I wonder if the new drug of choice is actually technology. In some ways I think that the addiction to technology has some similar mellowing effects as drugs. Some research indicates that smartphone addiction is also related to low self-esteem and avoidant attachment [1] and that smartphones can become an object of attachment [2]. The replacement of drugs by technology is not surprising as it significantly strengthens technological development especially as it is already well past the point of diminishing returns for improving every day life.
I think it’s not technology as a thing people are hooked to - it’s taken over social life. My 13 year old and his buddies socialize online, period. In person stuff is mostly organized. That is helped by school policy that got rid of the idea of a neighborhood school.
Additionally, the social activities that coalesced around things like alcohol are out of reach of many teens. I live in a city that had a very active college bar scene. It’s dead and gone. Crackdowns on underage serving and cost drives it away. Happy hour special at a place that other day was $12 for 4 coors lights in a bucket. In 1998, I’d pay $15 for a dozen wings and all you can drink swill for 3 hours.
> I think it’s not technology as a thing people are hooked to - it’s taken over social life.
One cannot separate the tool from the use. Of course, you are right, though. Technology has done two things: it has eradicated communities by making communities less economically valuable, and it provides a superficial alternative.
But the end result is that people become effectively hooked on using the device. The device is nothing without what is happening on it, but it cannot be deconstructed and separated either into a social component and the technology itself because it is more than the sum of its parts.
Makes complete sense to me. Drugs are an effective distraction because they're easy to use and often fast-acting. Outdoor/sport distractions require effort (driving, etc). Video games require much less effort. Add to that less-trivial things like investing and research, and you've got the perfect "addiction"
Suddenly I remember this movie from the 90s where people drugged themself with some kind of minidisc. “Strange Days”, maybe? Anyhow, I always found the plot weird, but maybe they actually were onto something…
The discs had -in the movie- the memories of another person, and you would experience that memory and sensations as if you were living it. So, e.g. someone would record themselves doing something risky and you would get the adrenaline rush from watching it.
So... Maybe in some way one could argue that social media gives some sort of connection were you get some feelings from what others are doing/showing. I mean, technologically it's quite a leap, but in a conceptual way... it's still a bit of a leap but maybe not that big.
Or the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode The Game [0]. Every time I watch that I get this eerie sensation that we're essentially giving our free will up to the masters of the games and social platforms we're addicted to.
Offhand the only drug-like thing I remember from that series is the nutrition bars that had 0 calories that most of the school got addicted to. Or maybe the cheerleader that got bee pheromones and started controlling the rest of the students.
Aside - I just learned a month ago that there's an official followup miniseries that brought back several of the original actors, titled "Echoes", with hopefully more coming since it's called Season 1. Came out over 2022-2023: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHGrvCp5nsDJ1qSoKZEmm... (the trailers are at the bottom of the playlist)
I’ve said this story before but I quit Facebook about 10 years ago, at a time when it was essentially the only social media game in town, so I was essentially quitting social media, and the quitting process felt exactly like when I had quit smoking the year before that.
Indeed. And I do feel that we need a sort of new terminology for technological "attachment/addiction" or whatever it is. Because people continue to nitpick on whether it is physiologically the same as physical dependence and that completely misses the point.
I really found it interesting that in the engineered society of Brave New World, everyone got a drug. I guess my personally opinion is that I disagree with you, that in a world where you know about drugs, drugs are a sort of need.
More seriously, I think there's ample historical evidence that drugs (with a liberal definition, beer, etc) are very popular across various times and places.
Indoctrination into a dependency mindset fits the "buy a solution" model that our societies run on. We are already primed for this indoctrination from the moment mother puts a pacifier in our mouths. Then constantly looking up at her approval, that constitutes the beginning of our need of approval from the women in our lives. We are programmed and primed from day 0.
Does compulsive technology use trigger the same neural pathways as addictive substances?
Because "addiction" is a very loaded term (with a specific clinical definition when it's not being used colloquially), and the sources you cited used "attachment" instead.
I think the answer here is a bit subtle and hard to explain, because it contradicts a lot of common assumptions about addiction and drugs.
In short, many addictive substances create a chemical dependence that often has awful, even potentially fatal chemical withdrawal symptoms. Behavioral addictions don't cause this, which makes people assume they are entirely something different, and categorically less serious and damaging.
This is wrong- because those withdrawal symptoms, while they do make it harder to quit by making going cold turkey difficult and sometimes impossible, they are not the underlying reason why these drugs are being abused in the first place, nor the reason they destroy peoples lives. The reason is that they stimulate the reward system and/or allow one to escape negative emotions and trauma. Behavioral addictions also do that, and can just as easily ruin ones life, by completely overcoming someones mind and will, such that they no longer are able to live their life, and are unable to escape or quit with willpower, just as much so as with drugs that cause withdrawal. They can still completely ruin your life and drive you to suicide, etc.
Moreover, people also often emphasize that many addictive substances can directly cause serious health problems, or even death. This is also not central to their harmfulness, nor always the case. In fact, for a drug to have substantial abuse potential it must be relatively free from serious adverse health effects, at least in the short term, or else it would become impossible to abuse- the most damaging substances are the ones where people can take higher doses for longer with less adverse effects, because this more strongly emphasizes its ability to be used to strongly stimulate the reward system and escape negative emotions and trauma for longer periods of time - cementing the addiction-, without causing a new negative experience on its own. Methamphetamine for example is unique among stimulants in how benign it is- allowing people to take massive doses over really long periods of time, and not face immediate health issues. Counter-intuitively, this is actually what makes it have so much abuse potential and cause so much harm, compared to other stimulants which quickly make you sick or feel awful at high doses. From this perspective, you can see that the fact that behavioral addictions are also able to be repeated in "large doses" for long periods of time without immediate short term health consequences can make them have a high potential for harm in the long term.
Triggering the same neural pathways is also a flawed way to look at things. Dopamine exists without the presence of drugs despite the dysfunctional state of discourse demonizing literally anything which releases dopamine. A true dopamine detox would in fact be very bad for your health, physical and mental. The point being, drugs exploit existing pathways and biochemical interactions, they don't create them de novo. The set isn't just "compulsive technology | drugs" it is "compulsive technology | drugs | eating | running | mental stimulation | sexual activity | etc."
Fair point. Some other studies use addiction too, though, and there is a distinction between both addiction and attachment and the links between them is a bit nebulous. You can check out the results on Google Scholar if interested.
I couldn't agree more. Using the term addiction in contexts where it is not medically valid is very dangerous (like yelling "fire" in a theater) and leads to the use of violent force against those one falsely claims are "addicted".
Audio-visual stimuli from screens and speakers has never been shown to be able to have the same effects as a dopaminergic drug which is to say, completely turning up incentive salience regardless of reward or lack of it. That is why drugs are dangerous.
Technology can only be habit forming (in some contexts, maybe) if it continues to be rewarding in some way. Psychological dependence, maybe, but never addiction, and not even physiological dependence. Addictive drugs do not have to be rewarding or pleasurable. They just hijack wanting.
They are not the same and definitely should not be legislated the same. Enjoying something that is actually fun is not the same as wanting something because it chemically turned on wanting.
The next generation weren't interested in facebook, because "that's what moms use" and figured out something different.
As to drugs, now many are legal, so parents can now partake in what used to be illegal for them. Or for harder drugs, "Uncle Bob does drugs, and he's always in trouble".
So one generation of parents acts as a negative example for the next generation to reject.
I fear the (negative) impact of our current technological drugs goes beyond the impact of traditional drugs.
I’ve seen kids not even 3-4 years old already hooked to smartphone screens. Even toddlers around 1 year old with an smartphone mount in their stroller.
Main impact on kids is lack of socialization, lack of emotional regulation and a complete impact on their capabilities to keep their attention. Those used to be indicators for a future failed adulthood.
I remember traditional drugs only becoming present around 14-16 years old. Alcohol was probably the most prevalent, and probably the most dangerous. Followed by Cannabis, tobacco and some recreational drugs like MDMA.
Most of those drugs had a component that actually pushed kids heavily towards socialization and forming peer groups. Now looking back to the results of that drug consumption I would say that most of the individuals engaging on them were able to regulate and continue to what it seems to be a very normal adult life. Obviously tobacco with terrible potential future health effects, but beyond that, everyone I know turned up pretty healthy. Not only that, I remember some time later that the most experimental group (mdma, LSD, mushrooms) of drug users being full of people with Master Degrees and PhDs.
The new technological drugs scare me way more than the old traditional ones. Obviously it is a normal response of the known va unknown. Time will tell.
I’m very much for legalizing and regulating (almost) all drugs, but watch out with the confirmation bias of “everyone in my social circle who used recreationally turned out fine.”
I can’t find it right now but I read a great comment on legalization that pointed out that a kid experimenting with weed and cocaine in college is doing so for a radically different reason than a kid doing it escape the daily misery of his ghetto neighborhood.
This is also why you’ll often see staunch opposition to legalization in the lower socio-economic classes, with them having seen people close to them destroyed by drug use.
And yes, legalization and regulation would of course also allow harm reduction. But it is good to be able to take the opposition’s perspective :)
> Most of those drugs had a component that actually pushed kids heavily towards socialization and forming peer groups. Now looking back to the results of that drug consumption I would say that most of the individuals engaging on them were able to regulate and continue to what it seems to be a very normal adult life.
Counterargument: a "very normal adult life" in our generations treats alcohol as basically mandatory for having a good time with a group. As someone who doesn't drink, I'm perfectly happy to go to parties and hang out and socialize, but as the night wears on it becomes less and less stimulating as the alcohol kicks in. People get less interesting on drugs, but they perceive themselves to be having more fun. It's a crutch.
Now, maybe having a social crutch like alcohol is better than having a drug which encourages disappearing from the physical social world entirely, but our generation's answer was hardly healthy.
Why are the moral panics always about the media diets of children? Let’s talk about old people for a minute.
1) They can be socially isolated in ways that few children are. An unsupervised septuagenarian can go literal days without speaking to another live human being.
2) They’re more technologically competent than we give them credit for, certainly enough to spend days doomscrolling their politically aligned newsfeeds of choice. The generation who thought their CD-ROM drives were cupholders passed quite some time ago.
3) They have an outsized influence on politics. Not only do they vote more than any other demographic in the US, they are the most likely to turn up and harangue your city council or school board meeting.
Of course, nothing new under the sun, their parents’ generation was mainlining cable news and AM talk radio 20-30 years ago.
> I’ve seen kids not even 3-4 years old already hooked to smartphone screens. Even toddlers around 1 year old with an smartphone mount in their stroller.
Now imagine that they would not be engaging with silly YouTube videos, but with an AI trying to get them to interact with them in order to learn to speak, to learn about the world. Things which parents can't dedicate enough time to. Then also give the kids ideas for what to do with the parents, what to talk about, tease them about science and stuff they'd normally have no access to, because it is information mostly hidden in books or in an inaccessible format, like dedicated to students.
I do see a huge potential in this, call it cheaply a "nanny for the brain", to help develop it better and faster. There are certainly risks to it, but if it were well done, in a way in which we assume universities are "places well done", it could be better than just having the kids watching TV.
Playing Devil’s advocate… Socialisation is what’s driving technology use. It’s just happening on the phones, not irl. Just like with alcohol, anyone not participating will be left out. If everyone’s on their phones all the time, IRL socialisation won’t matter compared to socialisation via phones.
Old drugs are also at least sometimes social. Even heroin gives rise to cliques of users. It’s deeply unhealthy and self destructive but at least there is connection. Sometimes you get art out of it too. A whole era of great music has many bittersweet odes to smack.
I particularly worry about men. The greater cultural and possibly (more controversial) biological susceptibility to isolation coupled with this stuff means a generation of young men who are isolated, hopeless, poor, lonely, and sexless.
Then we have a culture that, depending on which side you listen to, either shames them as potential rapists from the patriarchy or simply “losers.” (IMHO the “woke” shaming is just code for loser, as I have heard said in private.) They are neither. They are victims of exploitation, of a nearly exact analog to the Matrix that is destroying their minds.
I speak mostly of social media and addiction optimized gaming, not all tech. The problem is the apps not the phone. Really anything that works very hard to “maximize engagement” should be considered guilty unless proven innocent. This phrase is code for addiction.
As we have seen the gurus that appeal to such men are the likes of Andrew Tate. As awful as he is Jordan Peterson is actually among the less toxic of the crew since he does occasionally say something good.
In the future we could have gurus for hordes of lonely poor men that make Tate look helpful and wise. This is how we either LARP the Handmaid’s Tale or — worse — ISIS or the Khmer Rouge.
I have two daughters and I fear for their safety in a country full of fascism radicalized angry emotionally stunted men who have been told they are losers and then handed pitchforks.
Our industry is the industry making the opium to which these youth are addicted and that is destroying them. We are destroying the minds of a generation every time any B2C app tries to optimize its time on app KPI.
Mothers and fathers of boys: raise your sons or Andrew Tate will.
> I wonder if the new drug of choice is actually technology
Technology certainly is the economic sector that we privilege against all criticism of the harm it does to young people, to voting adults, to information quality, to public discourse, and to democracy itself.
Well, we have tied all of the smooth functioning of society to producing new technology, so regardless of its negative effects or its diminishing returns, we develop it. It's a strong piece of circumstantial evidence for technological determinism, not to mention many advancements are clear-cut cases of the prisoner's dilemma (arms race), such as computer security vs. hackers.
I wonder if we're entering an era of social stagnation, caused by screens. Before screen-based entertainment was so ubiquitous, young people (teens and young adults) experienced a lot of boredom, which pushed them to do new things. Many of those things were stupid and bad (drugs etc.), but some of those kids decided they were ambitious and wanted their life to be above ordinary in terms of achievement and impact on the world. Today, there's less room for such thoughts to even emerge - and if they do, they have to compete for mindshare with addictive entertainment on a daily basis.
Even if technological "addiction" is not like real drug addiction, it is something strange. People constantly checking, scrolling without any real purpose. There's some sort of conditioned behaviour in it that has some facets of addiction.
It was not until I recently set up Screen Time in macOS that I realized how much I was being distracted from applying myself to the specific creative endeavor that I have set for myself. It works per-application and across devices, and it is a real benefit compared to the iptables rules I had set up before. I have web, news and other things on Downtime from midnight to noon daily, and throughout the Sabbath. It brings clarity to do the most important things first in the day.
If everyone is switching from drugs to social media, then that's progress. Twitter and Facebook won't harm your body. They're also free, so your habit will never make you poor and desperate. This kind of revolution in improving our health makes me proud to work in the tech industry. The worst that can happen is you'll feel sad if people bully you online, but that's the fault of people, not the technology. We can improve the human condition, but we can't change human nature.
I strongly disagree with this. Social media companies are incredibly valuable specifically because they are effective at getting people to spend their money on things they otherwise wouldn't have.
Depression, suicide, and other serious mental health disorders are strongly linked with social media use. Is that better than more kids drinking and smoking pot? I don't know, it's complicated. It's certainly not clearly better and might be significantly worse.
Hand waving away these costs is putting on some seriously rose colored glasses.
> Twitter and Facebook won't harm your body. They're also free
Only if you value your time at exactly zero.
> The worst that can happen is you'll feel sad if people bully you online, but that's the fault of people, not the technology.
By that logic it’s also your body’s fault to react poorly to drugs, not the drugs’.
Thinking of it in terms of “fault” is also not very productive. I’d say it’s definitely a (possible) negative consequence of social media usage that might otherwise not have happened, and as such worth studying.
I’d argue that targeted advertising and unprecedentedly-centralized corporate control of what text, images, and video we see online is just as potentially harmful as (recreational) drug use, if not worse. And online-shopping/adventure-travel/other addictions facilitated by targeted ads and targeted content algorithms can definitely leave people unable to achieve goals in life.
Creating a new addiction to replace the last generation’s isn’t really something to be proud of. As developers, we should be aiming to create ways to communicate that aren’t addictive and facilitate genuine connection with others that includes their highs, the lows, and financial/socioeconomic transparency.
> This kind of revolution in improving our health makes me proud to work in the tech industry.
I can say with some amount of confidence that the number of people wasting their talent and life in making up bullshit engagement algorithms, who thought about it as a way of getting people away from drugs, has been exactly zero. So, it is definitely not something to be proud of, but maybe something to think of as a funny coincidence, provided that the premise actually holds.
> The worst that can happen is ...
That you'll remain or become an idiot, or suffer physically and mentally as a result of being inactive while consuming the garbage your proud tech workers shove down your head.
Perhaps? But a confounder is the strengthening or weakening of social ties. It's not clear that what seems to increasing loneliness is doing well by this next generation.
Mental health is health, and poor mental health can result in death... death rates that we have seen climb precipitously among children. Trading heroin deaths for suicides isn't an improvement, even if the dealers feel they aren't directly responsible.
Plenty of bad side effects: Harming your brains development, ability to concentrate, harm the ability to find joy in non-screen activities, mental health and so on.
As someone who grew up in the 90’s and partied the way they did in the 90’s If there is a switch from drugs to social media I find that incredibly dystopian.
I like this idea, but we are nowhere near a point of diminishing returns. We are about to experience the wholesale obsolescence of the economic value of human labour, which means in practical terms, no stupid jobs just to have a place to live, intelligent robots cleaning your house etc
If anything, buckle up. Going surfing every day or crotchet may become a perfectly legitimate life aspiration.
> just to have a place to live, intelligent robots cleaning your house etc
Animals could say precisely the same thing about living in a zoo!
(1) Who determines the allocation of resources in your utopia? How do you handle an ever increasing population that depends on the biosphere which itself is the only source of raw materials and energy for the incredible amount of energy required for it?
(2) People need a purpose. Most people will find a life of really doing nothing quite boring. Like it or not, people want some control over their destiny, and not to be animals in a cage.
(3) If people really don't need each other, what will happen to the social fabric? If AI can really do everything for us, then what is to stop some people from killing all the rest and taking everything for themselves? We have only relative morals that function when they are necessary, and some people not even that.
Well, I think there is also an emergent theme in the research that there also needs to be two distinct concepts: addiction, and attachment. See [1].
[1] Hertlein, Katherine M., and Markie LC Twist. "Attachment to technology: The missing link." Journal of Couple & Relationship Therapy 17.1 (2018): 2-6.
Luigi and Uncle Ted both thought technology was evil, and preached about it to anyone who would hear but they were both censored and ignored, forcing them to violence to reclaim there tongues. They both knew that, as Euripides said many years before: 'This is slavery, not to speak one's thought.'
Watch people on their phones just endlessly watching, scrolling, clicking… little actually being done. It’s mostly a series of tiny high’s the apps, esp games and social media, are designed to generate. People also experience withdrawal-like symptoms when they go cold turkey on it.
Technological media is definitely like a drug in many cases. Not all or for all people but often. It also lets others influence your mind for selfish reasons. Between the two, it’s a good idea to both be selective and limit it.
Another aspect here I think is the generalized fear and anxiety present in young people. Having spoken to some family members in the 15-18 age bracket, the message they seem to be receiving is that they are without a future... they won't be buying homes, they won't be getting high paying jobs, and that the system is not going to work in their favor. I think people of this age are uniquely feeling mortal and vulnerable in a way teens typically have not, causing them to be more hesitant to risk losing their mind which they may need to protect themselves down the road. But they also are modern teenagers, not only low in willpower but also coddled by their smartphones, which is why technology addiction is the go to "safer" alternative to habitual drug use.
Also, you typically need to be unsupervised with friends to get into drugs, something teenagers no longer have access to compared to 10-15 years ago. If we look at the social decline due to the pandemic, what made experts think these kids would bounce back? They are forever changed, and will forever be less social than other generations because they missed out on formative experiences.
First-time home owners have increased in age[0], the middle class is shrinking[1], education costs have vastly outpaced inflation[2] as have medical costs[3].
Perhaps the generalized fear is not so much about "coddling", but concrete realities. I do not envy them.
More of gen z are home owners than previous generations at that age[0], real wages are increasing for the lower and middle class for the first time since 1970[1]. More people are leaving the workforce than anytime in history, creating high paying trade job openings at an unprecedented rate[2]. Health care costs are growing slower now than any prior decade[3].
Every generation has challenges and benefits. Framing the narrative can happen in any direction and the variance in group is bigger than the variance between.
Society hasn’t setup future society to be better. It’s a grab and go everywhere you look and it’s tiring. This is coming from a millennial with a good tech job. I cannot imagine how younger generations feel.
First-time home buyers are getting squeezed by a combination of peaking market forces, but those forces are peaking and we're probably seeing the worst of it at this moment [1]. It will get better.
> education costs have vastly outpaced inflation[2] as have medical costs[3].
This is basically a law of nature. Anything that's done by humans and can't be scaled will necessarily get more expensive in real terms over time. See: Baumol effect.
I imagine that, for the young people of the world, the Covid years really ripped away the illusion that the adults of the world are in competent control. To a degree that modern generations (from otherwise relatively stable, wealthy countries) have never experienced. While there are other major factors clearly contributing to the generational angst, I think this was the catalyst.
I wonder how the economics stack up, because intoxicants aren't free. If the researchers are saying there's X less drug use, then presumably that either implies (a) teenagers are now spending X more on other areas instead (and what are they?), or (b) teenagers now have X less money.
As a person in that age bracket, I don't feel like my peers and I are lacking in opportunities to participate in drug & alcohol use.
As to why I choose to abstain, I honestly am just not interested in drinking or doing drugs. I don't see any benefit to it socially, since I have more fun with my friends doing things while they are sober, and I don't want to be one of those adults that can't socialize without it. Also, the consequences for getting caught are high.
This is what I’m thinking. All of the kids I know from 16-22 are the most level headed group of young adults I’ve known. It is hilarious to me that this group of brilliant technologists leans so heavily towards seeing the absolute worst in every data point.
Could it be that, kids are doing less drugs because they’re more informed, less bored, and less reckless than previous generations?
We all aspire that our kids will do better than we have. We did our best to instill a sense of confidence and worth in them.
What if it is finally starting to just, f’ing work?
I'm very pleased to see this sentiment, as a father of a 14 year old boy. 4 years ago I decided to quit alcohol altogether (from a moderate by Australian standards consumption), and I hope to be a positive influence on him through his formative years through open and honest conversations about the topic.
(He has no desire to start drinking etc early or at all at this point.)
Long term health impacts are high, as someone in my 50s I'm certainly doing better for my choice. And yes, not making stupid decisions under influence also cannot be underestimated.
I have had the opposite observation. Millenials and older Gen Z have extremely pessimistic takes on the future. Our childhoods were some of the most materially comfortable in human history, and everything in comparison is downhill from there.
But high schoolers I know today seem more even keeled about things. They are graduating into a world where fast food jobs start at $17, no one needs to go to college if they don't want to, and they are accustomed to a world where everything is temporary and digital.
I think the strongest evidence of this is the sharp decline in military recruitment.
You might not need to go to college, but you're going into significant debt if you do, so now one has to decide which disadvantage they want to start their career with: no degree, or crippling debt.
A fast food job might be $17/hr, but the cost of gas is >2x what it was when that same job paid $8/hr, not to mention other basic costs like groceries, rent, and buckle up if you have to go to the doctor. Pay has simply not kept up with the cost of living for most Americans.
Why would anyone be happy that everything is ephemeral? That implies a lack of stability, more anxiety about the future, less confidence that you can weather bad times.
Humans are tactile creatures, everything being digital leads to a counter-intuitive sense of isolation - more connected, but less personal. There are positives too, but as an older Millennial, it has been interesting to be along for the ride as the potential of the internet and social media went from a superpower, to kryptonite. Who knows where things will be in 5-10 years, but it's hard not to see how some of our greatest tools are being turned against us in the search for more profit.
Millennials are, if anything, brutally realistic - a trait required to navigate the last 16 years. We were forced to watch as the last bit of life in the idea of a strong middle class was snuffed out, and had to enter the workforce right as the GFC hit. Our parents were the last generation where one could reasonably expect to live a life that truly lived up to the ideal of the American Dream - that one could get educated, get a job, buy a decent house and raise a family, without it being especially noteworthy to do so. For many Millennials, if not every generation following, it is essentially nothing more than a dream at this point. Corporate greed, and a government fully captured by it, has all but killed the middle class, and I fully expect that the advent of AI - rather than being a boon for the middle class - will drive a nail in its coffin. Those with the most to gain are already on top, and I've already heard way more people here talk about what they'll be able to do without needing to hire anyone, than I have about how the people left jobless will benefit. It is readily apparent that nobody with any power is going to do anything about it before a significant amount of suffering is felt - maybe not even then. All you have to do is listen to how people talk about it, as if everyone will magically figure out something else to do when every sector starts losing jobs simultaneously. Our society has a greater chance of eating itself alive first.
I consider myself lucky amongst most Millennials - I entered the workforce before the GFC, then joined the military shortly after it (not due to the GFC, but the timing worked out). I was able to get far enough along in my career in those first years though that I never had to struggle with finding a job like many did. I was able to get a house in my 30s thanks to the GI bill. Very few of those I grew up with are in the same boat, many are living much the same as they were 15 years ago - unable to save enough to buy a house, facing reduced job prospects in the future. What reason do they have to be anything _but_ pessimistic?
For me personally, I think we've simply lost the battle against greed, and there is a tipping point after which reigning it back in is impossible without burning it all down. That's something nobody should want, least of all the rich, but it's played out many times in history, and we keep falling into the same trap, just different ways. I think this time it probably was Citizens United where we lost our grip, that decision made it inevitable that corporate interests would be the driving force of government, not the needs of its people. Who can say for sure what will happen, but we're all along for the ride regardless.
> they won't be buying homes, they won't be getting high paying jobs, and that the system is not going to work in their favor
I dont have a clue what your upbringing looked like, but even up to around age of 25, I never ever expected nor was told to expect any of that. The success despite all that is much sweeter.
Maybe thats some US thing, being raised in eastern Europe you were born to shit, you were considered insignificant shit and that was about it. Thats what being occupied for 4 decades by russians causes to society, on top of other bad stuff they are so natural with.
Maybe stop telling kids how they are all special and great and all will be astronauts and let them figure it all out by themselves? Teenagers being frustrated that they wont be owning some posh expensive house, thats pretty fucked up upbringing and life goals to be polite, thats not success in life in any meaningful way.
I recommend checking biggest regrets of dying people, focus on careers and money hoarding are consistently at the top.
> Teenagers being frustrated that they wont be owning some posh expensive house
Posh expensive house? Nowhere was that mentioned.
The post-WWII 20th century American social contract was: "You will have the ability to get married, live in a modest home of your own, own a car, raise 2-3 young children, and go on a modest annual vacation even if you work in a factory".
It didn't even cross my mind until the very late teens that it might be possible for me to own a flat one day, the sums involved sounded not much different than a "gazillion dollars", but that particular future outlook definitely had zero effect on my behavior.
> the message they seem to be receiving is that they are without a future...
At least when I was that age, it was usually the low income people who's greatest achievement in life would be avoiding prison, who usually turned towards smoking, alcohol, drugs and sex. See "Common People" and similar 80s/90s Britpop songs.
What changed?
I grew up in a lower middle class family, and for me the feeling that I could end up like that - as many people I went to school with did - was what pushed me to achieve. My parents could only just afford their bills, so I didn't get any handouts from them. Of course I don't have a Lambo, so maybe I'm considered a failure by Gen Z? Has the boundary of what is considered "successful" shifted?
Today on HN, Jonathan Haidt afficionados lament the decline of use of addictive, life ruining, hard drugs. Something about "formative experiences." I think it's a good thing kids don't do hard drugs today, information addiction is a thing may be but going back to hard drugs isn't a good thing.
> uniquely feeling mortal and vulnerable in a way teens typically have not, causing them to be more hesitant to risk losing their mind which they may need to protect themselves down the road
its just as easy to reach the exact opposite conclusion when everything is so hopeless and nihilistic. you are extrapolating way too much here.
less unsupervised time, location tracking from parents, unregulated dopamine from chatgroups and algorithms in public social media, and the risk of fentany and other poisons in drugs, are much better contributors to extrapolate from
Gen-X felt the same way. The entire youth culture at the time was based around the vibe that the culture sucked and there wasn't a future worth having for younger people. Apathy was the youth cultural vibe of the day.
Then again with older millenials it happened with the great financial crisis. There was a widespread feeling of hopelessness about the future. Outsourcing and trade liberalization (the AI-like job crusher of that period) left the future job market uncertain.
I think what's new now is social media and persistent phones. If you're feeling anxiety about the future you don't escape into wild parties, you escape into your phone and videogames.
Your last point was my knee-jerk reaction, "where are they going to do drugs? There are fewer and fewer places available to spend time without paying a fee." I'd like to know if that's true or just a mistaken impression on my part.
Gen X’s will probably remember being unsupervised from about the age they learned to ride a bike. I think we were the last “get home before dark” generation.
A question for older folks: what did drugs do for us? Why did we do them?
For me, drugs were:
- socialization. I met a lot of friends through alcohol & drugs and they became the social glue for my circle. Alcohol & drugs became a large part of my identity.
- a way to cope with boredom. Every day is a party when you're high.
- identity. In my generation, drugs were mostly cool and associated with iconoclasts, artists, etc.
Young people's culture changed. I don't think kids see alcohol, drugs and being out of control as cool anymore. I don't know specifically what changed this. Better social messaging, mass prescribing of ADHD meds, more competitive job markets.. Social media and multiplayer gaming have both ramped up competitive drives for what used to be more relaxing activities. Maybe the current optiate and meth epidemics are more effective as a warning than, say, the crack epidemic was for us?
Kids have tech to glue them together(poorly in many cases, but it does fill the niche). Kids have internet subcultures to define their cultures now. Alternative lifestyles are much more accessible and take much less risk to participate in vs my childhood in the 80s. You don't need drugs to meet people or forge common identities.
Kids are never bored anymore. I suspect there has never been a better time to be a kid in a boring small town. If you have bandwidth, you have culture. You have better shipping, home delivery, cheap imports, etc. Affluence seems more common than it used to be, even in our highly divided economy.
Gen Z here and people are definitely still doing drugs and drinking, but it does seem massively less.
Just a personal anecdote, but there’s still a lot of house parties and stuff going on, and most people will have a couple drinks, some will have none, etc. But you are absolutely expected to handle yourself appropriately, getting too drunk or taking drugs you couldn’t handle isn’t tolerated and you’ll find yourself uninvited to future events. It is significantly more socially acceptable to drink no alcohol and take no drugs, than it is to get too drunk and act inappropriately.
> It is significantly more socially acceptable to drink no alcohol and take no drugs, than it is to get too drunk and act inappropriately
From what I’ve seen, this is partly a function of embedded social media. A drunk night at a friend’s isn’t just a bad decision, it reflects poorly on everyone in the room, including the host, in a semi-permanent and semi-public way.
getting too drunk or taking drugs you couldn’t handle isn’t tolerated
and you’ll find yourself uninvited to future events. It is significantly
more socially acceptable to drink no alcohol and take no drugs, than it
is to get too drunk and act inappropriately.
That doesn't sound all that different than previous generations. SXE's been a thing since the 80s. Not everyone is Bret Easton Ellis. I don't think that attitudes have changed all that much, but circumstances have. Inflation and wage stagnation mean less discretionary spending. Fentanyl analogues mean street drugs are significantly more lethal than in generations past. Legalized marijuana means there's less mystery and motivation to experiment further.
I've interacted with a number of Gen Zers in their 20s and Millenials in their early 30s, some in passing and some on a more regular basis. In my experience that cohort spans the gamut. Some are teetotalers, sure. Most use drugs (cocaine, ketamine, assorted off-label prescription stuff, marijuana, etc.) at least occasionally, some daily. It really doesn't seem all that different from when I was their age. Excluding peer pressure, most of the societal ills that drove my peers to experiment with drugs still apply. Conversely I've seen a lot of my peers start to dial back drug and alcohol use as they get older.
Handling your stuff isn't all that new. Unless you're hanging with very close friends you always needed to not be a problem or you wouldn't get invited back.
I'm curious what GenZ+ thinks about the movie "The Boys & Girls Guide to Getting Down" which is a tongue-in-cheek, funny look at mid 00's partying culture in LA. That's not really my generation, but is a bit of a window into what I think was the last generation to really embrace intoxication.
It reminds me of Mitki[1]. Their way to go to the party is to bring a bottle of vodka and drink it in one go before knocking at the door. Such a guy would seems ok and would be welcomed by the host, but in a 10 minutes he would become really drunk, while everyone around him is still 100% sober.
The improved treatment, and acceptance, of ADHD is certainly one key element here. I hope we continue to support kids if they show symptoms of any psychological disorder.
My brother is one of those really bad cases, while I got my diagnosis just recently; never had more than a slight drinking problem which has almost disappeared since the I started taking medication.
We can take a good thing too far (and probably are at that point). ADHD is being overdiagnosed and medication is being overprescribed, especially in young men.
I am about to turn 40 very soon. Do I fall in that generation? Because all those things did hold true and was there when I was growing up/adulting. But I never felt any need of it and many didn’t. But many did. Many still do. Because those small pockets are still around where drug is still cool and even back then those were small pockets!
One of the reasons is - it has become too difficult and costly (at least where I live). Even for weed, which was pretty much kosher unless you were caught by the police keeping KGs on your person or home, it has become too difficult to procure and not get caught. That could be a reason.
In many places where weed is available like cigarettes - maybe it’s not the forbidden fruit anymore. That danger or aura of different is gone with it.
Yeah but at some point the life of the party became boring because it was all day every day.
So we just hung out and smoked weed and played SNES, PSX on a daily basis and went to clubs on weekends and cafés from wed/thur onwards.
I met so many people only through smoking weed. And because weed is such a laid back drug, we were all laid back and friendly with each other.
What I learned to hate over the years was that daily routine of finding something to smoke.
We had our dealers we phoned up or sometimes we would deal ourselves to finance our consumption.
Dealing drugs was another level though. Hostilities arose. Some people claimed turf and threatened others with violence, those were "miraculously" found by the police and landed in jail.
Also dealers that scammed others.
The scene had a way to police themselves.
Those were the good years.
Later the quality became worse and the quantity as well.
It was no longer... how should I put it,... fun and games but people discovered it as a source of making profit.
Even friends or people you considered friends would try to scam you and you weren't any different.
That time began approximately when the Afghanistan wars began and the CIA was cut off from the cannabis sources.
It was like this, we would smoke weed in the summer and black afghan in winter. The black afghan fell off.
What remained was green hash from the turks and weed, which was stretched with hairspray and silica sand.
I quit doing ganja, also because I hated being stoned all day every day and having to do the daily finding weed routine. I was so tired of it, also "what am I doing with my life".
I lost most "friends", I had to, to not be exposed to this crap on a daily basis. I wanted to get somewhere in life not just consume weed all day and be a loser who got nothing done. Better late than never.
I very rarely do resin nowadays, not by smoking but orally, and it's like once a year or every 2 years.
Cannabis is definitely good for your health, if not overdone.
I'm not contradicting you, but it appears that the suicide rate hasn't changed since 2018. See this interactive chart and switch the Injury Type to Suicide:
Nor are people in their 20s (that is, both groups are having much less sex). That is the most worrying thing to me. People are not even engaging in the most fundamental, unavoidable, pleasurable human drive.
They seem very much like traumatized people, on a massive scale, just trying to survive.
I'm starting to think many people just aren't into sex that much, in the same way many people aren't into food.
Many people just get hungry and inhale the most convenient thing they can to scratch the hunger itch. McDonald's is always busy. People would be there on Christmas day if it was open. These people aren't into food as pleasure, they just don't want to be hungry. Of course with meal replacements bottles etc McDonald's isn't even the bottom of that particular barrel.
It's the same with sex. I've met people who define themselves by their sexuality. They consider it a primary pursuit in life. But for others it's just scratching an itch. I've realised I'm basically that way. It doesn't mean that much to me, it's just something my body makes me do. Porn is now everywhere and more easily accessible than drugs. People are now able to reach for McDonald's or the meal replacement, but for sex.
> They seem very much like traumatized people, on a massive scale, just trying to survive.
Every few years I like to leave the world for a bit and do something else to reset a bit. For example I just finished walking 779km on the Camino in Spain.
What you said is essentially true for the vast majority of people in our modern world. What we have built is terrible for us, and we’re all suffering and very sick.
I've had is persisting thought that, we as a society have been delaying adulthood, thus extending childhood, with each decade for a while. And we've now pushed it so far that the current cohort of teens simply are effectively young children on a social/emotion perspective making them unprepared to handle the stresses their age is exposing them to.
I would agree that modern childhood is protracted to what is perhaps a damaging extent, but would also argue that the stresses and anxieties of everyday life are more constant and overbearing than the human psyche is equipped to handle. It’s mot healthy for well-adjusted adults either. We’re built for dangers and stresses that come in relatively short bursts, not those that are without end.
If you have kids, do you see them as less mature than how you perceived yourself at their age ?
TBH I feel the opposite: current kids have a lot more to deal with, and are expected to be much much more down to earth than a few decades ago. The most basic things: a single post on an SNS can stick with them for the rest of their life, yet we moved half of our social life online.
There must be a good balance between the grow-up-quick-or-die-horribly of the pre-technology world and the my-cats-are-my-kids life of the post-danger world
Erich Fromm said this in his "Fear of Freedom"
We live in a time that we are able to customize our lives to our delights. That makes us lose perspective and purpose. So we look to movements to fill the void.
That was back in the 50's/60's
I think he was spot on why this generation can't see past the last scroll or click. They don't have perspective because they have not been bred to have it. It's very sad.
And on these medications there are often severe interactions with alcohol and drugs which would be enough to frighten off most people. Some e.g. bupropion even reduce addictive tendencies entirely.
The other thing I haven't seen in this thread yet is that kids today are really focused on is: lifestyle -- they want to work hard at school so they can get great jobs to make a lot of money so they can afford to own a home and live healthy lives. With the cost of living, and everything else, they're going to have to make a lot of money to life the kind of life that they're used to as kids.
My kids are not on social media. They eat like pro athletes. They ask me why I'm eating things with higher amounts of sugar or ultra-processed foods. They do an hour of gym class at school every weekday and then they want to do sports every night of the week and on the weekend. They do their homework and get straight As. They are concerned about bullying and suicide -- they talk to each other, even siblings, in a healthy and caring way.
My oldest couldn't understand why people drink alcohol if it's bad for you. I explained that some people like the way it makes them feel, "So what? It's bad for you. Why would anyone do that to their body?" They couldn't understand why I bought a gas guzzling luxury sports car instead of an electric car given the state of the environment (I've wanted one my whole life and I could finally afford one, yes it's selfish and they are more ethical than I am).
There are definitely a bunch of things going on with Gen Z and Alpha that have made (some of) them this way. But one of the results is that they're not interested in a lot of unhealthy things simply because they know they're unhealthy. They can't understand why we do things that we know are bad for us, the environment, etc. and they're probably right.
They're not perfect, but I do have faith in the next generation and we're going to see some amazing leaders come out of this group.
> kids today are really focused on is: lifestyle -- they want to work hard at school so they can get great jobs to make a lot of money so they can afford to own a home and live healthy lives
To expand on this point: American kids today are facing a world that’s drawn up the ladder behind them economically, and their only hope of escaping the pit of despair is to work themselves to the bone for the dregs of pay available to them. Unhealthy habits cost precious wage-earning time. Their intoxicant of choice is prescription medications because they’re covered by insurance, and that’s largely kept things from boiling over into harming the ascended old people — until recently, anyways.
> I do have faith in the next generation and we’re going to see some amazing leaders come out of this group.
Not if today’s leaders have anything to say about it. What leadership arises is, to date, captured by the pre-existing social structures and has had no power to keep the ever-older graying generations from holding the reins away from them. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when public health insurance is taken away, as withdrawing the last of the price-accessible drugs will certainly put their skills to the test.
I remain hopeful for the outcome, but the circumstances are already set in the recent past. What a time to be a social scientist, though!
I'll take a guess: you are raising kids in a small-to-medium, moderately-or-more affluent community -- or a similar enclave, or selective/private school, in a larger city.
I would further postulate that your parenthood community is more affluent than your childhood community.
My point being: the lifestyle you describe (and its offset from the median) has "always" (post-war at least) been common in "nice" places. But nice places are unusual.
I think information and culture/fashion both have a lot to do with it.
Pre-social media, you could get drunk and embarrass yourself, and forget about it by the next day. Now everything is recorded. Information about alcoholism is easier to come by, and there are influencers like worldoftshirts who show people what life as an alcoholic is like. I don't see how anyone could want a drink after watching content like that. Smoking weed in front of a camera doesn't seem as edgy as it used to now that it's legal. Having red eyes in a photo is annoying. Vaping has always had a cringe factor.
All of this tech is giving us the ability to look in the mirror and see what we're doing to ourselves.
> Monitoring the Future Study, which annually surveys eighth, 10th and 12th grade students across the United States.
I wonder if there is correlation to the opioid crisis, where the "downsides" (if you want to call it that) of drug abuse are so visible to teenagers that they are staying away from it. Doing drugs when it's associated with being "cool"/interesting like rappers is one thing, but when you associate it to fentanyl zombies living in the streets it loses a lot of its glamour.
I was not able to find the regional breakdown so it's just a conjecture though.
Not data driven at all, just my life experience, but I was a teen during the crack epidemic phase. It certainly had me and my peers cautious of crack itself, nobody wanted anything do to with it, but it was not a deterrence to drug usage in general. I was pretty experimental but when offered some crack once I remember declining; I wasn't even curious. The things that had the most correlation with my drug experimentation was 1) social activity/partying and 2) boredom. I think it's important to note as the average teen socializes significantly less and always has a digital crack pipe to cure their boredom; so I'd look there for a stronger causation.
I can’t speak for anyone else but I’ve completely stopped doing any drugs that I can’t make myself or purchase from a liquor store or dispensary (or shroom store). The risk of fentanyl making it into the product even for unrelated party drugs is just insane now and I don’t trust myself to use fentanyl strips properly while already high or tripping.
I wonder if that impacts teen drug use too, because for the first time opponents have a tangible risk to point to instead of just a dumb frying pan commercial and fearmongering.
I was a big fan of cocaine back in the 90s. I never got to the "problem" level with it but if it was there I was the first to raise my hand.
My personality has changed a little, but I'd still probably jump at it today, if it weren't for the fear of fentanyl. I'm not worried about addiction, I'm worried about death.
That actually makes a lot of sense. I know of quite a few younger people who pass on things they can't order online. Grubhub vs phone-in takeout, Amazon vs malls, etc. I wonder if the areas that are legalizing drugs will see a DrugHub app pop up.
Readit News
1. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S07475...
2. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S07475...
Additionally, the social activities that coalesced around things like alcohol are out of reach of many teens. I live in a city that had a very active college bar scene. It’s dead and gone. Crackdowns on underage serving and cost drives it away. Happy hour special at a place that other day was $12 for 4 coors lights in a bucket. In 1998, I’d pay $15 for a dozen wings and all you can drink swill for 3 hours.
Nothing new under the sun. Me and my friends were like that 30 something years ago.
One cannot separate the tool from the use. Of course, you are right, though. Technology has done two things: it has eradicated communities by making communities less economically valuable, and it provides a superficial alternative.
But the end result is that people become effectively hooked on using the device. The device is nothing without what is happening on it, but it cannot be deconstructed and separated either into a social component and the technology itself because it is more than the sum of its parts.
So... Maybe in some way one could argue that social media gives some sort of connection were you get some feelings from what others are doing/showing. I mean, technologically it's quite a leap, but in a conceptual way... it's still a bit of a leap but maybe not that big.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_%28Star_Trek:_The_Nex...
Aside - I just learned a month ago that there's an official followup miniseries that brought back several of the original actors, titled "Echoes", with hopefully more coming since it's called Season 1. Came out over 2022-2023: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHGrvCp5nsDJ1qSoKZEmm... (the trailers are at the bottom of the playlist)
With Ralph Fiennes. I think that, although strange, it's actually an underrated movie.
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More seriously, I think there's ample historical evidence that drugs (with a liberal definition, beer, etc) are very popular across various times and places.
Because "addiction" is a very loaded term (with a specific clinical definition when it's not being used colloquially), and the sources you cited used "attachment" instead.
In short, many addictive substances create a chemical dependence that often has awful, even potentially fatal chemical withdrawal symptoms. Behavioral addictions don't cause this, which makes people assume they are entirely something different, and categorically less serious and damaging.
This is wrong- because those withdrawal symptoms, while they do make it harder to quit by making going cold turkey difficult and sometimes impossible, they are not the underlying reason why these drugs are being abused in the first place, nor the reason they destroy peoples lives. The reason is that they stimulate the reward system and/or allow one to escape negative emotions and trauma. Behavioral addictions also do that, and can just as easily ruin ones life, by completely overcoming someones mind and will, such that they no longer are able to live their life, and are unable to escape or quit with willpower, just as much so as with drugs that cause withdrawal. They can still completely ruin your life and drive you to suicide, etc.
Moreover, people also often emphasize that many addictive substances can directly cause serious health problems, or even death. This is also not central to their harmfulness, nor always the case. In fact, for a drug to have substantial abuse potential it must be relatively free from serious adverse health effects, at least in the short term, or else it would become impossible to abuse- the most damaging substances are the ones where people can take higher doses for longer with less adverse effects, because this more strongly emphasizes its ability to be used to strongly stimulate the reward system and escape negative emotions and trauma for longer periods of time - cementing the addiction-, without causing a new negative experience on its own. Methamphetamine for example is unique among stimulants in how benign it is- allowing people to take massive doses over really long periods of time, and not face immediate health issues. Counter-intuitively, this is actually what makes it have so much abuse potential and cause so much harm, compared to other stimulants which quickly make you sick or feel awful at high doses. From this perspective, you can see that the fact that behavioral addictions are also able to be repeated in "large doses" for long periods of time without immediate short term health consequences can make them have a high potential for harm in the long term.
Absolutely yes: the dopamine circuit.
Audio-visual stimuli from screens and speakers has never been shown to be able to have the same effects as a dopaminergic drug which is to say, completely turning up incentive salience regardless of reward or lack of it. That is why drugs are dangerous.
Technology can only be habit forming (in some contexts, maybe) if it continues to be rewarding in some way. Psychological dependence, maybe, but never addiction, and not even physiological dependence. Addictive drugs do not have to be rewarding or pleasurable. They just hijack wanting.
They are not the same and definitely should not be legislated the same. Enjoying something that is actually fun is not the same as wanting something because it chemically turned on wanting.
The next generation weren't interested in facebook, because "that's what moms use" and figured out something different.
As to drugs, now many are legal, so parents can now partake in what used to be illegal for them. Or for harder drugs, "Uncle Bob does drugs, and he's always in trouble".
So one generation of parents acts as a negative example for the next generation to reject.
I’ve seen kids not even 3-4 years old already hooked to smartphone screens. Even toddlers around 1 year old with an smartphone mount in their stroller.
Main impact on kids is lack of socialization, lack of emotional regulation and a complete impact on their capabilities to keep their attention. Those used to be indicators for a future failed adulthood.
I remember traditional drugs only becoming present around 14-16 years old. Alcohol was probably the most prevalent, and probably the most dangerous. Followed by Cannabis, tobacco and some recreational drugs like MDMA.
Most of those drugs had a component that actually pushed kids heavily towards socialization and forming peer groups. Now looking back to the results of that drug consumption I would say that most of the individuals engaging on them were able to regulate and continue to what it seems to be a very normal adult life. Obviously tobacco with terrible potential future health effects, but beyond that, everyone I know turned up pretty healthy. Not only that, I remember some time later that the most experimental group (mdma, LSD, mushrooms) of drug users being full of people with Master Degrees and PhDs.
The new technological drugs scare me way more than the old traditional ones. Obviously it is a normal response of the known va unknown. Time will tell.
I can’t find it right now but I read a great comment on legalization that pointed out that a kid experimenting with weed and cocaine in college is doing so for a radically different reason than a kid doing it escape the daily misery of his ghetto neighborhood.
This is also why you’ll often see staunch opposition to legalization in the lower socio-economic classes, with them having seen people close to them destroyed by drug use.
And yes, legalization and regulation would of course also allow harm reduction. But it is good to be able to take the opposition’s perspective :)
Counterargument: a "very normal adult life" in our generations treats alcohol as basically mandatory for having a good time with a group. As someone who doesn't drink, I'm perfectly happy to go to parties and hang out and socialize, but as the night wears on it becomes less and less stimulating as the alcohol kicks in. People get less interesting on drugs, but they perceive themselves to be having more fun. It's a crutch.
Now, maybe having a social crutch like alcohol is better than having a drug which encourages disappearing from the physical social world entirely, but our generation's answer was hardly healthy.
1) They can be socially isolated in ways that few children are. An unsupervised septuagenarian can go literal days without speaking to another live human being.
2) They’re more technologically competent than we give them credit for, certainly enough to spend days doomscrolling their politically aligned newsfeeds of choice. The generation who thought their CD-ROM drives were cupholders passed quite some time ago.
3) They have an outsized influence on politics. Not only do they vote more than any other demographic in the US, they are the most likely to turn up and harangue your city council or school board meeting.
Of course, nothing new under the sun, their parents’ generation was mainlining cable news and AM talk radio 20-30 years ago.
Now imagine that they would not be engaging with silly YouTube videos, but with an AI trying to get them to interact with them in order to learn to speak, to learn about the world. Things which parents can't dedicate enough time to. Then also give the kids ideas for what to do with the parents, what to talk about, tease them about science and stuff they'd normally have no access to, because it is information mostly hidden in books or in an inaccessible format, like dedicated to students.
I do see a huge potential in this, call it cheaply a "nanny for the brain", to help develop it better and faster. There are certainly risks to it, but if it were well done, in a way in which we assume universities are "places well done", it could be better than just having the kids watching TV.
I particularly worry about men. The greater cultural and possibly (more controversial) biological susceptibility to isolation coupled with this stuff means a generation of young men who are isolated, hopeless, poor, lonely, and sexless.
Then we have a culture that, depending on which side you listen to, either shames them as potential rapists from the patriarchy or simply “losers.” (IMHO the “woke” shaming is just code for loser, as I have heard said in private.) They are neither. They are victims of exploitation, of a nearly exact analog to the Matrix that is destroying their minds.
I speak mostly of social media and addiction optimized gaming, not all tech. The problem is the apps not the phone. Really anything that works very hard to “maximize engagement” should be considered guilty unless proven innocent. This phrase is code for addiction.
As we have seen the gurus that appeal to such men are the likes of Andrew Tate. As awful as he is Jordan Peterson is actually among the less toxic of the crew since he does occasionally say something good.
In the future we could have gurus for hordes of lonely poor men that make Tate look helpful and wise. This is how we either LARP the Handmaid’s Tale or — worse — ISIS or the Khmer Rouge.
I have two daughters and I fear for their safety in a country full of fascism radicalized angry emotionally stunted men who have been told they are losers and then handed pitchforks.
Our industry is the industry making the opium to which these youth are addicted and that is destroying them. We are destroying the minds of a generation every time any B2C app tries to optimize its time on app KPI.
Mothers and fathers of boys: raise your sons or Andrew Tate will.
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An astounding book.
Technology certainly is the economic sector that we privilege against all criticism of the harm it does to young people, to voting adults, to information quality, to public discourse, and to democracy itself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TekWar
No, scrolling on a website is not the same as doing lines of coke in the club bathroom.
Depression, suicide, and other serious mental health disorders are strongly linked with social media use. Is that better than more kids drinking and smoking pot? I don't know, it's complicated. It's certainly not clearly better and might be significantly worse.
Hand waving away these costs is putting on some seriously rose colored glasses.
Only if you value your time at exactly zero.
> The worst that can happen is you'll feel sad if people bully you online, but that's the fault of people, not the technology.
By that logic it’s also your body’s fault to react poorly to drugs, not the drugs’.
Thinking of it in terms of “fault” is also not very productive. I’d say it’s definitely a (possible) negative consequence of social media usage that might otherwise not have happened, and as such worth studying.
Creating a new addiction to replace the last generation’s isn’t really something to be proud of. As developers, we should be aiming to create ways to communicate that aren’t addictive and facilitate genuine connection with others that includes their highs, the lows, and financial/socioeconomic transparency.
I can say with some amount of confidence that the number of people wasting their talent and life in making up bullshit engagement algorithms, who thought about it as a way of getting people away from drugs, has been exactly zero. So, it is definitely not something to be proud of, but maybe something to think of as a funny coincidence, provided that the premise actually holds.
> The worst that can happen is ...
That you'll remain or become an idiot, or suffer physically and mentally as a result of being inactive while consuming the garbage your proud tech workers shove down your head.
If anything, buckle up. Going surfing every day or crotchet may become a perfectly legitimate life aspiration.
Animals could say precisely the same thing about living in a zoo!
(1) Who determines the allocation of resources in your utopia? How do you handle an ever increasing population that depends on the biosphere which itself is the only source of raw materials and energy for the incredible amount of energy required for it?
(2) People need a purpose. Most people will find a life of really doing nothing quite boring. Like it or not, people want some control over their destiny, and not to be animals in a cage.
(3) If people really don't need each other, what will happen to the social fabric? If AI can really do everything for us, then what is to stop some people from killing all the rest and taking everything for themselves? We have only relative morals that function when they are necessary, and some people not even that.
[1] Hertlein, Katherine M., and Markie LC Twist. "Attachment to technology: The missing link." Journal of Couple & Relationship Therapy 17.1 (2018): 2-6.
The same tech completely disrupts how drug-use spreads as well. There is nobody to offer a first hit if you're hanging out online.
---
Though I would caution taking tech as _the_ cause. Things like demographics and the general zeitgeist shouldn't be ignored.
Maybe the kids are really into DARE.
Silk Road/etc.?
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It's along the lines of your theory, the internet is filling in a base need for a segment of society that's always been there.
Expands horizons, connects self to world, catalyzes cults and psychoses.
Technological media is definitely like a drug in many cases. Not all or for all people but often. It also lets others influence your mind for selfish reasons. Between the two, it’s a good idea to both be selective and limit it.
Also, you typically need to be unsupervised with friends to get into drugs, something teenagers no longer have access to compared to 10-15 years ago. If we look at the social decline due to the pandemic, what made experts think these kids would bounce back? They are forever changed, and will forever be less social than other generations because they missed out on formative experiences.
Perhaps the generalized fear is not so much about "coddling", but concrete realities. I do not envy them.
[0] https://www.axios.com/2023/11/20/american-housing-market-old... [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/04/20/how-the-a... [2] https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-co... [3] https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/brief/how-does-medical-i...
Every generation has challenges and benefits. Framing the narrative can happen in any direction and the variance in group is bigger than the variance between.
[0] https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2024/09/05/how-gen-z-outpaces-past-...
[1] https://www.americanprogress.org/article/americans-wages-are...
[2] https://www.protectedincome.org/news/labor-day-peak-65-trade...
[3] https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-spe...
[1] https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/why-i-dont-inv...
This is basically a law of nature. Anything that's done by humans and can't be scaled will necessarily get more expensive in real terms over time. See: Baumol effect.
I wonder how the economics stack up, because intoxicants aren't free. If the researchers are saying there's X less drug use, then presumably that either implies (a) teenagers are now spending X more on other areas instead (and what are they?), or (b) teenagers now have X less money.
The only generation I can think of without a similar formative crisis (in the US at least) is Gen X. Does the death of Kurt Cobain count?
As to why I choose to abstain, I honestly am just not interested in drinking or doing drugs. I don't see any benefit to it socially, since I have more fun with my friends doing things while they are sober, and I don't want to be one of those adults that can't socialize without it. Also, the consequences for getting caught are high.
Could it be that, kids are doing less drugs because they’re more informed, less bored, and less reckless than previous generations?
We all aspire that our kids will do better than we have. We did our best to instill a sense of confidence and worth in them.
What if it is finally starting to just, f’ing work?
(He has no desire to start drinking etc early or at all at this point.)
Long term health impacts are high, as someone in my 50s I'm certainly doing better for my choice. And yes, not making stupid decisions under influence also cannot be underestimated.
But high schoolers I know today seem more even keeled about things. They are graduating into a world where fast food jobs start at $17, no one needs to go to college if they don't want to, and they are accustomed to a world where everything is temporary and digital.
I think the strongest evidence of this is the sharp decline in military recruitment.
A fast food job might be $17/hr, but the cost of gas is >2x what it was when that same job paid $8/hr, not to mention other basic costs like groceries, rent, and buckle up if you have to go to the doctor. Pay has simply not kept up with the cost of living for most Americans.
Why would anyone be happy that everything is ephemeral? That implies a lack of stability, more anxiety about the future, less confidence that you can weather bad times.
Humans are tactile creatures, everything being digital leads to a counter-intuitive sense of isolation - more connected, but less personal. There are positives too, but as an older Millennial, it has been interesting to be along for the ride as the potential of the internet and social media went from a superpower, to kryptonite. Who knows where things will be in 5-10 years, but it's hard not to see how some of our greatest tools are being turned against us in the search for more profit.
Millennials are, if anything, brutally realistic - a trait required to navigate the last 16 years. We were forced to watch as the last bit of life in the idea of a strong middle class was snuffed out, and had to enter the workforce right as the GFC hit. Our parents were the last generation where one could reasonably expect to live a life that truly lived up to the ideal of the American Dream - that one could get educated, get a job, buy a decent house and raise a family, without it being especially noteworthy to do so. For many Millennials, if not every generation following, it is essentially nothing more than a dream at this point. Corporate greed, and a government fully captured by it, has all but killed the middle class, and I fully expect that the advent of AI - rather than being a boon for the middle class - will drive a nail in its coffin. Those with the most to gain are already on top, and I've already heard way more people here talk about what they'll be able to do without needing to hire anyone, than I have about how the people left jobless will benefit. It is readily apparent that nobody with any power is going to do anything about it before a significant amount of suffering is felt - maybe not even then. All you have to do is listen to how people talk about it, as if everyone will magically figure out something else to do when every sector starts losing jobs simultaneously. Our society has a greater chance of eating itself alive first.
I consider myself lucky amongst most Millennials - I entered the workforce before the GFC, then joined the military shortly after it (not due to the GFC, but the timing worked out). I was able to get far enough along in my career in those first years though that I never had to struggle with finding a job like many did. I was able to get a house in my 30s thanks to the GI bill. Very few of those I grew up with are in the same boat, many are living much the same as they were 15 years ago - unable to save enough to buy a house, facing reduced job prospects in the future. What reason do they have to be anything _but_ pessimistic?
For me personally, I think we've simply lost the battle against greed, and there is a tipping point after which reigning it back in is impossible without burning it all down. That's something nobody should want, least of all the rich, but it's played out many times in history, and we keep falling into the same trap, just different ways. I think this time it probably was Citizens United where we lost our grip, that decision made it inevitable that corporate interests would be the driving force of government, not the needs of its people. Who can say for sure what will happen, but we're all along for the ride regardless.
I dont have a clue what your upbringing looked like, but even up to around age of 25, I never ever expected nor was told to expect any of that. The success despite all that is much sweeter.
Maybe thats some US thing, being raised in eastern Europe you were born to shit, you were considered insignificant shit and that was about it. Thats what being occupied for 4 decades by russians causes to society, on top of other bad stuff they are so natural with.
Maybe stop telling kids how they are all special and great and all will be astronauts and let them figure it all out by themselves? Teenagers being frustrated that they wont be owning some posh expensive house, thats pretty fucked up upbringing and life goals to be polite, thats not success in life in any meaningful way.
I recommend checking biggest regrets of dying people, focus on careers and money hoarding are consistently at the top.
Posh expensive house? Nowhere was that mentioned.
The post-WWII 20th century American social contract was: "You will have the ability to get married, live in a modest home of your own, own a car, raise 2-3 young children, and go on a modest annual vacation even if you work in a factory".
At least when I was that age, it was usually the low income people who's greatest achievement in life would be avoiding prison, who usually turned towards smoking, alcohol, drugs and sex. See "Common People" and similar 80s/90s Britpop songs.
What changed?
I grew up in a lower middle class family, and for me the feeling that I could end up like that - as many people I went to school with did - was what pushed me to achieve. My parents could only just afford their bills, so I didn't get any handouts from them. Of course I don't have a Lambo, so maybe I'm considered a failure by Gen Z? Has the boundary of what is considered "successful" shifted?
its just as easy to reach the exact opposite conclusion when everything is so hopeless and nihilistic. you are extrapolating way too much here.
less unsupervised time, location tracking from parents, unregulated dopamine from chatgroups and algorithms in public social media, and the risk of fentany and other poisons in drugs, are much better contributors to extrapolate from
There's a bigger cultural shift going on where people just don't like hanging out with each other anymore.
Gen-X felt the same way. The entire youth culture at the time was based around the vibe that the culture sucked and there wasn't a future worth having for younger people. Apathy was the youth cultural vibe of the day.
Then again with older millenials it happened with the great financial crisis. There was a widespread feeling of hopelessness about the future. Outsourcing and trade liberalization (the AI-like job crusher of that period) left the future job market uncertain.
I think what's new now is social media and persistent phones. If you're feeling anxiety about the future you don't escape into wild parties, you escape into your phone and videogames.
They don't? I'm pretty sure I saw unsupervised teens hanging out at a mall even just a few days ago.
It's much more about people ha ing less friends and socializing less
For me, drugs were:
- socialization. I met a lot of friends through alcohol & drugs and they became the social glue for my circle. Alcohol & drugs became a large part of my identity.
- a way to cope with boredom. Every day is a party when you're high.
- identity. In my generation, drugs were mostly cool and associated with iconoclasts, artists, etc.
Young people's culture changed. I don't think kids see alcohol, drugs and being out of control as cool anymore. I don't know specifically what changed this. Better social messaging, mass prescribing of ADHD meds, more competitive job markets.. Social media and multiplayer gaming have both ramped up competitive drives for what used to be more relaxing activities. Maybe the current optiate and meth epidemics are more effective as a warning than, say, the crack epidemic was for us?
Kids have tech to glue them together(poorly in many cases, but it does fill the niche). Kids have internet subcultures to define their cultures now. Alternative lifestyles are much more accessible and take much less risk to participate in vs my childhood in the 80s. You don't need drugs to meet people or forge common identities.
Kids are never bored anymore. I suspect there has never been a better time to be a kid in a boring small town. If you have bandwidth, you have culture. You have better shipping, home delivery, cheap imports, etc. Affluence seems more common than it used to be, even in our highly divided economy.
Just a personal anecdote, but there’s still a lot of house parties and stuff going on, and most people will have a couple drinks, some will have none, etc. But you are absolutely expected to handle yourself appropriately, getting too drunk or taking drugs you couldn’t handle isn’t tolerated and you’ll find yourself uninvited to future events. It is significantly more socially acceptable to drink no alcohol and take no drugs, than it is to get too drunk and act inappropriately.
From what I’ve seen, this is partly a function of embedded social media. A drunk night at a friend’s isn’t just a bad decision, it reflects poorly on everyone in the room, including the host, in a semi-permanent and semi-public way.
I've interacted with a number of Gen Zers in their 20s and Millenials in their early 30s, some in passing and some on a more regular basis. In my experience that cohort spans the gamut. Some are teetotalers, sure. Most use drugs (cocaine, ketamine, assorted off-label prescription stuff, marijuana, etc.) at least occasionally, some daily. It really doesn't seem all that different from when I was their age. Excluding peer pressure, most of the societal ills that drove my peers to experiment with drugs still apply. Conversely I've seen a lot of my peers start to dial back drug and alcohol use as they get older.
The more i read about GenZ’rs and their attitude to work and life the more i like this generation.
Yes, people should be expected to handle themselves appropriately. Getting black-out wasted with alcohol is not cool. It’s just unhealthy. Way to go!
I'm curious what GenZ+ thinks about the movie "The Boys & Girls Guide to Getting Down" which is a tongue-in-cheek, funny look at mid 00's partying culture in LA. That's not really my generation, but is a bit of a window into what I think was the last generation to really embrace intoxication.
Completely non-gen-z way to behave, I suppose.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitki
Here's a 2018 study following kids into adulthood and questioning them on their substance abuse: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5985671/
My brother is one of those really bad cases, while I got my diagnosis just recently; never had more than a slight drinking problem which has almost disappeared since the I started taking medication.
One of the reasons is - it has become too difficult and costly (at least where I live). Even for weed, which was pretty much kosher unless you were caught by the police keeping KGs on your person or home, it has become too difficult to procure and not get caught. That could be a reason.
In many places where weed is available like cigarettes - maybe it’s not the forbidden fruit anymore. That danger or aura of different is gone with it.
I met so many people only through smoking weed. And because weed is such a laid back drug, we were all laid back and friendly with each other.
What I learned to hate over the years was that daily routine of finding something to smoke. We had our dealers we phoned up or sometimes we would deal ourselves to finance our consumption.
Dealing drugs was another level though. Hostilities arose. Some people claimed turf and threatened others with violence, those were "miraculously" found by the police and landed in jail. Also dealers that scammed others. The scene had a way to police themselves. Those were the good years.
Later the quality became worse and the quantity as well. It was no longer... how should I put it,... fun and games but people discovered it as a source of making profit. Even friends or people you considered friends would try to scam you and you weren't any different. That time began approximately when the Afghanistan wars began and the CIA was cut off from the cannabis sources.
It was like this, we would smoke weed in the summer and black afghan in winter. The black afghan fell off. What remained was green hash from the turks and weed, which was stretched with hairspray and silica sand.
I quit doing ganja, also because I hated being stoned all day every day and having to do the daily finding weed routine. I was so tired of it, also "what am I doing with my life".
I lost most "friends", I had to, to not be exposed to this crap on a daily basis. I wanted to get somewhere in life not just consume weed all day and be a loser who got nothing done. Better late than never.
I very rarely do resin nowadays, not by smoking but orally, and it's like once a year or every 2 years. Cannabis is definitely good for your health, if not overdone.
https://wisqars.cdc.gov/fatal-injury-trends/
That chart shows the rate has hovered around 4000 per month for years. That's 4000 too many, but at least it's not increasing.
Since the spread of social media, suicide rates are up for children, significantly: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db471.pdf
> The suicide rate for people aged 15–19 did not change significantly from 2001 through 2009, then increased 57% from 2009 through 2017
> For people aged 10–14, the suicide rate tripled from 2007 through 2018
Peak social media?
Nor are people in their 20s (that is, both groups are having much less sex). That is the most worrying thing to me. People are not even engaging in the most fundamental, unavoidable, pleasurable human drive.
They seem very much like traumatized people, on a massive scale, just trying to survive.
Many people just get hungry and inhale the most convenient thing they can to scratch the hunger itch. McDonald's is always busy. People would be there on Christmas day if it was open. These people aren't into food as pleasure, they just don't want to be hungry. Of course with meal replacements bottles etc McDonald's isn't even the bottom of that particular barrel.
It's the same with sex. I've met people who define themselves by their sexuality. They consider it a primary pursuit in life. But for others it's just scratching an itch. I've realised I'm basically that way. It doesn't mean that much to me, it's just something my body makes me do. Porn is now everywhere and more easily accessible than drugs. People are now able to reach for McDonald's or the meal replacement, but for sex.
Every few years I like to leave the world for a bit and do something else to reset a bit. For example I just finished walking 779km on the Camino in Spain.
What you said is essentially true for the vast majority of people in our modern world. What we have built is terrible for us, and we’re all suffering and very sick.
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If you have kids, do you see them as less mature than how you perceived yourself at their age ?
TBH I feel the opposite: current kids have a lot more to deal with, and are expected to be much much more down to earth than a few decades ago. The most basic things: a single post on an SNS can stick with them for the rest of their life, yet we moved half of our social life online.
That was back in the 50's/60's I think he was spot on why this generation can't see past the last scroll or click. They don't have perspective because they have not been bred to have it. It's very sad.
Did 'bred' once include upbringing? I thought it began and ended with mate selection, pairing, and procreation.
One angle that hasn't been researched enough is the link to anti-anxiety and anti-depression medication. These has been a significant rise in the prescription of both to young adults: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/anxiety-prescripti...
And on these medications there are often severe interactions with alcohol and drugs which would be enough to frighten off most people. Some e.g. bupropion even reduce addictive tendencies entirely.
My kids are not on social media. They eat like pro athletes. They ask me why I'm eating things with higher amounts of sugar or ultra-processed foods. They do an hour of gym class at school every weekday and then they want to do sports every night of the week and on the weekend. They do their homework and get straight As. They are concerned about bullying and suicide -- they talk to each other, even siblings, in a healthy and caring way.
My oldest couldn't understand why people drink alcohol if it's bad for you. I explained that some people like the way it makes them feel, "So what? It's bad for you. Why would anyone do that to their body?" They couldn't understand why I bought a gas guzzling luxury sports car instead of an electric car given the state of the environment (I've wanted one my whole life and I could finally afford one, yes it's selfish and they are more ethical than I am).
There are definitely a bunch of things going on with Gen Z and Alpha that have made (some of) them this way. But one of the results is that they're not interested in a lot of unhealthy things simply because they know they're unhealthy. They can't understand why we do things that we know are bad for us, the environment, etc. and they're probably right.
They're not perfect, but I do have faith in the next generation and we're going to see some amazing leaders come out of this group.
To expand on this point: American kids today are facing a world that’s drawn up the ladder behind them economically, and their only hope of escaping the pit of despair is to work themselves to the bone for the dregs of pay available to them. Unhealthy habits cost precious wage-earning time. Their intoxicant of choice is prescription medications because they’re covered by insurance, and that’s largely kept things from boiling over into harming the ascended old people — until recently, anyways.
> I do have faith in the next generation and we’re going to see some amazing leaders come out of this group.
Not if today’s leaders have anything to say about it. What leadership arises is, to date, captured by the pre-existing social structures and has had no power to keep the ever-older graying generations from holding the reins away from them. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when public health insurance is taken away, as withdrawing the last of the price-accessible drugs will certainly put their skills to the test.
I remain hopeful for the outcome, but the circumstances are already set in the recent past. What a time to be a social scientist, though!
I would further postulate that your parenthood community is more affluent than your childhood community.
My point being: the lifestyle you describe (and its offset from the median) has "always" (post-war at least) been common in "nice" places. But nice places are unusual.
Your kids are big outliers then. I wouldn't extrapolate to the general young population.
People aren't robots, or we would be living in a sad world
What did you do to make them behave like that ? That's uncommon, at least in occidental society. Closer to what the CCP does.
Pre-social media, you could get drunk and embarrass yourself, and forget about it by the next day. Now everything is recorded. Information about alcoholism is easier to come by, and there are influencers like worldoftshirts who show people what life as an alcoholic is like. I don't see how anyone could want a drink after watching content like that. Smoking weed in front of a camera doesn't seem as edgy as it used to now that it's legal. Having red eyes in a photo is annoying. Vaping has always had a cringe factor.
All of this tech is giving us the ability to look in the mirror and see what we're doing to ourselves.
I wonder if there is correlation to the opioid crisis, where the "downsides" (if you want to call it that) of drug abuse are so visible to teenagers that they are staying away from it. Doing drugs when it's associated with being "cool"/interesting like rappers is one thing, but when you associate it to fentanyl zombies living in the streets it loses a lot of its glamour.
I was not able to find the regional breakdown so it's just a conjecture though.
I wonder if that impacts teen drug use too, because for the first time opponents have a tangible risk to point to instead of just a dumb frying pan commercial and fearmongering.
My personality has changed a little, but I'd still probably jump at it today, if it weren't for the fear of fentanyl. I'm not worried about addiction, I'm worried about death.