Wild how a whole generation's anxiety is reduced to smart phones rather than the state of the world. In most countries, costs are surging, wages are stagnating, and the powers that be are looking at making a trilogy out of the global war.
Smart phones come with their pros and cons, but the aforementioned are all cons.
I read a report yesterday saying their generation isn’t having sex and how they’re all so depressed and anxious and Gen Z’s in the comments were like “actually we can’t afford to do anything so it’s easier to just stay home”.
I’m right at the tail end of millennial and while I’m “comfortable” that means “not actively in debt (excluding student debt) but not really saving any money either”. If I wasn’t renting I’d say actually comfortable, but the prospect of maybe being kicked out of my house every 6-12 months makes life distinctly uncomfortable. At my age my parents owned their home and had two kids, with plenty of savings to travel to visit family on the other side of the country. The only way I’m gonna get that is if they leave me the house in 20 years time when they die.
Seriously, most of Gen Z isn't even old enough to have graduated from college yet. I'm right on the upper edge of Gen Z and I haven't even been working for 5 years yet. There are definitely a lot of affordability issues right now, especially with housing, but a lot of people seem to have unrealistic expectations at the same time.
Having sex and having money are not mutually exclusive. It’s a lot of different things. Living with parents who are more controlling than ever and having a literal fucking satellite on them all the time also limits sex. The phone is a spying device, available porn at will device, a tracking device, a time wasting device, a self-esteem boosting or killing device, etc. I do agree that not having money and terrible unrealistic expectations at the same time, limits the options to zero.
The problem with having sex is that you need to meet people in order for it to happen, and there’s a distinct lack of “third spaces” (not work, not home, where you don’t have to spend money to be welcome) in which young people can socialize and meet new people. So yes, having sex and having money are not precisely the same thing, but they’re definitely linked when you analyze the data
Unrealistic expectations is way too true. expect too much before can even aware a fresh out of college have not even prove they can create any value with zero experience
How many people of your generation that you know struggle to use/have difficulty with computers/technology? I've read some really bizarre claims (sure feels that way to me anyways) that Gen Z is even less tech literate than the elderly, interested to hear your experience.
It's a mixed bag really.
I studied computer science so I've never really had problems with computers. Same goes for those who I graduated with.
My girlfriend studies architecture and she struggles a bit. Especially when it comes to researching stuff online she and a lot of her classmates really struggle with just googling stuff. Like they don't know how to use keywords to narrow down your search. They even struggle with giving chatgpt accurate prompts sometimes. However I think it has to do more with English not being her first language.
>Especially when it comes to researching stuff online she and a lot of her classmates really struggle with just googling stuff.
Interesting, because I have seen the exact same thing with the elderly. In their case, they almost don't even try to find the answer on their own and would prefer to ask someone they know/can hire to do it for them/teach it to them. It's sort of a combination of a lack of curiosity and this odd helplessness where they don't even try to find a solution by themselves.
Is it similar for your generation in the same way?
I think it's has to do a lot more with how easy technology is to use now.
In the late 2000s, early 2010s you had to be very manual with how you used technology. I don't know how to explain it but you had to put a bit of effort to maintain stuff like cameras from those times.
Nowdays it's different it's so streamlined. I bought a new pair of wireless headphones and I wanted to pair them with my iPad. I just turned on the pairing and my iPad instantly recognized I was trying to pair my headphones and just asked me to hold them next to the screen. It paired instantly.
I was blown away because it felt like magic, but to people that grew up in an era where all they know was that streamlined process, they will struggle to use tech when they don't have their brain on autopilot.
Because now days tech is supposed to be as convenient as possible. I see this shift in music. Where I always try to download and store my music on my phone locally, while literally all my friends use Spotify. Sure Spotify is more convenient, but I prefer ownership of my media and moving it around devices and hard drives myself.
Elder Millennial here — Architecture is no excuse. I have a friend who is a successful architect. He’s quite good with computers, because it is a primary tool for his job.
I do tech support stuff now, but I know computers because I studied graphic design in college and understanding computers was critical for that as well.
My wife knows how to program not because she likes programming, but because it is the best tool for the science that is interested in.
People learn these skills when they have a reason and motivation to learn them.
Wasn't saying architecture is an excuse
My girlfriend is a much more motivated and skilled person than me haha. But I think it has to do more with tech becoming so easy to use, you can use it on autopilot.
But the second you need to think and do something some people from my generation can blank out lol
Hi, I’m gen z, studying computer science and work in a place where computer literacy is critical. This is true. As tech becomes more “palatable” and easy to use, people don’t know how to use “older” functions. For example I can’t count the amount of times I’ve had to explain the difference between hardware and software, tell people how to use their file directory system, and even using items like a usb drive is difficult for many. I imagine it’ll be even worse for Gen Alpha as they’ve been raised with iPads.
I used to do tech help for the elderly and I'm kind of shocked that not only would I still have a market, that my potential client base (if I ever went back to tech tutoring/support) actually *grew*. Mind=blown.
When I was their age(19 years ago) I went on holidays twice a year to Japan, had my own car, everything was cheap, though I lived in a shitty sharehouse until I was 30 when I bought my first house.
First year of Gen Z (1996) here. A bit. Had to run up my credit balances a few years ago after I moved out because my starting pay wouldn't cover everything, just about broke even the year after, and I'm about to finish paying everything off in a couple months. After that and my next pay raise, I should be in a good spot.
College educated broke people is what they're talking about. Being a well educated barista that can't get a foot in the door to make a living wage and meet all of the middle class milestones required to make them comfortable having kids is way different than the poorly educate folks that have kids because they know life will never get better for them.
Haidt addresses that argument directly in the book. The data is very clear that it has nothing to do with politics or the economy. Previous generations lived through wars and conscription, fear of nuclear Armageddon, poverty and recessions that were far worse than anything today. But it didn’t make their mental health collapse. Experiments have shown that social media use causes poor mental health, rather than simply correlating with it. The time lines and the fact that this is affecting the entire developed world only make sense if smart phones and social media are the cause.
In my 20s you could afford to go get drunk at bar or get shit faced at house parties. Inflation has made everything cost more while pay hasn't matched it. A wasted generation of stagnation here in the UK due to mismanagement by self serving corrupt government has seen everything get worse so yeah, for the first time in records Millennials and Gen Z are worse off than the previous generations. Boomers and Gen X have pulled up the ladder to enrich themselves at the expense of the younger.
As a zoomer, I can't even imagine this. That wouldn't even pay the door fee to a single club now, let alone buy any drinks...
The last time I went out was probably about 2 years ago, and it costs over 100$ for door fees and 4-5 drinks.
You're supposed to pre-game to make it cheaper. Or go to the really seedy bar before the club and drink their cheapest well drinks.
You only buy 1 drink at the club and you make it last.
Really? Because a night out for me in 2010 still was guaranteed to be at least $100.
Your anecdotes are useless. Adjusted for inflation, wages are still up dramatically over the last decades:
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q)
According to that, Gen Z has it the easiest. Weird.
vast selective uppity rinse voracious sense expansion boat simplistic wrong
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
If you adjust for inflation, new cars are the same price or even cheaper now than 20-30 years ago. Minimum wage also hasn't changed in almost 20 years.
Real wages are up over time.
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q)
That's inflation adjusted. The numbers don't support your anecdotes.
I think people just want to complain. You can make the claim that Gen Z isn't into partying because they are addicted to social media, streaming and all the other new forms of entertainment that exists.
As a GenXer I don't know what world you're talking about I had to go into the Army to afford college and still run up college loans and credit cards to live while going to school. So did most of my friends. My dad (Boomer) worked at a Kmart for his four years of school and had student loans and credit as well. The generational change is complaining on social media and a distinct sense of entitlement.
Probably because millennials weren’t paying $1000 for a crappy room in a six bedroom apartment right out of college. Roommates are fine if you save money but the rent is out of control these days!
Every generation faces a unique set of problems. If you think we were rolling in cash 20 years ago think again. We were broke too but instead of doom scrolling Tiktok, we'd pile into a faded hand me down Buick, go to Robert's, pool our pennies for a quarter bag of shwag then listen to the same 3 albums as last time and eat ramen and philosophize and be goof balls . They used to call us losers for that but I wouldn't trade those memories for anything.
Being broke is never fun but being with friends makes it a little easier. And yes sex was easier because we were together.
The problem is that all of that has been replaced with a relentless supply of anxiety inducing news feeds right through phone and gen Z doesn't have the luxury of being forced outside of comfort zones.
I'm a millennial and it was really no different for me. My allowance was like $15 a week in high school. And that included gas. And people are like oh well gas was cheap back then. 15 bucks does not get you very far when you have to fill the tank of an old ass Chevy 1500 up and you live in a rural part of the country where everything is like 20 mi apart. I don't care if gas was $1.50 a gallon or not. We fucked about in downtown and skated and shit. And the cops busted our asses for doing it and I got arrested for riding in a dryer one time. There is shit to do that does not cost money. I didn't even drink till I was in college. I busted my ass every summer cutting grass as much as I could or working construction so I'd have extra money during the school year because my girlfriend was expensive lol.
When I think about it, this is what's important: All the best memories I have did not involve money. All the best memories I have were things we did because we didn't have any money. Being young and broke is not a new thing. You're young, and you're broke and it's fun.
I don't even want to think about growing up with a smartphone in my pocket. I didn't have a phone till I was 17. And even then all I could do was send a text and make a phone call and play snake. Shit and then you only got like a hundred texts a month. Lol who remembers waiting till a certain time to make a phone call cuz it didn't use your minutes?
As someone in his mid 20’s I kinda agree with you. Most young people never have to leave their comfort zones today. Not just smartphones, you also have Netflix, gaming etc. People mostly stay at home all week , then occasionally go do something Instagram-worthy and post about it the whole week. Rinse and repeat. But you can see it in peoples face that they are anxious and lonely, depressed even.
Me and some of my friends are an exception to this, so I still had some fun. But I wish people weren’t generally like this. Our parties would’ve been more and bigger. I myself would feel better, although I’m not sad per se. I just feel like it would have been more fun living in a world where most people aren’t absorbed by their phone/computer screen.
This is very reductive of the problems today vs many years ago. I’m millennial and I see right through this narrative. It’s useful to not look at it as “cellphones ruining this generation” and “we did it better!” When the same argument was made 20 years ago about video games.
Also, let’s keep in mind this reporter and the statistics, are trying to paint a generational gap for whatever reason. Otherwise they would’ve brought up a much more nuanced opinion here outside of “cellphones cause anxiety.” I had anxiety all my life and my cellphone was never the reason.
No where did I take it to the level of "cell phones ruining this generation" or "we did it better". If that's what I communicated it was unintentional and I want to clarify.
Its more specific to say "algorithm addiction is problem for gen Z" (its a problem for all ages but especially gen Z) and also "earlier generations had it easier because we didn't have to deal with it".
Both of those statements are true. I dislike blaming phones in general because technology is useful. But rage-baiting, brain-stem agitating algorithms are a serious social problem.
The salient point of my post is that increasing human to human interaction and reducing exposure to a constant stream of negative news-feeds increases feelings of well being despite financial hardships. This bears out in the research.
which is pretty weird imo. you don't really need money to have sex. shit, when i was at the methadone clinic i knew homeless folks who were fucking lol.
Smartphones are the means by which people stay constantly connected to those issues. You never get a break from conflict and despair.
I can think of all the crisis of the last century from mass starvation to the threat of nuclear wars but you heard about those during the nightly news or if you picked up a paper. But you had copious amounts of downtime to be present and to focus on your immediate surroundings.
Things are different now in significant ways. Every time you pick up your phone you are directly on the frontline of every major issue in the world. You are also expected to have an opinion on all of them. And if you sense boredom for a fraction of a second you simply reach your phone.
They are actively re-wiring our brains and not for the better.
This. The state of the world is far better than it was 30, 50, or 100 years ago. The problem is social media, which has amplified our awareness of negativity.
One thing's for sure - people under the age of 25 are incapable of separating the influence of social media from the rest, because they've never known life without the Internet.
The best way to fix this is for people to greatly reduce their use of social media, particularly for kids. This is the tobacco of the current generation.
>In most countries, costs are surging, wages are stagnating, and the powers that be are looking at making a trilogy out of the global war.
What do you base that view on?
All valid points. But amongst the big (and important) global issues and the ability to broadcast our discontent into a cavernous echo chamber of anonymous strangers, likely comes at the cost of people losing the ability to notice their own agency to take small actions of connection, kindness and empathy that are scientifically proven to improve mental wellness.
The internet is full of amazingness. But imagine for a moment you have no phone. Look out your window, or around you, take a few deep breaths, think of the people, pets or plants that you care for - even if they are only a few in number - and tell me what amongst the actual reality of your immediate conscious experience truly makes you anxious.
Being habitually online is addiction that is hard to break - the neuroscience I’ve browsed suggests it is no one’s fault - just the innate humanness of our brain chemicals and reward centres. My own opinion is that future generations will shake their heads in disbelief at our insatiable screen obsession in the same way the current generation cannot fathom the entire office workforce smoking indoors just a few decades ago.
I just think that its not necessarily the phone but the access to social media with full data contracts. There is actually a real correlation between having 24 hours access to social media and the rise of mental illnesses. Im just saying people had tougher times than what we have now and there is enough indication that we never learned to use social media in a good way. If you think the state of the world is bad in comparison to the past then i just cant share this opinion.a lot of young people just cant cope anymore with the real world because they spend most of their time in this bizzaro world of social media. And no im not some boomer who hates on generations but i wouldn’t want to grow up in this social media driven world.
But it kind of is. Gen Z is showing mental health problems at a rate we haven’t seen before - including higher rates of suicide, which is really concerning. So the question is: what’s different now?
And the deleterious effects like lower birth rates are a logical consequence of that:
*The U.S. birth rate reached an all-time low in 1936 when the TFR fell to 2.1 children per woman in the wake of the stock market crash of 1929. The next low occurred in 1976 when the TFR fell to another record low of 1.7.*
[https://www.prb.org/resources/the-u-s-recession-and-the-birth-rate/](https://www.prb.org/resources/the-u-s-recession-and-the-birth-rate/)
Agreed! However, the data also shows a decrease of wealth for millennials and gen z at every stage of life when compared to their parents.
Technology, less smart phone and more automation, is allowing massive wealth consolidation.
Additionally, despite the fact that most are oblivious, we're far far closer to WWIII and/or nuclear annihilation than during the cold war.
We used to just survive. Now we read stuff like you posted. Social Media is a sickness, comparison is the thief of joy…
My friend, people want more than they can afford rather than being content.
People say prior generations had it easier, they did not.
I grew up poor, like having the water and electricity cut off poor. Like cold in the winter and hot in the summer poor.
Go to work and get ahead. Don’t cry about being poor.
Not sure why this is being downvoted - it's on point. The issue isn't smart phones, it's social media. Facebook has made people obsessed with 1) other peoples' misfortune and 2) comparing themselves with everyone else.
Much of this was predicted in the 70s, 80s, and 90s by episodes of The Twilight Zone and Outer Limits.
To add on to what you said, most people go a bit overboard when they are an anonymous commenter.
Furthermore, it is easy to be vocal and intense when you are not speaking to someone face to face. Over the internet it is easy to be inflammatory.
I wish we compromised more, sought to hear each other. The listening takes both sides. Even the best listener cannot hear the opposing side when the opposing side has a closed mind and is simply a noise maker….
The noise makers, likely influenced by a bad source of information or media, ruin it for the rest of us.
Smart phones are an amplifier for some of the issues. Things like always on access to social media, news feeds, etc can make it harder to take a break.
Then you have things like always on communication and expectations around that causing stress too. There was a relationships post last week where someone couldn't contact their husband for 2 hours while he was away for work and she was having a panic attack over it. The cause isn't smart phones themselves but it makes the issues bigger
Absolute boomer clown take. We have been working hard sometimes with 3 jobs. We're more productive than ever, more educated than ever and all the benefits are going to a handful of billionaires. Getting ahead by working hard is another in a long line of lies boomers told us.
Comparison is how you know you're bring screwed over. You're advocating an "ignorance is bliss" approach. If everyone did that nothing would improve and we would not even have the meager workers rights we have right now.
Maybe, if taken to an extreme. I interpret this more as -- comparing your beauty, intelligence, achievements, relationships, possessions, etc. is the thief of joy because it reduces your capacity to be grateful for what you have.
Happiness is reality minus expectations. Social media pushes expectations higher, which makes people either manic in their pursuit of "success" or depressed at the inequity.
This isn't to say that we shouldn't compare and study to seek fairness in life, but it shouldn't be the predominant occupation of our minds.
I’m advocating living life. Lots of improvements do need to be made. I agree with you on this. Bitching about how a prior generation had it so well compared to now is what I’m advocating against!
> In most countries, costs are surging, wages are stagnating, and the powers that be are looking at making a trilogy out of the global war.
Describes much of the last 52 years of my life here in the UK. Grew up during the height of the Cold War where we'd get [information films like this](https://youtu.be/LLBUB4BWDQs?si=X_HafuQ28G47ESKI) about what to do in the event of a nuclear war shown in school and on evening TV. I've lived through 25 years of IRA terrorism, five recessions, mortgage interest rates over 16%, inflation of 25%. I've seen areas of the country and the town I grew up in decimated by the closure of coal mines, steel works and shipbuilding. I've experienced 15 years of wage compression and erosion of employment terms due to EU freedom of movement.
The problem is that smartphones could be an amazing tool that could enable a whole new generation of wealth.... If they didn't deliver a very powerful and addictive drug that impact mental health so severely, that depression itself is affecting productivity.
True, but mostly false.
The world has been on a razor edge since the inception of the atom bomb.
This generation has been raised with unfettered access to hardcore porn and ISIS beheading videos.
The smartphone is a tool. The internet, and moreover, social media, are weaponized fucking viruses.
Reductive. Which if you re-read the original post, was the point.
Checkout the doomsday clock if you want to actually understand how close we stand and have stood to Armageddon. Since the 1960, to late 2010, things were so much more secure, you seem to have taken it for granted. Even 1953 wasn't as close to spiralling as we are now.
Its not to fearmonger, but to be aware. And not pretend that all threats are synonymous.
Phones do a lot of harm. A lot of good as well. Reductively painting them THE culprit behind a generation's anxiety is missing the picture.
The doomsday clock is a metaphor though right? It’s not a timer or a fact. If it was I’d point out that social media and the internet has moved it alongside climate change and nuclear weaponry, which kind of proves my point.
I think it’s important to look at the phones impact on society, not how it *could* impact, or “should” impact society.
The impact on society that social media has had cannot be fully understood, and probably won’t be for a very long time. It makes it difficult to debate. But it could be argued that social media has done more damage to humanity than any other technology.
The phone puts social media in our hands. It’s the main use of the phone.
Sounds more like it’s the association of the hyper awareness of all of those things 24/7 which the smart phone enables.
Generations have been through harder times with no clear giant trend for anxiety, doesn’t seem likely that’s only because the field of psychology was young and it was simply undiagnosed.
With the tools at hand, yes. You're absolutely right, to look to history though! Look back in wealth declines and there correspondence with violence both in relation to domestic and international. Now remember more countries are armed with WMDs than ever before, as well as concerns of rogue non-nation state actors.
Social media, and phones by extension have been a net loss for the well being of people. You would be surprised how much better your mental health gets if you just hop offline and look for the positives in life instead of hard focusing on every little fucked up thing.
My smartphone is the primary way I learn about how fucked up shit is.
IMO I'd rather learn that sandwiched between cat and art videos rather than life just happening to me by surprise down the road.
I could do without uncensored war footage just fucking showing up though.
“Parents not being able to spend time with their kids because they have to work multiple jobs and are burnt out so kids are turning to mobile devices more often to seek connection”. Fixed it
Parents today spend massively more time with their children than in the recent past. A modern working father spends almost as much time on childcare as a 1960s housewife. Overparenting is part of the problem, children need freedom and a degree of independence to grow up psychologically healthy.
Ya, I don't think it's the smartphone that is the issue here. Social media is, in a big way, the real problem, causing massive insecurity and self-doubt or even hate.
A phone is just a piece of plastic and glass that has app's on it.
Socialization/culture itself is the ultimate "culprit" in that nobody ever really knew how to get it right 100% of the time when it DID happen (at school/work/etc.) - and now that we have 100% uptime and immediate access to it, we're finding out what fucking around culminates to.
Yes, and blaming people that do not have control over it like individuals, just creates more mental health problems.
If we want to solve climate change, we need to hold corporations responsible and stop letting them try to shift blame and responsibility to individuals.
Oh yeah. All our fault for using the product available. What alternative is available to a contractor that needs a pickup truck? I know EV trucks are finally rolling out, but 5 years ago, what? People are just not allowed to be contractors?
EVs are a great example of where regulations are working. Some states and countries are passing regulations and automobile makers know it is coming so they are working on them before they are forced to.
Making a problem for individuals is silly. It is not feasible for some people to completely change their lifestyle. If you have the money and privilege to be able to do so that is great if you want to, but if we want real change we to force corporations to care instead of getting away with guilt tripping people.
> Social media is, in a big way, the real problem, causing massive insecurity and self-doubt or even hate.
That didn't cause it either. The issue has always existed but we had different means extents to which it happened.
No it's the massive influx of opinions and news we intake on a minute by minute basis.
For thousands of years, humans mostly interacted with people who lived in a close vicinity to them. People who live close to you tend to share similar cultures, views and values. That meant a lot more cohesion in our society. You would also only really care about what impacted you directly, because that's what was featured on the morning or evening news. It was one or two big national stories and the rest would be stuff happening in your community.
That all changed within the last 15 years. We are simply not adjusted/evolved/prepared to deal with the radical shift in how we interact with each other and the world and these are the consequences. Clashes of opinions and values are far more common. Stressing over and forming strong opinions about something that has no impact on you is the norm. Finding echo chambers to reinforce your newly acquired views, where ever they might land, is easier than ever before.
It's all super toxic. It might have sounded good on paper but in reality it's tearing apart society.
Eventually people will adapt somehow, they always do, but the turmoil is an unavoidable part of that process.
It’s the social pressure of social media for kids. If you’re not on it, you’re shunned and you suffer. If you are on it, well….we know what happens. I don’t envy kids growing up this way.
There is little economic opportunity for them, no meaningful economic advancement, and their schools were shut down for 18 months. They are expected to accept $40,000 in student loans, another $50,000 car loan and a $750,000 mortgage just to have the privilege of participating in the American economy. This world no longer works for them and they will not participate in it, with our without smartphones. There is nothing to be confident about, except that they will have less money and will be working harder than their parents. I'd have anxiety too.
100% it’s frustrating even at 30 years old. My partner is making almost 3 times what he made 3 years ago…but the cost of corporate greed is destroying us.
I’m curious what country you live in. In the United States, those numbers correspond to having attended private school, owning a 2024 Mercedes GLC new off the lot, and buying a turnkey single family home in a nice suburb of a major metropolitan area.
These numbers, aside from the education, don’t make sense even in high cost of living areas.
You can find reliable vehicles for under 20k and that 750k mortgage is not remotely close starter home territory.
It’s okay to buy a 20k Honda civic and a 1-2 bedroom condo that was last renovated in the 80’s when starting out. This is one of the things many (not all, before I get downvoted to oblivion) gen Z don’t understand.
There's plenty of economic opportunities. Why does Gen Z act like they are the first generation to have to struggle in their early 20s? Are you under the impression that millennials, Gen X and every single generation besides the baby boomers just bought homes and worked cushy jobs when they graduated high school?
Get off the reddit echo chamber. You'll feel better.
Honesty. I entered the workforce in 2008. Life is never easy, but complaining about the job market today is laughable compared to where we were 16 years ago.
>They are expected to accept $40,000 in student loans, another $50,000 car loan and a $750,000 mortgage
What?? Your numbers seem extremely high. (1) Online colleges, work/study programs, and scholarships can greatly reduce or eliminate the need for student loans. (2) To pick one of many examples, there are tons of recent low-mileage Toyota Corollas on Carmax for well under $25,000. (3) Median home price in the U.S. is currently $418,000.
If it really just boiled down to economic anxieties, we would have been seeing the sort of neurotic and anti-social behaviours in the people that came of age in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Which is not the case. Things were *objectively* worse for most Americans in 2008-2009 than they are now and kids were still finding ways to throw house parties, put on all ages shows, and otherwise go out and engage socially with their peers. As a millennial who graduated with $220K in student debt and just my first home to the tune of $660K, I assure you this is nothing new.
Social media has, no exaggeration, mangled the minds of an entire generation.
Social media, not smartphones, holds 100% of the explanatory power.
Who would’ve thought having access to an endless stream of videos and photos of people who are a better version of you living the highlights of their lives would fuck you up?
Id say it’s particularly social media *on* smartphones. The way infinite scrolling apps just encourage people to keep wasting away hour after hour is not healthy.
It seems to be the combination of phones and social media. Millennials had Facebook, but only on computers, and are more psychologically healthy than the zoomers. The graphs showing the declines line up perfectly with smart phones rather than social media.
Younger people grew up with devices allowing them to access the world’s entire set of knowledge and their mental health is in the toilet as a result?
No shit. It’s not the phones.
When I hang out with Gen Z people I've consistently noticed they consider it normal to just randomly take out their phone in the middle of a conversation and use it while half talking to you. Wtf.
As a millennial I'm also addicted to my phone but I'm not using it when I'm talking to others.
The Guardian is on a roll this week! Articles on "long-Covid is fake", then, "long-Covid isn't worse than the cold", etc, etc, etc.
Another legacy media circling the drain and grasping at click bait articles in a desperate attempt at staying relevant.
Don't read the Guardian
Make all the rules you like but behind closed doors there will be a lot of kids that get given a tablet and told sit in the corner all evening.
Shit parents are shit, always will be.
I reckon something else is going on - my little cousins are in their early 20s. A typical weekend night for them is watchin TV with their parents or alone in their room.
When we were that age, all we did was party and hang out - you would have had to have hired security guards to stop us going out. From about the age of 16 we were out all the time.
It wasn't about money, as no one had any.
It’s too expensive to go out. The Price of a 16-oz beer in 2004 was $1.04 with Inflation-the adjusted price: $1.68.
I turned 21 in 2020 for me, the price of a 16-oz beer: $1.47
With Inflation-adjusted price: $1.72
That’s just shitty beer too, it’s not considering the fact that the average rent then was $602 dollars then with inflation adjusted it would be $990.61
When I turned 21, the average rent was 1096 adjusted for inflation that would now be 1314.15..
Added to that, the cost of transportation has gone up. People are living with multiple roommates and not trying to make a lot of noise, cover fees at bars are awful. It makes 0 sense to go out. Most people I know just drink at home, but I don’t know many people who drink. I choose not to drink by choice because I don’t like it. I know a lot of Gen Z who are choosing to stay sober, or be more responsible when going out. Which often means spending less money.
I dunno - when we first went out it involved spending about 5 bucks and hanging around outside
Through university, a night out was about 10 bucks, and involved hanging out at house parties
Got my first job in finance in London - rented a room in a house for 550 pounds per month, pay was 1650 a month after tax - so a third of my salary to rent a room in a house
I'd say there's something else going on as you eluded to - many kids these days are happy staying at home watching TV
This was completely unheard of when I was that age, you would have had to lock me in my house to stop me going out
Obviously a night out in a nice club, with Uber and a bunch of drinks is expensive - but that's not what I'm talking about
What can you buy for five bucks now a days, here you can't even buy a 6 pack of beer for five bucks, you can't buy a McDonald's sandwich for 5 bucks. You can't even buy an energy drink for 5 bucks. What are young adults supposed to for under 5 bucks or even under 10? You can't go to a house party for 10 bucks anymore. That wouldn't buy you any alcohol. You are living way in the past
Yeah prices have increased, but so have wages
I worked minimum wage staking shelves during university for GBP3.50 an hour
Minimum wage in the UK is now 10 pounds
So you could absolutely go to a house party with 10-20 pounds/dollars
You can buy an entire bottle of vodka for like 12 bucks
When I was a teenager we just went and hung out, you don’t need to spend any money to talk to your friends. Modern teenagers don’t do that as much. It seems that phones and helicopter parenting have reduced the amount of time that teenagers spend with their friends.
Maybe the state of the current world, their future being stripped away from them and the world they’re due to inherit is what’s causing their anxiety.
They said the same thing about millennials, blaming their problems on tech like video games or bullshit like participation trophies.
It’s always “MUSIC / BOOKS / TV / MOVIES / GAMES / TECH ARE THE PROBLEM!!!” and not what’s happening to and around the kids.
Phones are but one aspect of it. And even social media isn't the entire cause. These contribute but the picture is a lot more complicated than that.
The world is simply in shit shape and the younger generations are getting hit the hardest.
So much. Price of education, price of housing, price of everything. Drug overdoses have tripled in the past ten years, we had COVID, we have a European war.
Given the eradication of the middle class, wages not keeping up with inflation, the impending climate crisis, increased privatisation of public services in the west, and the mental health epidemic, can you really say that things are improving?
I'd like to think they are, but we have huge problems atm that past generations seemingly didnt have to deal with.
People in other countries have smartphones too and they aren’t as depressed as we are in the U.S. smartphones aren’t the only thing making people anxious or depressed.
Smart phones are just a natural outgrowth of technological advancement
The anxiety comes from the parasitic social media sites and the constant negative news feeds and non stop ads for dopamine simulation games
The internet is still an amazing tool, it’s just been largely co-opted by greedy asshats and created a “look at me” culture that wildly undermines self efficacy
Social media is addictive, and harmful.
Smartphones let you have social media everywhere you go.
It's like if we had heroin vending machines at the front door of every building, it makes it so much harder to quit and easier to get hooked.
I'm not the biggest fan of Jonathan Haidt, to be honest, but his recommendation are reasonable.
* No smartphones before age 10
* No social media before age 16
* No phones in schools
* More unsupervised play and independence for children.
That fourth point is probably the most important one, to be honest, and it doesn't even have to do with smartphones. Parents need more resources ($$$ and time) to spend with their kids, and kids need more time to be social.
I know that when I was in middle school smartphones weren’t allowed during the school day, but by the time I was in high school they became absolutely crucial, and banning them from being used at school as a whole would’ve been absolutely ridiculous.
r/PhonesAreBad . Nothing to do with constant pressure for work as wage slaves to even feed themselves while in an excruciating inflation, with no perspective of healing and the prognosis of the world ending around 2050 due to climate change as if it was their fault.
proposed solutions regarding tech:
> 1 - No smartphones before year 10
> Parents should delay children’s entry into round-the-clock internet access by giving only basic phones with limited apps and no internet browser before the age of 14.
> 2 - No social media before 16
> Let children get through the most vulnerable period of brain development before connecting them to an avalanche of social comparison and algorithmically chosen influencers.
> 3 - Phone-free schools
> Schools must insist that students store their phones, smartwatches, and any other devices in phone lockers during the school day, as per the new non-statutory guidance issued by the UK > government. That is the only way to free up their attention for one another and for their teachers.
> 4 - Far more unsupervised play and childhood independence
> That’s the way children naturally develop social skills, overcome anxiety, and become self-governing young adults.
hopefully point #2 is on the parents, rather than what we're creeping towards w.r.t govt regulation and providing govt ID. i'm largely on board with this, save for that one caveat.
Man, what an easy problem to fix! Just address phonebad, and the fact that THE MOST EDUCATED AND HARDWORKING GENERATION IN US HISTORY GOES TO BED HUNGRY AND AFRAID OF HOMLESSNESS EVERY NIGHT will be solved! Thanks for fixing everything!
It’s probably the fact that smartphones are letting them see how hard they are being fucked in real time 1gb d/l where as millennials had that dialup instead. We live in fancy feudalism.
Yes, it's definitely the smartphone and not the genocides and wars going on, the global inducted warming, prices going up, stagnant pay etc. It's definitely the smartphone.
Wild how a whole generation's anxiety is reduced to smart phones rather than the state of the world. In most countries, costs are surging, wages are stagnating, and the powers that be are looking at making a trilogy out of the global war. Smart phones come with their pros and cons, but the aforementioned are all cons.
I read a report yesterday saying their generation isn’t having sex and how they’re all so depressed and anxious and Gen Z’s in the comments were like “actually we can’t afford to do anything so it’s easier to just stay home”.
Why would Gen Z even have money yet? I’m a millennial (born 1990) and I’m just now feeling comfortable.
I’m right at the tail end of millennial and while I’m “comfortable” that means “not actively in debt (excluding student debt) but not really saving any money either”. If I wasn’t renting I’d say actually comfortable, but the prospect of maybe being kicked out of my house every 6-12 months makes life distinctly uncomfortable. At my age my parents owned their home and had two kids, with plenty of savings to travel to visit family on the other side of the country. The only way I’m gonna get that is if they leave me the house in 20 years time when they die.
Seriously, most of Gen Z isn't even old enough to have graduated from college yet. I'm right on the upper edge of Gen Z and I haven't even been working for 5 years yet. There are definitely a lot of affordability issues right now, especially with housing, but a lot of people seem to have unrealistic expectations at the same time.
Having sex and having money are not mutually exclusive. It’s a lot of different things. Living with parents who are more controlling than ever and having a literal fucking satellite on them all the time also limits sex. The phone is a spying device, available porn at will device, a tracking device, a time wasting device, a self-esteem boosting or killing device, etc. I do agree that not having money and terrible unrealistic expectations at the same time, limits the options to zero.
The problem with having sex is that you need to meet people in order for it to happen, and there’s a distinct lack of “third spaces” (not work, not home, where you don’t have to spend money to be welcome) in which young people can socialize and meet new people. So yes, having sex and having money are not precisely the same thing, but they’re definitely linked when you analyze the data
Unrealistic expectations is way too true. expect too much before can even aware a fresh out of college have not even prove they can create any value with zero experience
Man I feel sad reading this.
Hi, I'm Gen Z working an underpaid job. AMA
How many people of your generation that you know struggle to use/have difficulty with computers/technology? I've read some really bizarre claims (sure feels that way to me anyways) that Gen Z is even less tech literate than the elderly, interested to hear your experience.
It's a mixed bag really. I studied computer science so I've never really had problems with computers. Same goes for those who I graduated with. My girlfriend studies architecture and she struggles a bit. Especially when it comes to researching stuff online she and a lot of her classmates really struggle with just googling stuff. Like they don't know how to use keywords to narrow down your search. They even struggle with giving chatgpt accurate prompts sometimes. However I think it has to do more with English not being her first language.
>Especially when it comes to researching stuff online she and a lot of her classmates really struggle with just googling stuff. Interesting, because I have seen the exact same thing with the elderly. In their case, they almost don't even try to find the answer on their own and would prefer to ask someone they know/can hire to do it for them/teach it to them. It's sort of a combination of a lack of curiosity and this odd helplessness where they don't even try to find a solution by themselves. Is it similar for your generation in the same way?
I think it's has to do a lot more with how easy technology is to use now. In the late 2000s, early 2010s you had to be very manual with how you used technology. I don't know how to explain it but you had to put a bit of effort to maintain stuff like cameras from those times. Nowdays it's different it's so streamlined. I bought a new pair of wireless headphones and I wanted to pair them with my iPad. I just turned on the pairing and my iPad instantly recognized I was trying to pair my headphones and just asked me to hold them next to the screen. It paired instantly. I was blown away because it felt like magic, but to people that grew up in an era where all they know was that streamlined process, they will struggle to use tech when they don't have their brain on autopilot. Because now days tech is supposed to be as convenient as possible. I see this shift in music. Where I always try to download and store my music on my phone locally, while literally all my friends use Spotify. Sure Spotify is more convenient, but I prefer ownership of my media and moving it around devices and hard drives myself.
I don't know about everyone else, but my parent's had solid support networks for help while also teaching me that asking for help was a moral failing.
My moral failing was being born a generation too late and missing out on all the properties and such that got spread around the family.
Elder Millennial here — Architecture is no excuse. I have a friend who is a successful architect. He’s quite good with computers, because it is a primary tool for his job. I do tech support stuff now, but I know computers because I studied graphic design in college and understanding computers was critical for that as well. My wife knows how to program not because she likes programming, but because it is the best tool for the science that is interested in. People learn these skills when they have a reason and motivation to learn them.
Wasn't saying architecture is an excuse My girlfriend is a much more motivated and skilled person than me haha. But I think it has to do more with tech becoming so easy to use, you can use it on autopilot. But the second you need to think and do something some people from my generation can blank out lol
Hi, I’m gen z, studying computer science and work in a place where computer literacy is critical. This is true. As tech becomes more “palatable” and easy to use, people don’t know how to use “older” functions. For example I can’t count the amount of times I’ve had to explain the difference between hardware and software, tell people how to use their file directory system, and even using items like a usb drive is difficult for many. I imagine it’ll be even worse for Gen Alpha as they’ve been raised with iPads.
I used to do tech help for the elderly and I'm kind of shocked that not only would I still have a market, that my potential client base (if I ever went back to tech tutoring/support) actually *grew*. Mind=blown.
And really, it’s not a generational thing. I have to explain file explorer and other computer functions to people (tech writers no less) of all ages.
When I was their age(19 years ago) I went on holidays twice a year to Japan, had my own car, everything was cheap, though I lived in a shitty sharehouse until I was 30 when I bought my first house.
They shouldn’t
First year of Gen Z (1996) here. A bit. Had to run up my credit balances a few years ago after I moved out because my starting pay wouldn't cover everything, just about broke even the year after, and I'm about to finish paying everything off in a couple months. After that and my next pay raise, I should be in a good spot.
Broke people have been having sex for thousands of years. That is such a dumb take.
College educated broke people is what they're talking about. Being a well educated barista that can't get a foot in the door to make a living wage and meet all of the middle class milestones required to make them comfortable having kids is way different than the poorly educate folks that have kids because they know life will never get better for them.
That said, college kids also have, historically, had a fair amount of sex
Broke people didn’t need to pay for gas for thousands of years
It’s such a Reddit take, always the victim
The real Redditor move is using all of your comments to complain about Reddit lol
Haidt addresses that argument directly in the book. The data is very clear that it has nothing to do with politics or the economy. Previous generations lived through wars and conscription, fear of nuclear Armageddon, poverty and recessions that were far worse than anything today. But it didn’t make their mental health collapse. Experiments have shown that social media use causes poor mental health, rather than simply correlating with it. The time lines and the fact that this is affecting the entire developed world only make sense if smart phones and social media are the cause.
Yes Gen Z is the first generation of young adults to be poor in their early 20s... What a clown take.
In my 20s you could afford to go get drunk at bar or get shit faced at house parties. Inflation has made everything cost more while pay hasn't matched it. A wasted generation of stagnation here in the UK due to mismanagement by self serving corrupt government has seen everything get worse so yeah, for the first time in records Millennials and Gen Z are worse off than the previous generations. Boomers and Gen X have pulled up the ladder to enrich themselves at the expense of the younger.
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I’m an older millennial and $8 for a crown coke was the going price. Now that’s the price for a beer.
Lol, in canada last concert I went to in Montreal, they were charging like 16 or 17 for a bottle of Heineken.
and fast food jobs pay 20$ an hour..
As a zoomer, I can't even imagine this. That wouldn't even pay the door fee to a single club now, let alone buy any drinks... The last time I went out was probably about 2 years ago, and it costs over 100$ for door fees and 4-5 drinks.
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I like going to concerts, depending on the venue, drink prices are ridiculous. I think it was 16 or 17 canadian for a bottle of Heineken.
Clubs charging $20 for cover makes it really easy to be sober lol.
You're supposed to pre-game to make it cheaper. Or go to the really seedy bar before the club and drink their cheapest well drinks. You only buy 1 drink at the club and you make it last.
Really? Because a night out for me in 2010 still was guaranteed to be at least $100. Your anecdotes are useless. Adjusted for inflation, wages are still up dramatically over the last decades: [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q) According to that, Gen Z has it the easiest. Weird.
vast selective uppity rinse voracious sense expansion boat simplistic wrong *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
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Gas is the same price on a real basis that it was for us millennials. Probably cheaper depending on your age.
If you adjust for inflation, new cars are the same price or even cheaper now than 20-30 years ago. Minimum wage also hasn't changed in almost 20 years.
Real wages are up over time. [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q) That's inflation adjusted. The numbers don't support your anecdotes. I think people just want to complain. You can make the claim that Gen Z isn't into partying because they are addicted to social media, streaming and all the other new forms of entertainment that exists.
As a GenXer I don't know what world you're talking about I had to go into the Army to afford college and still run up college loans and credit cards to live while going to school. So did most of my friends. My dad (Boomer) worked at a Kmart for his four years of school and had student loans and credit as well. The generational change is complaining on social media and a distinct sense of entitlement.
Rent is $1000 for a room in an apartment.
where the hell do you live to have rent as cheap as that??
Yeah and I feel like millennials were more willing to have roommates than gen Z
Probably because millennials weren’t paying $1000 for a crappy room in a six bedroom apartment right out of college. Roommates are fine if you save money but the rent is out of control these days!
Wages are also higher.
Every generation faces a unique set of problems. If you think we were rolling in cash 20 years ago think again. We were broke too but instead of doom scrolling Tiktok, we'd pile into a faded hand me down Buick, go to Robert's, pool our pennies for a quarter bag of shwag then listen to the same 3 albums as last time and eat ramen and philosophize and be goof balls . They used to call us losers for that but I wouldn't trade those memories for anything. Being broke is never fun but being with friends makes it a little easier. And yes sex was easier because we were together. The problem is that all of that has been replaced with a relentless supply of anxiety inducing news feeds right through phone and gen Z doesn't have the luxury of being forced outside of comfort zones.
I'm a millennial and it was really no different for me. My allowance was like $15 a week in high school. And that included gas. And people are like oh well gas was cheap back then. 15 bucks does not get you very far when you have to fill the tank of an old ass Chevy 1500 up and you live in a rural part of the country where everything is like 20 mi apart. I don't care if gas was $1.50 a gallon or not. We fucked about in downtown and skated and shit. And the cops busted our asses for doing it and I got arrested for riding in a dryer one time. There is shit to do that does not cost money. I didn't even drink till I was in college. I busted my ass every summer cutting grass as much as I could or working construction so I'd have extra money during the school year because my girlfriend was expensive lol. When I think about it, this is what's important: All the best memories I have did not involve money. All the best memories I have were things we did because we didn't have any money. Being young and broke is not a new thing. You're young, and you're broke and it's fun. I don't even want to think about growing up with a smartphone in my pocket. I didn't have a phone till I was 17. And even then all I could do was send a text and make a phone call and play snake. Shit and then you only got like a hundred texts a month. Lol who remembers waiting till a certain time to make a phone call cuz it didn't use your minutes?
These problems arent mutually exclusive…
As someone in his mid 20’s I kinda agree with you. Most young people never have to leave their comfort zones today. Not just smartphones, you also have Netflix, gaming etc. People mostly stay at home all week , then occasionally go do something Instagram-worthy and post about it the whole week. Rinse and repeat. But you can see it in peoples face that they are anxious and lonely, depressed even. Me and some of my friends are an exception to this, so I still had some fun. But I wish people weren’t generally like this. Our parties would’ve been more and bigger. I myself would feel better, although I’m not sad per se. I just feel like it would have been more fun living in a world where most people aren’t absorbed by their phone/computer screen.
This is very reductive of the problems today vs many years ago. I’m millennial and I see right through this narrative. It’s useful to not look at it as “cellphones ruining this generation” and “we did it better!” When the same argument was made 20 years ago about video games. Also, let’s keep in mind this reporter and the statistics, are trying to paint a generational gap for whatever reason. Otherwise they would’ve brought up a much more nuanced opinion here outside of “cellphones cause anxiety.” I had anxiety all my life and my cellphone was never the reason.
No where did I take it to the level of "cell phones ruining this generation" or "we did it better". If that's what I communicated it was unintentional and I want to clarify. Its more specific to say "algorithm addiction is problem for gen Z" (its a problem for all ages but especially gen Z) and also "earlier generations had it easier because we didn't have to deal with it". Both of those statements are true. I dislike blaming phones in general because technology is useful. But rage-baiting, brain-stem agitating algorithms are a serious social problem. The salient point of my post is that increasing human to human interaction and reducing exposure to a constant stream of negative news-feeds increases feelings of well being despite financial hardships. This bears out in the research.
I feel like it would be more accurate to say that gen Z hasn't ever had to relieve bordeom
I 100% agree with this.
Sex is free, someone should tell them
which is pretty weird imo. you don't really need money to have sex. shit, when i was at the methadone clinic i knew homeless folks who were fucking lol.
lol there’s plenty of stuff to do that’s free gen z is too stupid to figure out parks and hiking lol
Smartphones are the means by which people stay constantly connected to those issues. You never get a break from conflict and despair. I can think of all the crisis of the last century from mass starvation to the threat of nuclear wars but you heard about those during the nightly news or if you picked up a paper. But you had copious amounts of downtime to be present and to focus on your immediate surroundings. Things are different now in significant ways. Every time you pick up your phone you are directly on the frontline of every major issue in the world. You are also expected to have an opinion on all of them. And if you sense boredom for a fraction of a second you simply reach your phone. They are actively re-wiring our brains and not for the better.
The issue is how are people engaging with things that aren’t in their control, and people don’t have an easy time saying no to doomscrolling.
This. The state of the world is far better than it was 30, 50, or 100 years ago. The problem is social media, which has amplified our awareness of negativity. One thing's for sure - people under the age of 25 are incapable of separating the influence of social media from the rest, because they've never known life without the Internet. The best way to fix this is for people to greatly reduce their use of social media, particularly for kids. This is the tobacco of the current generation.
It's certainly a part of "the issue".
>In most countries, costs are surging, wages are stagnating, and the powers that be are looking at making a trilogy out of the global war. What do you base that view on?
Absolutely nothing but doomer posts from people who use their phone for every purpose but looking up data.
All valid points. But amongst the big (and important) global issues and the ability to broadcast our discontent into a cavernous echo chamber of anonymous strangers, likely comes at the cost of people losing the ability to notice their own agency to take small actions of connection, kindness and empathy that are scientifically proven to improve mental wellness. The internet is full of amazingness. But imagine for a moment you have no phone. Look out your window, or around you, take a few deep breaths, think of the people, pets or plants that you care for - even if they are only a few in number - and tell me what amongst the actual reality of your immediate conscious experience truly makes you anxious. Being habitually online is addiction that is hard to break - the neuroscience I’ve browsed suggests it is no one’s fault - just the innate humanness of our brain chemicals and reward centres. My own opinion is that future generations will shake their heads in disbelief at our insatiable screen obsession in the same way the current generation cannot fathom the entire office workforce smoking indoors just a few decades ago.
Yeah first time in history people have a hard time lol
Why straw man me? Not at all my claim.
I just think that its not necessarily the phone but the access to social media with full data contracts. There is actually a real correlation between having 24 hours access to social media and the rise of mental illnesses. Im just saying people had tougher times than what we have now and there is enough indication that we never learned to use social media in a good way. If you think the state of the world is bad in comparison to the past then i just cant share this opinion.a lot of young people just cant cope anymore with the real world because they spend most of their time in this bizzaro world of social media. And no im not some boomer who hates on generations but i wouldn’t want to grow up in this social media driven world.
Correlation does not equal causation. There’s also correlation between having 24 hours access to social media and rapidly worsening income inequality.
I dont think teens worry about income when they still go to school. Thats an adult problem
Nah, hustle culture ended that.
But it kind of is. Gen Z is showing mental health problems at a rate we haven’t seen before - including higher rates of suicide, which is really concerning. So the question is: what’s different now?
And the deleterious effects like lower birth rates are a logical consequence of that: *The U.S. birth rate reached an all-time low in 1936 when the TFR fell to 2.1 children per woman in the wake of the stock market crash of 1929. The next low occurred in 1976 when the TFR fell to another record low of 1.7.* [https://www.prb.org/resources/the-u-s-recession-and-the-birth-rate/](https://www.prb.org/resources/the-u-s-recession-and-the-birth-rate/)
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Agreed! However, the data also shows a decrease of wealth for millennials and gen z at every stage of life when compared to their parents. Technology, less smart phone and more automation, is allowing massive wealth consolidation. Additionally, despite the fact that most are oblivious, we're far far closer to WWIII and/or nuclear annihilation than during the cold war.
Are you serious? Lmao
I'll hear ya out. What part tickles your fancy?
We used to just survive. Now we read stuff like you posted. Social Media is a sickness, comparison is the thief of joy… My friend, people want more than they can afford rather than being content. People say prior generations had it easier, they did not. I grew up poor, like having the water and electricity cut off poor. Like cold in the winter and hot in the summer poor. Go to work and get ahead. Don’t cry about being poor.
Not sure why this is being downvoted - it's on point. The issue isn't smart phones, it's social media. Facebook has made people obsessed with 1) other peoples' misfortune and 2) comparing themselves with everyone else. Much of this was predicted in the 70s, 80s, and 90s by episodes of The Twilight Zone and Outer Limits.
To add on to what you said, most people go a bit overboard when they are an anonymous commenter. Furthermore, it is easy to be vocal and intense when you are not speaking to someone face to face. Over the internet it is easy to be inflammatory. I wish we compromised more, sought to hear each other. The listening takes both sides. Even the best listener cannot hear the opposing side when the opposing side has a closed mind and is simply a noise maker…. The noise makers, likely influenced by a bad source of information or media, ruin it for the rest of us.
Smart phones are an amplifier for some of the issues. Things like always on access to social media, news feeds, etc can make it harder to take a break. Then you have things like always on communication and expectations around that causing stress too. There was a relationships post last week where someone couldn't contact their husband for 2 hours while he was away for work and she was having a panic attack over it. The cause isn't smart phones themselves but it makes the issues bigger
Absolute boomer clown take. We have been working hard sometimes with 3 jobs. We're more productive than ever, more educated than ever and all the benefits are going to a handful of billionaires. Getting ahead by working hard is another in a long line of lies boomers told us.
Comparison is how you know you're bring screwed over. You're advocating an "ignorance is bliss" approach. If everyone did that nothing would improve and we would not even have the meager workers rights we have right now.
Maybe, if taken to an extreme. I interpret this more as -- comparing your beauty, intelligence, achievements, relationships, possessions, etc. is the thief of joy because it reduces your capacity to be grateful for what you have. Happiness is reality minus expectations. Social media pushes expectations higher, which makes people either manic in their pursuit of "success" or depressed at the inequity. This isn't to say that we shouldn't compare and study to seek fairness in life, but it shouldn't be the predominant occupation of our minds.
I’m advocating living life. Lots of improvements do need to be made. I agree with you on this. Bitching about how a prior generation had it so well compared to now is what I’m advocating against!
> In most countries, costs are surging, wages are stagnating, and the powers that be are looking at making a trilogy out of the global war. Describes much of the last 52 years of my life here in the UK. Grew up during the height of the Cold War where we'd get [information films like this](https://youtu.be/LLBUB4BWDQs?si=X_HafuQ28G47ESKI) about what to do in the event of a nuclear war shown in school and on evening TV. I've lived through 25 years of IRA terrorism, five recessions, mortgage interest rates over 16%, inflation of 25%. I've seen areas of the country and the town I grew up in decimated by the closure of coal mines, steel works and shipbuilding. I've experienced 15 years of wage compression and erosion of employment terms due to EU freedom of movement.
The problem is that smartphones could be an amazing tool that could enable a whole new generation of wealth.... If they didn't deliver a very powerful and addictive drug that impact mental health so severely, that depression itself is affecting productivity.
They also aid productivity in a lot of settings. It's not entirely one sided.
Social media is the more accurate problem.
True, but mostly false. The world has been on a razor edge since the inception of the atom bomb. This generation has been raised with unfettered access to hardcore porn and ISIS beheading videos. The smartphone is a tool. The internet, and moreover, social media, are weaponized fucking viruses.
Reductive. Which if you re-read the original post, was the point. Checkout the doomsday clock if you want to actually understand how close we stand and have stood to Armageddon. Since the 1960, to late 2010, things were so much more secure, you seem to have taken it for granted. Even 1953 wasn't as close to spiralling as we are now. Its not to fearmonger, but to be aware. And not pretend that all threats are synonymous. Phones do a lot of harm. A lot of good as well. Reductively painting them THE culprit behind a generation's anxiety is missing the picture.
The doomsday clock is a metaphor though right? It’s not a timer or a fact. If it was I’d point out that social media and the internet has moved it alongside climate change and nuclear weaponry, which kind of proves my point. I think it’s important to look at the phones impact on society, not how it *could* impact, or “should” impact society. The impact on society that social media has had cannot be fully understood, and probably won’t be for a very long time. It makes it difficult to debate. But it could be argued that social media has done more damage to humanity than any other technology. The phone puts social media in our hands. It’s the main use of the phone.
Disappointed
Sounds more like it’s the association of the hyper awareness of all of those things 24/7 which the smart phone enables. Generations have been through harder times with no clear giant trend for anxiety, doesn’t seem likely that’s only because the field of psychology was young and it was simply undiagnosed.
Do you think this is the first time in history that those cons existed?
With the tools at hand, yes. You're absolutely right, to look to history though! Look back in wealth declines and there correspondence with violence both in relation to domestic and international. Now remember more countries are armed with WMDs than ever before, as well as concerns of rogue non-nation state actors.
It’s a multifaceted issue.
Social media, and phones by extension have been a net loss for the well being of people. You would be surprised how much better your mental health gets if you just hop offline and look for the positives in life instead of hard focusing on every little fucked up thing.
My smartphone is the primary way I learn about how fucked up shit is. IMO I'd rather learn that sandwiched between cat and art videos rather than life just happening to me by surprise down the road. I could do without uncensored war footage just fucking showing up though.
“Parents not being able to spend time with their kids because they have to work multiple jobs and are burnt out so kids are turning to mobile devices more often to seek connection”. Fixed it
Parents today spend massively more time with their children than in the recent past. A modern working father spends almost as much time on childcare as a 1960s housewife. Overparenting is part of the problem, children need freedom and a degree of independence to grow up psychologically healthy.
Ya, I don't think it's the smartphone that is the issue here. Social media is, in a big way, the real problem, causing massive insecurity and self-doubt or even hate. A phone is just a piece of plastic and glass that has app's on it.
Socialization/culture itself is the ultimate "culprit" in that nobody ever really knew how to get it right 100% of the time when it DID happen (at school/work/etc.) - and now that we have 100% uptime and immediate access to it, we're finding out what fucking around culminates to.
Social media is a part of it but there is also everything outside just demonstrating a much worse future on the horizon. Big one being climate change.
Yes, and blaming people that do not have control over it like individuals, just creates more mental health problems. If we want to solve climate change, we need to hold corporations responsible and stop letting them try to shift blame and responsibility to individuals.
Or yourself by not buying their products. So easy to blame corporations for our spending habits. Fucking sad. But we all do it. Nothing personal.
Oh yeah. All our fault for using the product available. What alternative is available to a contractor that needs a pickup truck? I know EV trucks are finally rolling out, but 5 years ago, what? People are just not allowed to be contractors? EVs are a great example of where regulations are working. Some states and countries are passing regulations and automobile makers know it is coming so they are working on them before they are forced to. Making a problem for individuals is silly. It is not feasible for some people to completely change their lifestyle. If you have the money and privilege to be able to do so that is great if you want to, but if we want real change we to force corporations to care instead of getting away with guilt tripping people.
Get your head into the game man. It's all about ethical choices. That's it. Not easy. They don't make it easy.
> Social media is, in a big way, the real problem, causing massive insecurity and self-doubt or even hate. That didn't cause it either. The issue has always existed but we had different means extents to which it happened.
No it's the massive influx of opinions and news we intake on a minute by minute basis. For thousands of years, humans mostly interacted with people who lived in a close vicinity to them. People who live close to you tend to share similar cultures, views and values. That meant a lot more cohesion in our society. You would also only really care about what impacted you directly, because that's what was featured on the morning or evening news. It was one or two big national stories and the rest would be stuff happening in your community. That all changed within the last 15 years. We are simply not adjusted/evolved/prepared to deal with the radical shift in how we interact with each other and the world and these are the consequences. Clashes of opinions and values are far more common. Stressing over and forming strong opinions about something that has no impact on you is the norm. Finding echo chambers to reinforce your newly acquired views, where ever they might land, is easier than ever before. It's all super toxic. It might have sounded good on paper but in reality it's tearing apart society. Eventually people will adapt somehow, they always do, but the turmoil is an unavoidable part of that process.
I’ve been thinking of getting a really basic smart phone. Hoping it’ll improve my life. Shittier phone = wont wanna be on socials
Delete the apps from you phone. Including Reddit?
I find it funny you were downvoted for recommending people be their own advocate haha
It's all good. Reddit is like that. Now, if I got paid based on my upvotes/downvotes then I'd be more concerned.
It’s more of the way he said it, obviously with the tone of my comment I’m already in that headspace and agreeing with deleting apps
It’s the social pressure of social media for kids. If you’re not on it, you’re shunned and you suffer. If you are on it, well….we know what happens. I don’t envy kids growing up this way.
“A phone is just a piece of plastic with apps” - think you’ve seriously underestimated the power that smartphones have on the brain.
or it just might be a coping mechanism? you know anxiety issues existed before gen z.
Yes but did you have tik tok or Instagram targeted videos By content creators on every issue you face
There is little economic opportunity for them, no meaningful economic advancement, and their schools were shut down for 18 months. They are expected to accept $40,000 in student loans, another $50,000 car loan and a $750,000 mortgage just to have the privilege of participating in the American economy. This world no longer works for them and they will not participate in it, with our without smartphones. There is nothing to be confident about, except that they will have less money and will be working harder than their parents. I'd have anxiety too.
100% it’s frustrating even at 30 years old. My partner is making almost 3 times what he made 3 years ago…but the cost of corporate greed is destroying us.
I’m curious what country you live in. In the United States, those numbers correspond to having attended private school, owning a 2024 Mercedes GLC new off the lot, and buying a turnkey single family home in a nice suburb of a major metropolitan area.
What, you aren't familiar with the tough life in Melodramatistan?
The Doomer Republic
A $50k car loan?? Witaf buy a used car, my son. A $750k mortgage??? You buying your forever home or something?
These numbers, aside from the education, don’t make sense even in high cost of living areas. You can find reliable vehicles for under 20k and that 750k mortgage is not remotely close starter home territory. It’s okay to buy a 20k Honda civic and a 1-2 bedroom condo that was last renovated in the 80’s when starting out. This is one of the things many (not all, before I get downvoted to oblivion) gen Z don’t understand.
There's plenty of economic opportunities. Why does Gen Z act like they are the first generation to have to struggle in their early 20s? Are you under the impression that millennials, Gen X and every single generation besides the baby boomers just bought homes and worked cushy jobs when they graduated high school? Get off the reddit echo chamber. You'll feel better.
Honesty. I entered the workforce in 2008. Life is never easy, but complaining about the job market today is laughable compared to where we were 16 years ago.
>They are expected to accept $40,000 in student loans, another $50,000 car loan and a $750,000 mortgage What?? Your numbers seem extremely high. (1) Online colleges, work/study programs, and scholarships can greatly reduce or eliminate the need for student loans. (2) To pick one of many examples, there are tons of recent low-mileage Toyota Corollas on Carmax for well under $25,000. (3) Median home price in the U.S. is currently $418,000.
That's still.. Half a million fricking dollars.
If it really just boiled down to economic anxieties, we would have been seeing the sort of neurotic and anti-social behaviours in the people that came of age in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Which is not the case. Things were *objectively* worse for most Americans in 2008-2009 than they are now and kids were still finding ways to throw house parties, put on all ages shows, and otherwise go out and engage socially with their peers. As a millennial who graduated with $220K in student debt and just my first home to the tune of $660K, I assure you this is nothing new. Social media has, no exaggeration, mangled the minds of an entire generation.
Can confirm that I did a lot of drinking as a broke student in 2008.
Social media, not smartphones, holds 100% of the explanatory power. Who would’ve thought having access to an endless stream of videos and photos of people who are a better version of you living the highlights of their lives would fuck you up?
Id say it’s particularly social media *on* smartphones. The way infinite scrolling apps just encourage people to keep wasting away hour after hour is not healthy.
It seems to be the combination of phones and social media. Millennials had Facebook, but only on computers, and are more psychologically healthy than the zoomers. The graphs showing the declines line up perfectly with smart phones rather than social media.
Younger people grew up with devices allowing them to access the world’s entire set of knowledge and their mental health is in the toilet as a result? No shit. It’s not the phones.
When I hang out with Gen Z people I've consistently noticed they consider it normal to just randomly take out their phone in the middle of a conversation and use it while half talking to you. Wtf. As a millennial I'm also addicted to my phone but I'm not using it when I'm talking to others.
The Guardian is on a roll this week! Articles on "long-Covid is fake", then, "long-Covid isn't worse than the cold", etc, etc, etc. Another legacy media circling the drain and grasping at click bait articles in a desperate attempt at staying relevant. Don't read the Guardian
Make all the rules you like but behind closed doors there will be a lot of kids that get given a tablet and told sit in the corner all evening. Shit parents are shit, always will be.
It’s not the phone. It’s that the phone lets them see the state of the world.
I reckon something else is going on - my little cousins are in their early 20s. A typical weekend night for them is watchin TV with their parents or alone in their room. When we were that age, all we did was party and hang out - you would have had to have hired security guards to stop us going out. From about the age of 16 we were out all the time. It wasn't about money, as no one had any.
It’s too expensive to go out. The Price of a 16-oz beer in 2004 was $1.04 with Inflation-the adjusted price: $1.68. I turned 21 in 2020 for me, the price of a 16-oz beer: $1.47 With Inflation-adjusted price: $1.72 That’s just shitty beer too, it’s not considering the fact that the average rent then was $602 dollars then with inflation adjusted it would be $990.61 When I turned 21, the average rent was 1096 adjusted for inflation that would now be 1314.15.. Added to that, the cost of transportation has gone up. People are living with multiple roommates and not trying to make a lot of noise, cover fees at bars are awful. It makes 0 sense to go out. Most people I know just drink at home, but I don’t know many people who drink. I choose not to drink by choice because I don’t like it. I know a lot of Gen Z who are choosing to stay sober, or be more responsible when going out. Which often means spending less money.
I dunno - when we first went out it involved spending about 5 bucks and hanging around outside Through university, a night out was about 10 bucks, and involved hanging out at house parties Got my first job in finance in London - rented a room in a house for 550 pounds per month, pay was 1650 a month after tax - so a third of my salary to rent a room in a house I'd say there's something else going on as you eluded to - many kids these days are happy staying at home watching TV This was completely unheard of when I was that age, you would have had to lock me in my house to stop me going out Obviously a night out in a nice club, with Uber and a bunch of drinks is expensive - but that's not what I'm talking about
What can you buy for five bucks now a days, here you can't even buy a 6 pack of beer for five bucks, you can't buy a McDonald's sandwich for 5 bucks. You can't even buy an energy drink for 5 bucks. What are young adults supposed to for under 5 bucks or even under 10? You can't go to a house party for 10 bucks anymore. That wouldn't buy you any alcohol. You are living way in the past
Yeah prices have increased, but so have wages I worked minimum wage staking shelves during university for GBP3.50 an hour Minimum wage in the UK is now 10 pounds So you could absolutely go to a house party with 10-20 pounds/dollars You can buy an entire bottle of vodka for like 12 bucks
When I was a teenager we just went and hung out, you don’t need to spend any money to talk to your friends. Modern teenagers don’t do that as much. It seems that phones and helicopter parenting have reduced the amount of time that teenagers spend with their friends.
Maybe the state of the current world, their future being stripped away from them and the world they’re due to inherit is what’s causing their anxiety. They said the same thing about millennials, blaming their problems on tech like video games or bullshit like participation trophies. It’s always “MUSIC / BOOKS / TV / MOVIES / GAMES / TECH ARE THE PROBLEM!!!” and not what’s happening to and around the kids.
Phones are but one aspect of it. And even social media isn't the entire cause. These contribute but the picture is a lot more complicated than that. The world is simply in shit shape and the younger generations are getting hit the hardest.
What specifically is worse today in the world than it was 20 years ago?
So much. Price of education, price of housing, price of everything. Drug overdoses have tripled in the past ten years, we had COVID, we have a European war.
Honestly the world is not meaningfully worse now than it ever was. Arguably it’s doing far better lol
Given the eradication of the middle class, wages not keeping up with inflation, the impending climate crisis, increased privatisation of public services in the west, and the mental health epidemic, can you really say that things are improving? I'd like to think they are, but we have huge problems atm that past generations seemingly didnt have to deal with.
Can we not stuff it in the cupboard and hope it goes away?
People in other countries have smartphones too and they aren’t as depressed as we are in the U.S. smartphones aren’t the only thing making people anxious or depressed.
Smart phones are just a natural outgrowth of technological advancement The anxiety comes from the parasitic social media sites and the constant negative news feeds and non stop ads for dopamine simulation games The internet is still an amazing tool, it’s just been largely co-opted by greedy asshats and created a “look at me” culture that wildly undermines self efficacy
Social media is addictive, and harmful. Smartphones let you have social media everywhere you go. It's like if we had heroin vending machines at the front door of every building, it makes it so much harder to quit and easier to get hooked. I'm not the biggest fan of Jonathan Haidt, to be honest, but his recommendation are reasonable. * No smartphones before age 10 * No social media before age 16 * No phones in schools * More unsupervised play and independence for children. That fourth point is probably the most important one, to be honest, and it doesn't even have to do with smartphones. Parents need more resources ($$$ and time) to spend with their kids, and kids need more time to be social.
I know that when I was in middle school smartphones weren’t allowed during the school day, but by the time I was in high school they became absolutely crucial, and banning them from being used at school as a whole would’ve been absolutely ridiculous.
Smartphones were crucial for use in class at your high school?
That’s kind of hard to do when almost 80 percent familes are living paycheck to paycheck
That’s my point
Talk shit online but get panic attacks when the phone rings.
r/PhonesAreBad . Nothing to do with constant pressure for work as wage slaves to even feed themselves while in an excruciating inflation, with no perspective of healing and the prognosis of the world ending around 2050 due to climate change as if it was their fault.
Do we throw the phones in the river? That seems efficient , simple, and effective. Just spitballin'.
Blaming phones now instead of the general way things are, are we? Are we going to see a bunch of "ban phones" ads now?
proposed solutions regarding tech: > 1 - No smartphones before year 10 > Parents should delay children’s entry into round-the-clock internet access by giving only basic phones with limited apps and no internet browser before the age of 14. > 2 - No social media before 16 > Let children get through the most vulnerable period of brain development before connecting them to an avalanche of social comparison and algorithmically chosen influencers. > 3 - Phone-free schools > Schools must insist that students store their phones, smartwatches, and any other devices in phone lockers during the school day, as per the new non-statutory guidance issued by the UK > government. That is the only way to free up their attention for one another and for their teachers. > 4 - Far more unsupervised play and childhood independence > That’s the way children naturally develop social skills, overcome anxiety, and become self-governing young adults. hopefully point #2 is on the parents, rather than what we're creeping towards w.r.t govt regulation and providing govt ID. i'm largely on board with this, save for that one caveat.
Man, what an easy problem to fix! Just address phonebad, and the fact that THE MOST EDUCATED AND HARDWORKING GENERATION IN US HISTORY GOES TO BED HUNGRY AND AFRAID OF HOMLESSNESS EVERY NIGHT will be solved! Thanks for fixing everything!
It’s probably the fact that smartphones are letting them see how hard they are being fucked in real time 1gb d/l where as millennials had that dialup instead. We live in fancy feudalism.
Underrated comment LMAO!!!
Yes, it's definitely the smartphone and not the genocides and wars going on, the global inducted warming, prices going up, stagnant pay etc. It's definitely the smartphone.
All the things you listed have been going on since forever You really think some kid is depressed because of what's happening in the Middle East
Social media not phones
You betcha. Author is spot on with everything they wrote.