Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?

>>171297

Fifteen years later, during my own teenage years as a member of Generation X,
smoking had lost some of its romance, but independence was definitely still in. My
friends and I plotted to get our driver’s license as soon as we could, making DMV
appointments for the day we turned 16 and using our newfound freedom to escape
the confines of our suburban neighborhood. Asked by our parents, “When will you
be home?,” we replied, “When do I have to be?”

But the allure of independence, so powerful to previous generations, holds less sway
over today’s teens, who are less likely to leave the house without their parents. The
shift is stunning: 12th-graders in 2015 were going out less often than eighth-graders
did as recently as 2009.

Even driving, a symbol of adolescent freedom inscribed in American popular culture,
from Rebel Without a Cause to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, has lost its appeal for today’s
teens. Nearly all Boomer high-school students had their driver’s license by the spring
of their senior year; more than one in four teens today still lack one at the end of high
school. For some, Mom and Dad are such good chauffeurs that there’s no urgent need
to drive. “My parents drove me everywhere and never complained, so I always had
rides,” a 21-year-old student in San Diego told me. “I didn’t get my license until my
mom told me I had to because she could not keep driving me to school.” She finally
got her license six months after her 18th birthday. In conversation after conversation,
teens described getting their license as something to be nagged into by their parents
a notion that would have been unthinkable to previous generations.

cont.

>>171298

But iGen teens aren’t working (or managing their own money) as much. In the late 1970s,
77 percent of high-school seniors worked for pay during the school year; by the mid-2010s,
only 55 percent did. The number of eighth-graders who work for pay has been cut in half.
These declines accelerated during the Great Recession, but teen employment has not
bounced back, even though job availability has.

Beginning with Millennials and continuing with iGen, adolescence is contracting again
but only because its onset is being delayed. Across a range of behaviors—drinking,
dating, spending time unsupervised— 18-year-olds now act more like 15-year-olds
used to, and 15-year-olds more like 13-year-olds. Childhood now stretches well into
high school.

In this, too, she is typical. The number of teens who get together with their friends nearly
every day dropped by more than 40 percent from 2000 to 2015; the decline has been
especially steep recently. It’s not only a matter of fewer kids partying; fewer kids are
spending time simply hanging out. That’s something most teens used to do: nerds and
jocks, poor kids and rich kids, C students and A students. The roller rink, the basketball
court, the town pool, the local necking spot—they’ve all been replaced by virtual spaces
accessed through apps and the web.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/

>>171297
>iGen
Is there nothing apple doesn't own! But in all seriousness, there are a lot of factors contributing to the increasing rates of depression in the first world and while technology may be a big part of it, that does not mean it is the whole story. Still a good read which brings up some great points, thanks.

>>171305
Considering the landslide of bullshit thrust upon my peers and myself, I'd be wary towards any conclusions that'd define a generation.

It's the first generation that's going to have a far shittier time than the one immediately before it for the first time since the 1800s and they all know it. I'm sure everyone would love to have gainful employment, cars, houses, and college degrees without hilarious amounts of debt. Turns out that's basically impossible and the internet is at least a halfway interesting distraction from the fact that everything's shit but phones are hardly the cause of any of the serious societal problems that started in motion before the current generation was born.

>>171338
> I'm sure everyone would love to have gainful employment, cars, houses, and college degrees without hilarious amounts of debt.

How is that causing kids to not hang out with friends and behave like babys?

My 15 year old nephew still plays with Legos, doesn’t give a shit about learning to drive and eats like a picky toddler and this while being a straight-A student across the board as well as in advanced math and science classes.

>>171349
Sounds like actual, medically defined autism.

Regular kids still hang out in person with friends all the time, it's just easier to also do that on the internet or a videogame when that's not an option. They sure as hell aren't usually playing with lego at fifteen.

People have gotten more cowed lately by social interaction. I have been a classic case of this but I force myself out of the house to work my speech and learn human behavior. Took years of work. I'm 27 now and still a NEET.

it is easy and natural for the older generations to blame technology for this, because to do anything else would be for the older generations to accept responsibility for their actions.

>>171297
omg violent games, dungeons and dragons and loud music are melting childrens brains, somebody alert congress!

>Smartphones
This is exactly the same shit that happened two decades ago when PCs+internet got around. Just more mainstream.

>Everyone is nerds now, this is bad!
Nah, it's for the best. I'll take suicidal depressive teens over obnoxious cunts every single day.

>Suicide rates increase the more you use your smartphone and social media.

This is some top tier Darwinism here, love it.

>>171562

50 year old here and I played video games, D&D and listened to loud music but all were done while physically interacting with my friends, not sitting by myself staring into a cellphone.

But I’ll admit that adults (particularly women) are doing this nowadays also and it’s pretty common to see people at a bar with their cellphones sitting on the table right in front of them, so they can check their Facebook page every couple of minutes…

I remember almost 10 years back, listening to a co-worker complain about his 18 year old daughter literally crying because she had to take drivers ed, as she was going off to college and mommy & daddy couldn’t cart her around anymore.