Why do more young people in America have emotional and self control problems now?

[CmdrShep2154]

Back in the 90s and 2000s it would be unheard of for someone like this to do something like this.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...classmate.html

During the 2010s something has gone wrong with American society.

Should America give up on making "Millennials" and "Gen Z" better people?

Should the American government make sure the next generation of American youth are healthier, not likely to believe in conspiracy theories, and look up to astronauts as well as scientists rather than vapid "influencers" and "pro athletes"?

[Byleth]

Should America give up on making "Millennials" and "Gen Z" better people?

I mean sure, why not tar entire generations with the same brush? All of them are exactly the same right? Definitely not just some individuals who have made some poor choices - No - It's the entire generations fault.

Makes perfect sense

[Ivanstone]

Back in the 90s and 2000s it would be unheard of for someone like this to do something like this.

And by unheard of what you really mean:
“Back in my day we had to climb uphill both ways in the snow to spread vicious rumours about our classmates. Nowadays these young whippersnappers have this series of internet tubes to smear their classmates from the comfort of their own homes while a very, reliable gossip rag, I mean, newspaper cheers them on.”

[Myradin]

During the 2010s something has gone wrong with American society.

Perhaps, but it isn't a 'certain generation' thing. There's plenty of crazy older people too.

Should America give up on making "Millennials" and "Gen Z" better people?

"Millenials" were the kids during the 90's and 2000's that you said this stuff was unheard of.

Should the American government make sure the next generation of American youth are healthier, not likely to believe in conspiracy theories, and look up to astronauts as well as scientists rather than vapid "influencers" and "pro athletes"?

This isn't really a problem of specific age groups. Qanon and such consists of all age groups for example.

There's also little the government can do about this without being authoritarian.

How old are you OP?

Its very important to note that we're in an age where its very easy to get information and share information. Stuff gets around more. Crazy shit likely happened in the past too, but it was harder for it to get around. I recall like a decade ago there was some concern about a pandemic (not COVID) that ended up being nothing because people were comparing global stats that was just not something they could do before. Each country's numbers were within expect percentages, but talling them all up looked scary.

[Shadowferal]

Oh gods...a commander shlep thread..

[Biglog]

I'm guessing the reason people in America, or anywhere ftm, didn't dox people in the 90's was because the Internet wasn't around in common use yet. Wild I know.

Does the OP think that there weren't people with issues like this before the 90's, or that it's exclusive to America, from 1 example of 1 person? A better question is why do people make false assumptions or generalizations about tens of millions of people from 1 unusual example?

[Cthulhu 2020]

There's always been a counter culture among the youth in every generation. People that act out against the established norms. These people set the direction of the country for the future, as they eventually become the culture, rather than the young counter culture.

As far as influencers go, I believe a large part of the younger culture wanting to be influencers and streamers is a result of uncontrolled social media. In China, the tiktok app is restricted for users under a certain age. They can only use it for an hour a day and it's filled with mostly edutainment flics. Children in China still mostly answer "what do you want to be" with astronaut and the like. With absent parenting running rampant in the US (mostly a result of the minimum wage being in shambles and requiring parents to both work 2-3 jobs just to get by) kids are exposed to tons of social media and entertainment influencers, which they then look up to and want to emulate.

[Lynarii]

OP has a false idea of history.

The only things about this story that couldn't have happened in the 90s are the things that involve technology that wasn't prevalent then.

As for less self control problems then? May I remind you that a grown ass adult in the 90s could legally claim that being flirted with by a gay person was so terrifying it caused temporary insanity as a defense for murdering the person in question? If anything, the main thing that has changed from the 90s to now is that the type of behavior in the OP's story is less socially acceptable now than it was then so it makes headlines when it wouldn't before.

[Endus]

People were absolutely spreading nasty rumors back then before the Internet. That the Internet's involved now just changes some of the ways in which such bullying and abuse takes place, it's not remotely a new kind of conduct beyond that.

[Malkiah]

Back in the 90s and 2000s it would be unheard of for someone like this to do something like this.

and this ultimately... you answered your own question within the question itself.

it would have been unheard.
it absolutely happened, you just never heard about it.

in the 90s and 2000s the cultural presence of a constant news environment was not the norm.
in the 90s and 2000s social media and the internet meant that literally anything that happened anywhere ever was not instantly spread everywhere and known by everyone.
this sort of shit happens every day, and has been happening every day in every school in american for at least the last 100 years.

total side note:
the pervasive culture of bullying in the US, and the decades long war to excuse it and protect bullies from any sort of consequence and to punish the bullied from ever standing up or defending against being bullied, is one of the most insanely fucked up things i have seen in my lifetime.
the fact it happens is absurd enough but the utter denial about its existence to most folks and the fact that nobody ever acknowledges it or talks about it just blows my mind.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

Back in the 90s and 2000s it would be unheard of for someone like this to do something like this.

No, it wouldn't. The only thing different is the tech involved.

Go back to making threads about cheerleaders.

[Nastard]

OP states the younger generation is more prone to believing conspiracy theories, spreading rumors, and getting upset easily. If you have a Facebook or Twitter account, go look at any of the 28395728935 politically motivated posts by your weird boomer relatives and note the opposite to be true.

[Draco-Onis]

OP states the younger generation is more prone to believing conspiracy theories, spreading rumors, and getting upset easily. If you have a Facebook or Twitter account, go look at any of the 28395728935 politically motivated posts by your weird boomer relatives and note the opposite to be true.

Pretty much this the Qanon nut jobs aren't youngins.

[Saucexorzski]

Maybe this?

https://www.sciencedaily.com/release...0720080145.htm

[diller]

Most of the conspiracy theorists are not young people,

[Kaleredar]

Seeing as this is another pointless post-and-run thread from this OP that he’ll never look at yet alone respond to making the many retorts pointing out that his initial reasoning is deeply flawed Unfortunately pointless, let’s make this thread a bit more productive:


Best kind of apple?

I’ve gotta go with Granny Smith. Good balance of sour and sweet and they retain a nice firm texture longer than any other apple.

[Saucexorzski]

Seeing as this is another pointless post-and-run thread from this OP that he’ll never look at yet alone respond to making the many retorts pointing out that his initial reasoning is deeply flawed Unfortunately pointless, let’s make this thread a bit more productive:


Best kind of apple?

I’ve gotta go with Granny Smith. Good balance of sour and sweet and they retain a nice firm texture longer than any other apple.

you don't got to derail a thread that has merit just because the OP is silly. The link i posted is to a review over decades on how apparently serotonin deficiency is not the cause of depression. What that means for all those on antidepressants is yet to be seen. Going to be real interesting to see how or if anything changes in their use. Personally i think nothing will happen, to much money and faith in them at this point.

[Elegiac]

you don't got to derail a thread that has merit just because the OP is silly. The link i posted is to a review over decades on how apparently serotonin deficiency is not the cause of depression. What that means for all those on antidepressants is yet to be seen. Going to be real interesting to see how or if anything changes in their use. Personally i think nothing will happen, to much money and faith in them at this point.

Oh boy, this old chestnut again. Y'all really have a fixation with trying to demonise treatment for mental illness, huh?

"Serotonin deficiency is the cause of depression" isn't something that mainstream psychiatrists have been claiming in the first place. For starters, "depression" is not a singular disorder but encompasses a range of mood imbalances that can and do respond differently to different forms of treatment. The reason SSRIs are prescribed is because there is in fact quite a lot of evidence supporting that they can be an effective treatment for depression in many of those cases, even if the specific mechanism of action isn't entirely understood. This is the case for plenty of medications - both aspirin and acetaminophen (paracetamol for international folks), for instance, were available for decades before it was identified exactly how they worked. This is why your own link has to disclaim that it isn't an authoritative basis for determining the efficacy of SSRIs as a treatment for depression, let alone any other disorder.

So no, "more people are getting treated for depression might explain why more young people seem to suffer from mental illness" is not a claim that holds water even by the standards of the study you posted.

[Logwyn]

Part of this issue is that parents would never drop their children off at a school gym with no adult supervision for 5-6 hours. The only people in the gym are children of the same age group.

Yet when they hand them a device that is exactly what they are doing. Turning children loose with a device in pretty much the same situation.

[Endus]

Part of this issue is that parents would never drop their children off at a school gym with no adult supervision for 5-6 hours. The only people in the gym are children of the same age group.

Yet when they hand them a device that is exactly what they are doing. Turning children loose with a device in pretty much the same situation.

Dude, when I was growing up, it was absolutely plausible that on any given weekend or summer day that the weather allowed for, I'd be taking off in the morning and biking a mile or two away to meet with friends, often biking down powerline trails or similar wooded trails rather than using standard roads. I'd be gone all day, no "adult supervision" whatsoever, just be back before the streetlights come on. Not even "back for dinner" if I was getting dinner somewhere else. No cell phones they could reach me with because I wasn't a rich wall street banker in the late '80s. Even if it wasn't with friends, I'd disappear into the wooded section that lay between two branches of the local suburb (super hilly, wasn't feasible to carve it all out for houses), and I could be gone for hours there just as easily. Not usually for 5+, but that's more me getting bored and coming back on my own.

I wasn't remotely unique in that. You see those '80s movies where kids are taking off on their bikes and they're gone all day and their parents never have any idea what they're doing? That's not Hollywood nonsense. That's just how things were. Sure, it was also rapidly evolving into video games at that point, so often I was biking over to a friend's place to play video games for hours in his basement, but often, his parents weren't even home, so again, no supervision, though it was possible to call their place at least on the landline. But we weren't always doing that. We also did stupid kid shit.

Cell phones give parents direct access to their kid's location and a back door to their communications and activities. Even "turning them loose with a device" is way more restrictive than it was in yesteryear. Hell with a school gym, we were off in the woods throwing rocks at a wasp's nest we'd found.