The Kids (Aren't) Alright - World Happiness Report

[aggie08 21482]

58 minutes ago, Celery Man said:

Also, while they were fucked up particularly and specifically by covid and while social media isn’t helping, the things that make them despair about the present and future are real and worthy of despair.

Has it always been the case that older generations have next to zero empathy for the plight of future generations? Beyond the cliched "that's what you call music??" superficial level.

The "kids these days are so lazy and expect everything handed to them, and their struggles are trivial compared to others" attitude is so pervasive and mean-spirited that it has undoubtedly affected public perception and policy. Maybe it's how it's always been, but it's sure as shit counterproductive.

 

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11669]

For the first time, we don't have a clear picture forward of improvement that each generation has enjoyed since probably the Civil War.  The wave has finally crested.  The affects everything.  They don't see housing the way every generation before has.  They don't see marriages the way every generation before has.  They don't see middle class wages the every generation before has. They don't see basic entertainment as before. They don't have communities as before.

[Brisketexan 105060]

I'm not making any value judgment on the various responses by local/county/state actors, I'm just pointing out that THOSE are the appropriate levels of government to consider, when discussing the length of time any particular group of students stayed out of full in-person schooling.  THOSE were the people making the decisions.  Not the president, not the CDC, not Congress.  I'm keeping all of my commentary strictly within the context of this thread, which is "Kids' happiness" and not other issues related to the pandemic and any entities' responses to it.
In Leander ISD, my kids were only out from mid-March 2020 thru mid-September 2020.  It wasn't two years, it wasn't 18 months, it wasn't even one year, it was only 6 months.
However, that 6 months made an incredible impact to my then-6th-grade daughter.  I saw her turn from a bright, cheerful, outgoing, deeply happy child who excelled in all of her classes and never once thought about NOT turning in an assignment on time, into a withdrawn, timid, introverted, morose, ghost of a teenager who lost track of all sense of responsibility and normalcy.  It took her almost two years to re-form good school habits and re-engage with her friends.  She's now thriving, a straight A+ student with tons of friends and tons of activities, but even those 6 months set her back potentially years.  
So people who are debating the 6 months versus 2 years or whatever, are completely missing the point.  It's much less amount the DURATION of the event and more about the total psychological trauma induced by the event itself. 
 
 
 

On the COVID point, what blows me away is the venomous hatred for people who had ONLY bad choices in front of them, so, they made…one of the possible bad choices. There were no GOOD choices. Just degrees of bad…based on limited information…about a novel situation.
I was in multiple rooms where those decisions were made. I listened to people agonize about what they should do, what they could do, how helpless and despairing they felt. I answered their questions the best time could. You’re hating and blaming your friends and neighbors who did the best goddamn job they could at the time, and tried to pick the LEAST bad option. THERE WERE NO GOOD OPTIONS. And this fantasy world where they did what you wanted…and nobody got sick and died…is just that. A fucking fantasy. COVID was a traumatic experience for the world, and there was never any getting around that. So, yeah…this fucking generation was harmed by a harmful event. No fucking shit. They were going to be, no matter what.

[Boss Hogg 808]

1 hour ago, aggie08 said:

The "kids these days are so lazy and expect everything handed to them, and their struggles are trivial compared to others"

Young people coming into the medical field now are lazy and entitled. Whiners. Now this is a field that requires hard work unlike some others, but they are generally soft as tissue paper. 

[F250 28764]

7 minutes ago, Boss Hogg said:

Young people coming into the medical field now are lazy and entitled. Whiners. Now this is a field that requires hard work unlike some others, but they are generally soft as tissue paper. 

[cattail 112]

Young people coming into the medical field now are lazy and entitled. Whiners. Now this is a field that requires hard work unlike some others, but they are generally soft as tissue paper. 

This is fact…

[aggie08 21482]

Well if Boss Hogg and cattail say so...

[Thetexashammer 1062]

6 hours ago, Frank Drebin said:

There have always been and always will be plenty of bad things to worry about.  Prior couple generations to me had the great depression, dust bowl, world war, literal starvation, civil rights and racial strife, nuclear war drills, polio, possibility of getting drafted and sent to ‘Nam, etc.  

Anyone making an argument that times are tougher now than they have ever been is a legitimate LUNATIC. Prior generations had WW2 and Vietnam to deal with. I grew up with double digit unemployment, the constant and very real threat of nuclear armageddon, 20% mortgages 15% inflation. Cities were wastelands, oil was embargoed, NYC was the murder capital of America. People were still watching black and white TVs, pop music meant Debbie Gibson, and I remember when my school got its first computer. Cable TV, microwaves, and VCR's were brand new and costed more then than they do now.

We live in an age of massive and shared prosperity. People are obese, not starving. The existential angst has very little to do with economic privation. As a factual matter the argument is makes no sense.

Edited March 21 by Thetexashammer

[tigol 2395]

1 hour ago, Thetexashammer said:

Anyone making an argument that times are tougher now than they have ever been is a legitimate LUNATIC. Prior generations had WW2 and Vietnam to deal with. I grew up with double digit unemployment, the constant and very real threat of nuclear armageddon, 20% mortgages 15% inflation. Cities were wastelands, oil was embargoed, NYC was the murder capital of America. People were still watching black and white TVs, pop music meant Debbie Gibson, and I remember when my school got its first computer. Cable TV, microwaves, and VCR's were brand new and costed more then than they do now.

We live in an age of massive and shared prosperity. People are obese, not starving. The existential angst has very little to do with economic privation. As a factual matter the argument is makes no sense.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/04/29/coronavirus-vietnam-deaths/

"The main problem with the comparison between the coronavirus death toll and various armed conflicts is that those conflicts were, depending upon your perspective, elective events. The Vietnam War, in particular, came to be widely regarded as a blunder, and U.S. leaders were accused of remaining in the war far too long.

Graphic: Tracking coronavirus deaths in the United States

The coronavirus, by contrast, was something that was very likely coming to American shores no matter how aggressive the early response. It was a situation that was thrust upon us, in many ways, because of how interconnected our planet is. Around 180 countries have seen the virus come within their borders; for each of them, it was then a matter of minimizing its impact."

[956 Worldwide 34699]

I’d like to throw out two additional reasons COVID was uniquely bad for young people.  Keep in mind that the 18-22 year old cohort was 14-18 in 2020. 
 

First, COVID was most dangerous to older people but the social consequences and responsibility fell disproportionately on the young.  There were no PPP loan vacations, no COVID speakeasies, no cheating on masking.  The kids were given the task of not making the olds sick. Unlike most crises where the grownups do all they can to ease things for the young.

 

Second and likely more important— young people very much need grownups to keep their shit together when things are uncertain and scary. We did NOT keep our shit together.  Vietnam is a good example, we had intense and even angry debates but we we all agreed it was serious and real.  We subjected teenagers to absolutely insane shit, apocalyptic fear from some and total conspiracy raving from others.  Takes from “it’s not real” to “all of you may die” to “fuck your dying grandma because I got an AirBnB in Panama City. “ And also announced how the doctors all lie and are making you sick. 
 

So I imagine there are downstream consequences when they see a good chunk of authority figures exit stage left from reality. Why should they have any trust in us going forward? 

[52-80 19147]

14 hours ago, fattyflattie said:

That was also a decade ago. And was making about 25% of current salary.  So seems to be tracking with wages. 

numbers are tricky and deceptive.  can i get more anecdotes from the people with their lived experiences instead?

[Celery Man 20931]

The people who are mad about the price of a burger are dumb boomers. Housing, education, healthcare. Childcare. Housing.

[52-80 19147]

16 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

What is her take on the mental health thing? Because the way the question is framed has strong vibes of “why do people in chemo die of cancer more often than people not in chemo?”

 

Paper by a group of non-political epidemiologists at Columbia, analyzing mental health reports of 80,000 12th graders

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8713953/

Strong inflection of psychology around 2011 (not just in recent years)

Quote

We hypothesize that increasing exposure to politicized events has contributed to these trends in adolescent internalizing symptoms, and that effects may be differential by political beliefs and sociodemographic characteristics...In light of the above-mentioned patterns, we hypothesize that political beliefs may contribute to downward trends in adolescent mental health.

[Captainant 27628]

I love it when the people who communicate primarily in charts and think of BTC as a wealth investment vehicle come around to tell us everything is totally fine.

It definitely isn't a thing that our children's schools have been politicized by the governor or anything, or that they have been completely abandoned to fend for themselves in active shooter situations, or that they have fresh memories of the power grid going down for days just so that monopoly utility companies could save a few bucks on critical maintenance. Or hell, maybe they're worried about having their parents shipped off to Mexico for the crime of being brown in front of a racist cop in the state of Texas?

No reason whatsoever for kids to be concerned about this shit, it's not like any of it is affecting them or their families amirite?

Maybe if we didn't want our kids to be so political minded, we shouldn't give them such a goddamn dumpster fire of a society that they are highly incentived to change (through political actions)

[52-80 19147]

6 minutes ago, Captainant said:

I love it when the people who communicate primarily in charts and think of BTC as a wealth investment vehicle come around to tell us everything is totally fine.

Can you cite from the 84-page long crypto thread in which you actively participate, how much BTC I hold and what I think of it as a a "wealth investment vehicle"?

So, which line on that chart do you map to you schitzo loser?

[F250 28764]

1 hour ago, 52-80 said:

numbers are tricky and deceptive.  can i get more anecdotes from the people with their lived experiences instead?

Uh, this conversation started because of fatty giving us an anecdote about how he shovels 5 burgers down his mouth for $5.

It began with his anecdote about all places having $1 burgers but he later changed the story to "oh that was ten years ago."

Either way, eating five fucking burgers in your vehicle is no way to go through life.

[52-80 19147]

2 minutes ago, F250 said:

Uh, this conversation started because of fatty giving us an anecdote about how he shovels 5 burgers down his mouth for $5.

It began with his anecdote about all places having $1 burgers but he later changed the story to "oh that was ten years ago."

Either way, eating five fucking burgers in your vehicle is no way to go through life.

he aint call himself skinny, so i respect the honesty.

 

[Celery Man 20931]

Also wages have not gone up by 300% in 10 years - numbers can be tricky and deceptive

Edited March 21 by Celery Man

[Captainant 27628]

9 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

Can you cite from the 84-page long crypto thread in which you actively participate, how much BTC I hold and what I think of it as a a "wealth investment vehicle"?

So, which line on that chart do you map to you schitzo loser?

So, noting again your second personal attack on me  in as many days, I was talking about your peer GRUhorn (or cumrocket, or whatever his new handle will be) with respect to the "everything is cool but buy some BTC" dude. Not everything is about you Holmes.

 

And dude, you should really stop calling people retards and schizos. That shit isn't cool and I don't know why imma lets you get away with it

[52-80 19147]

8 minutes ago, Celery Man said:

Also wages have not gone up by 300% in 10 years - numbers can be tricky and deceptive

dont know who you're addressing who claimed that, but wages have gone up faster than cost of groceries, and faster than total cost of living.  the only thing that matched it is the cost of eating out.

total expenditure on food for a family has never been lower.

[troph 24781]

21 hours ago, BeardIP said:

I think the paradigm has shifted and we have yet to see "peak me".  Brother, we are in for a wild ride and we might pass out for the lack of oxygen at peak "me" in America.

The "we" is no longer a coast-to-coast, stars and stripes banner we can all fit under. The "we" is micro-targeted pods of likeminded folks who share the same belief systems, who will vie for power and influence.

We see this now in "movements"; The Christian Fundamentalist movement, the LGQPT movement, the Tea Party movement, etc. 

The "We" in these pods will have to form coalitions for power and the only way to get the people's minds and hearts in this new attention economy where every product and market is competing with each other for a sliver of the 24 hours that humans aren't already overconsumed, is through emotion; fear, lust, dopamine, security, etc.

I see the future as a combination of "Me" first and "We", as described above, second.

The LGBTQ movement has been fighting since 1969. We don’t belong in your examples of the outgrowth no longer a unified Stars and Stripes. And that’s a myth by the way. LGBTQ movement is more akin to women’s suffrage and the civil rights movement. Basically all of these minority movements have exclaimed, “Hey!! WE are part of the WE!!!”

The Christian Nationalist movement’s retort is basically a revolt against inclusion, not a revolt against individualism. 
 

 

[Cum Rocket 136]

38 minutes ago, Captainant said:

fresh memories of the power grid going down for days

You're a hot mess. Kids don't have "fresh memories" of that.

 

39 minutes ago, Captainant said:

maybe they're worried about having their parents shipped off to Mexico for the crime of being brown in front of a racist cop in the state of Texas

Again, no kids are acutely aware of, or worried about that, unless their parents or other adults bother them with it.
 

 

[TwiceHorn 31438]

17 hours ago, Frank Drebin said:

She says that over-focusing on ones own emotional state, which is championed by therapists, Social Emotional Learning advocates, and modern school counselors, leads to more instances of anxiety, emotional weakness, and depression. It's a concern about where we tell kids to focus, inwardly vs outwardly, in a way. By ruminating on "our feelings" too long or too much, we give them more power over us, not less. We feel more helpless and anxious through this self-focus.

She makes the argument that therapy is an intervention needed for people with real issues, but when applied to otherwise "normal" kids, we actually can and do cause harm. We've turned every parent into a "mini-therapist", every kid gets a diagnosis, resulting in over-intervention in our kids otherwise normal emotional development, and stunting their ability to deal themselves with negative emotions in a healthy way.

She didn't say this, but it reminded me of the classic parable of the butterfly, where the kid can't stand to see the butterfly struggle, so they help it out of the cocoon, only to watch it die from lack of wing strength. 

Someone called it high "self-regard." In the context of addiction, I can attest personally and observationally that it is a real and negative, damaging trait or behavior. 

I have often called it inward-dwelling. AA and related 12-step programs focus on service to others as a way to break out of it and find one's rightful place in the world, which oddly seems to bring peace. 

[Cum Rocket 136]

1 hour ago, 52-80 said:

Paper by a group of non-political epidemiologists at Columbia, analyzing mental health reports of 80,000 12th graders

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8713953/

Strong inflection of psychology around 2011 (not just in recent years)

These graphs explain a lot of this board's general vibe.

[BabaYaga 15288]

1 hour ago, 52-80 said:

Paper by a group of non-political epidemiologists at Columbia, analyzing mental health reports of 80,000 12th graders

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8713953/

Strong inflection of psychology around 2011 (not just in recent years)

Bullshit (the hypothesis, not the post).  These time periods directly correlate to the advent and growth of social media. 

[aggie08 21482]

5 hours ago, Thetexashammer said:

Anyone making an argument that times are tougher now than they have ever been is a legitimate LUNATIC. Prior generations had WW2 and Vietnam to deal with. I grew up with double digit unemployment, the constant and very real threat of nuclear armageddon, 20% mortgages 15% inflation. Cities were wastelands, oil was embargoed, NYC was the murder capital of America. People were still watching black and white TVs, pop music meant Debbie Gibson, and I remember when my school got its first computer. Cable TV, microwaves, and VCR's were brand new and costed more then than they do now.

We live in an age of massive and shared prosperity. People are obese, not starving. The existential angst has very little to do with economic privation. As a factual matter the argument is makes no sense.

It's not about comparing your struggles vs. theirs. It's about still being able to empathize with them and acknowledging that their struggles--while different than previous generations--are still real, rather than being dismissive and condescending.

[Frank Drebin 5655]

1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

Someone called it high "self-regard." In the context of addiction, I can attest personally and observationally that it is a real and negative, damaging trait or behavior. 

I have often called it inward-dwelling. AA and related 12-step programs focus on service to others as a way to break out of it and find one's rightful place in the world, which oddly seems to bring peace. 

Serving others, spending time outdoors, and exercise are free/low cost things everyone can do that will improve your mental health more than just about anything.  

I walk a few miles while listening to the Gospel preached every morning.  Best thing I do every day for my state of mind and well being while costing virtually nothing.

[52-80 19147]

49 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

Bullshit (the hypothesis, not the post).  These time periods directly correlate to the advent and growth of social media. 

The authors strike out social media use as "neither a strong nor consistent risk factor of depressive affect" , citing another study of 70,000 high schoolers from 2009-2017 (common co-author in both papers)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7876159/

[Snake Diggity 4619]

18 hours ago, Frank Drebin said:

Fast food is not cheap these days.  Other than occasional Chic Fil A, the cost plus the calories make it really easy to skip for me.

I can literally order a pound of chicken fajitas that comes with sides for pretty close to the cost of Whataburger to feed our family of four.  And with the fajitas, there is usually enough rice, beans, and tortillas left over (and sometimes chicken), where I can get a couple work lunches out of it.

Chic Fil A last night for my family of four (me, wife no pics, 8 year old, 5 year old).  $56.  There were 2 nuggets leftover.  Fml.

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11669]

10 minutes ago, Snake Diggity said:

Chic Fil A last night for my family of four (me, wife no pics, 8 year old, 5 year old).  $56.  There were 2 nuggets leftover.  Fml.

goddam.

 

 

[Cum Rocket 136]

15 minutes ago, Snake Diggity said:

Chic Fil A last night for my family of four (me, wife no pics, 8 year old, 5 year old).  $56.  There were 2 nuggets leftover.  Fml.

MMMMM. The Lord's chicken. Never leftovers at our house.

[Herbie Hancock 7344]

Chic Fil A last night for my family of four (me, wife no pics, 8 year old, 5 year old).  $56.  There were 2 nuggets leftover.  Fml.

I have a Chik Fil A in the cafeteria at one of my jobs. I get 10% off when I swipe my employee ID. My total on my last order, for me, was $41. Y’all some skinny fuckers.

[Guadaloopy 10958]

1 hour ago, BabaYaga said:

Bullshit (the hypothesis, not the post).  These time periods directly correlate to the advent and growth of social media. 

Everyone who confuses causation with correlation is going to die.

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11669]

3 minutes ago, Herbie Hancock said:

I have a Chik Fil A in the cafeteria at one of my jobs. I get 10% off when I swipe my employee ID. My total on my last order, for me, was $41. Y’all some skinny fuckers.

i pray this is a joke.

[Herbie Hancock 7344]

Everyone who confuses causation with correlation is going to die.

[Herbie Hancock 7344]

i pray this is a joke.

What god did you pray to? Because it’s not a joke so he obviously ain’t listening. At least not to you

[Captainant 27628]

An interesting observation is that everyone pretty roundly agrees that a large factor in what's driving unhappiness is always feeling like you need to have more, or be producing more, or growing - rather than learning to be content.

But have yall ever had a fuckin job before? In what world is it ever acceptable to do "just enough"? Have you ever worked somewhere that didn't constantly push you to produce more and do more with less? When has ANY job been happy with its current size and didn't have indefinite growth as the ultimate goal of the enterprise?

It's pretty deeply engrained from the jump that "just enough" is never acceptable. It's not hard to see how that has bled over into every other part of our society.

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11669]

damn.  so $45 worth of CFA in one sitting.  do you get like 5 sandwiches and fries?

[Neonmoon 38129]

For me, Social Media is the largest factor. I use Instagram for work, and I definitely feel better when I take a week off. I'm like, I feel less stressed this week. Why is that? Oh, I haven't looked at Instagram this week. 

But this sums it up much better

 

Edited March 21 by Neonmoon

[SimonBolivar 10957]

20 hours ago, YGIFS said:

  Most 'white' people in this country used to speak 2+ languages, now most of them can barely speak English. 

Reminds me of Karl Pilkington filling out a job application in the UK.

 

Quote

So, when it came to the qualifications bit and that, I couldn't fill it in, cos I didn't have any qualifications, it was also asking about your languages, and I put down, English – quite good.

 

 

[Captainant 27628]

9 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

For me, Social Media is the largest factor. I use Instagram for work, and I definitely feel better when I take a week off. I'm like, I feel less stressed this week. Why is that? Oh, I haven't looked at Instagram this week. 

But this sums it up much better

 

 

[BabaYaga 15288]

58 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

The authors strike out social media use as "neither a strong nor consistent risk factor of depressive affect" , citing another study of 70,000 high schoolers from 2009-2017 (common co-author in both papers)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7876159/

Good for them.  "Non-political" researchers injecting politics as the reason for spikes in depression and completely rejecting social media as the cause despite the time frame used directly overlaps with the advent of social media.  lol.  

[Herbie Hancock 7344]

damn.  so $45 worth of CFA in one sitting.  do you get like 5 sandwiches and fries?

1 regular sammich. 2 grilled sammiches. 2 spicy sammiches. 1 large fries. 1 twelve piece nuggets.

[Cum Rocket 136]

47 minutes ago, Captainant said:

But have yall ever had a fuckin job before? In what world is it ever acceptable to do "just enough"? Have you ever worked somewhere that didn't constantly push you to produce more and do more with less? When has ANY job been happy with its current size and didn't have indefinite growth as the ultimate goal of the enterprise?

Good God man.

Striving to do better is how we advance as a species. It's how you achieve personal growth. 

[HouTex 1866]

I agree with much of what's posted so far--especially the impact of social media on our youth.  There's also the issue of news reporting in general which finds its way into social media.  The book Factfulness, by the late Hans Rosling (a retired MD from Sweden and a social democrat) and his son and daughter-in-law gives a good explanation of how news is reported and how people get a grossly incorrect understanding of the human condition on very important issues, such as world health, women's education, the levels of poverty around the world, etc.  

In addition, having co-raised two daughters, now almost 33 and 30, and seeing how they and their friends navigated high school and the somewhat early days of social media, I observed that their generation and those younger lived in a world of superlatives.  "Awesome" was used in every sentence.  If some high level of achievement wasn't reached it seemed like the endeavor was a failure.  Everything--vacations, college admissions, first job, etc. had to be the best or it was a disappointment.  Sadly, many of my girls' peers were disappointed a lot.  And getting back to social media, people report on the highlights of their lives so the disappointment hits home.  

[52-80 19147]

17 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

Good for them.  "Non-political" researchers injecting politics as the reason for spikes in depression and completely rejecting social media as the cause despite the time frame used directly overlaps with the advent of social media.  lol.  

They didnt inject politics into it. They found that politics was a predictor of the change in health responses and differentiator between different classes. You could also look at that groups prior body of work to see if the nature and conclusions of their studies were politically prejudiced. And it helps to read the other paper that decomposed the correlation to social media use (which trended the same rate well before 2012)

[Brisketexan 105060]

A reminder that it's not just the young pussy snowflake kids who are sinking into unhappiness....adult white males are increasingly suicidally depressed:

But, you know, we should probably continue to dismiss these trends, and just tell people not to be pussies, and pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and everything is better than okay, you're just pussies.  That seems productive.

As for my observations, the kids are figuring shit out.  They are learning - maybe the hard way - that "more" is not the path to happiness.  In large part, because "more" is increasingly off the table for them.  The rising generations will have less prosperity than their predecessors.  That's how it is, and how it's gonna be.  So, find happiness in what you have, and what you can get.  They're putting it together.  And, increasingly, rejecting the consumption-driven vision of happiness that we relentlessly try to sell them.

This thread reminded me of one of the better monologues in Dances with Wolves:

Quote

Ten Bears: Let us smoke a while.
John Dunbar: With Ten Bears, it was always more than a while. There was purpose in everything he did, and I knew he wanted me to stay. But I was sure of myself. I would be an excuse, and that's all the Army would need to find this place. I pushed him as far as I could to move the camp. But in the end, he only smiled and talked of simple pleasures. He reminded me that at his age, a good fire was better than anything. Ten Bears was an extraordinary man.

 

Edited March 21 by Brisketexan

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Snake Diggity said:

Chic Fil A last night for my family of four (me, wife no pics, 8 year old, 5 year old).  $56.  There were 2 nuggets leftover.  Fml.

If I had a family of four, we wouldn't go out to eat. It's just ridiculous. 

As it is now, we're super strategic about it. Gotta know the specials and what we can share.

[Guest]

Man, what can you glean from this map? 

[Don Johnson 4752]

21 hours ago, YGIFS said:

Most 'white' people in this country used to speak 2+ languages

This was just 44 years ago