea
When things are often repeated across generations, they can:

a) always be true (we generally go to lower standards from the viewpoint of
the previous generation, or even from an absolute viewpoint).

b) always be false

c) Sometimes be true and sometimes be false.

I'm not sure why people immediately jump to (b). Perhaps it's comforting to
dismiss any worry of decline, and to always attribute it to change. Or it's
not fashionable these days to even think about decline (it marks one as old
and not "going with the times").

I find (c) much more plausible. After all, whether Socrates said this or not,
some such decline happened after Socrates (the dissolution of the Athenian
state and its eventual collapse) -- and several other times (in later Rome,
etc).

And conversely, for huge periods of time people have not had much to complain
regarding their children having some different lifetimes, because unlike
ancient Athens or Rome or the US 50s and 60s or so, nothing much changed
between generations -- a rural family in most of the world would have the
exact same day in day out things to do, the same customs, etc, for centuries,
with the very subtle and slow occasional imported innovation.

It's also funny those that while many would say that steady cultural decline
couldn't possibly be happening, as many as all convinced for steady cultural
progress -- like history is like some kind of march towards more and more
enlightenment. Of course those people have never read history, or experienced
how a steady and advanced country (or world, in 1939) can turn backwards in a
moment's notice.

~~~
TulliusCicero
The problem is that "values changing" looks an awful lot like "values
degrading" to those who held the older values, so it's impossible to tell
which is which, until perhaps much later on when you have the benefit of
hindsight.

E.g. gradually increased acceptance of homosexual behavior is considered an
obvious sign of moral values degrading among many (perhaps most) of the
elderly (and percentage-wise this is even more obviously the case if you go
back to the 90's).

------
Ritsuko_akagi
>Teenagers who communicate largely online can exchange gossip, insults and
nude pictures, but not bodily fluids, blows, or bottles of vodka.

>But they are also lonelier and more isolated

Heh. Let's see what effects they have after 10-20 years.

~~~
coldtea
Depression and domesticity?

Health is not be-all end-all, especially when you're younger and can afford to
be more loose with your lifestyle.

------
blfr
Better behaved and less hedonistic or just more passive?

~~~
eecc
We’re turning our own human ecosystems into a panopticon, no wonder newbies
are scared of straying off. Anything can and will be used against you,
eventually.

(I’m not talking about fascist-kind repression and dissent wipeout, that’s out
of our collective memory anyway and eventually only a problem for politicized
individuals. No, it’s the much more concrete and pervasive peer control made
possible by Facebook, Instagram and the like. It applies to anyone, even the
most bland conformist and disengaged people )

Eventually we’ll develop a concept of public persona that takes no shame for
the past. Next generation probably, after recognizing their parents were
panicked fawns blinded by headlights.

~~~
blfr
Yes, maybe. Although I'm a little older than subjects of this article, coming
of age on the cusp of the smartphone era but before Facebook and before any of
my friends had even a half-decent camera in their phones, and already
suspected that the social energy was much lower than it was for people a few
years older.

~~~
eecc
Yup, also late genX here. Alternative narrative could be that after decades of
marketing driven needs system people are exhausted - see Adam Curtis “Century
of Self” - and quite probably also broke. Not to mention all the aggressive
neoliberal politics that took away so much that people started to notice and
suspect it was all a distraction plot

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sunstone
When almost anything you do or say can (and will) be captured at the flick of
a switch it modifies behaviour. Big brother is everywhere now if you're a
teenager.

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kchoudhu
Take that, Plato!

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partycoder
Could be because of many reasons.

e.g: prior generations were exposed to tetraethyllead, which is known to make
people aggressive.

~~~
thisacctforreal
Further reading
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead#Effect_on_crime...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead#Effect_on_crime_rates)

------
TheSpiceIsLife
If the downstream consequences of this:

> _Teenagers are also having less sex, especially of the procreative kind. In
> 1991, 54% of American teenagers in grades nine to 12 (ages 14-18) reported
> that they were sexually experienced, and 19% claimed to have had sex with at
> least four partners. In 2015 those proportions were 41% and 12%. America’s
> teenage birth rate crashed by two-thirds during the same period._

Is this:

> _As with alcohol, the abstention from sex seems to be carrying through into
> early adulthood. Jean Twenge, a psychologist at San Diego State University
> in California, has shown that the proportion of Americans aged 20-24 who
> report having no sexual partner since the age of 18 rose from 6.3% for the
> cohort born in the late 1960s to 15.2% for those born in the early 1990s.
> Japan is a more extreme case. In 2015, 47% of unmarried 20- to 24-year-old
> Japanese men said they had never had sex with a woman, up from 34% in 2002._

I'm not convinced that is a good thing.

~~~
qubex
Why? Repudiation of this abhorrent ”hookup culture” that seems to be sweeping
through our western societies is to be applauded. I’m not arguing for
abstention, but reserving sex for monogamous, committed relationships is, as
far as I am concerned, an unmitigated good.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
The idea that there is a _hookup culture sweeping through our western
societies_ is directly contradicted by the numbers presented in the very
article we are discussing here.

And anyway, I reject this prudish Judeo-Christian inspired sexual ethics. Sex
is _good and good for you_. There should be more of.

~~~
qubex
You’re most welcome to reject this ”Judeo-Christian prudishness” (or whatever
you want to call it) but just keep in mind I’m an atheist, and all for
rejecting dogma — including the new doctrines of consumerism that is snaking
it’s way into our private sphere, making us all willing to use each other
(apparently) for our short-term jollies.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
There is nothing _new_ about us humans having short-term jollies, or even
medium- / long-term jollies that are non-monogamous.

Short- / medium- / long-term non-monogamous jollies goes as far back as time
immemorial. As far back as the beginnings of life itself. I'm willing to bet
monogamy is _the new normal_ as far as historical longevity is concerned. I'm
no anthropologist, so I'm willing to be corrected on that matter.

Also, I'd argue consumerism isn't exactly new either. People have been blowing
their pay packets at their local pub since the invention of the local pub.

~~~
vedloseper
People also have been rejecting that since time immemorial, so the strength of
your argument just barely suffices to eat itself.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
That some people have been rejecting it since time immemorial doesn't mean
those behaviours don't exist.

What I'm disagreeing with is this: _new doctrines of consumerism that is
<snip> making us all willing to use each other (apparently) for our short-term
jollies._

It isn't the _new doctrines of consumerism_ that are making us do this, it's
human nature; we like to fuck.

So your argument ... isn't one.

~~~
vedloseper
There's still worlds between liking to fuck and using each other like toys.
Though consumerist attitudes may not be new, see e.g. that Latin dude talking
about how the mind is a fire to be kindled, not a vessel to be filled.

------
zrth
Can someone explain why less hedonistic is seen as better?

~~~
b6
Suppose you have problems in your life, and you're suffering. You could drink
alcohol or take opiates, and they might make you feel better for a while. But
the effect wears off, and you're back in the same situation, except now maybe
your problems are a bit worse, because the drugs made you sick, or made you do
something you regret, or you become addicted, or you miss the feeling of them,
or your tolerance has increased. You're flirting with a downward spiral. It's
an unskillful way to handle suffering.

Well, same thing for trying to get solace from sex. It's like two drowning
people trying to use each other as life preservers. Or two junkies who stay
together just as long as they think the other person is helping them get the
feeling they want. Love makes relationships safer because you will not
purposefully harm the other person if you love them. You cannot love someone
and use them to get a feeling to their detriment because if you love them
their well-being is more important to you than your own.

~~~
bigmanwalter
I love your analogy of two drowning people. It really helps put into
perspective so many of the relationships I have witnessed.

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stuaxo
Wow, what a lot of boring people we are going to create.

~~~
jeandejean
If you're entertained by people who get drunk, smoke and have irresponsible
sex, then yes.

~~~
coldtea
So, 3 of the most constant ways to entertain one's self throughout the
millennia...

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aor215
I’m surprised no one has brought up how extreme punishment has become for
engaging in these behaviors. I don’t have data to back this up, but my sense
when I was in high school in the mid 2000s was that any slip up in any of
these areas - smoking, drinking, etc. - would result in professional ruin. If
caught, the punishment in many “zero tolerance” schools is expulsion and no
top college admits students who have been expelled, except in very special
cases.

