In 2003 on average Americans spent 3 hours a month at in person live real-world partying. This compares to an average of only 90 minutes time per month today spent in live real-world social contact. Meaning in past 20 years we shrank our real-world social lives down to ½ what they used to be. According to journalist Derek Thompson “the death of partying has been absolutely tremendous.”
What is more important is that the decline isn’t the same across all age groups. In particular the drops among young people are staggering. The decline in young people ‘s social partying is down nearly 70% compared to peer age groups of 20 years ago. We are talking about young people who are just at the beginning stages when they should be learning how to socialize, how to talk to people, how to date. In the year 2000 Harvard’s Howard Putnam published a book called “Bowling Alone.”
Pexel
Mart Production
Based on tons of data, he pointed to a trend starting in the 1970’s, and growing increasingly in the 2000’s, of Americans starting to retreat and socialize less. Meaning working on their social capital (social skills) less. There were some who dismissed his findings. Their claim…. The Internet is going to come along and bring us all together. Instead, what actually happened is what Howard Putnam predicted, social partying by 15 – 24 years has declined by 70%. Derek Thompson says What happened was in fact like a ”recession on top of a recession.” The trend of American retreating from socialization and retreating from investing in and building the value of human social connections began even before the explosion of the internet and social media. That digital explosion then actually led to an exponential increase in Americans’ retreat from real-world in-person socialization…This is the very opposite of the Internet bring us together that many had predicted.
There is no mystery to what young men and young women are doing if they are NOT going out. They are hanging out on their phones, they are playing video games, they are watching TV and videos on the Internet and social media. Or, as Derek Thompson puts it … “It is screens, and screens and more screens. They are spending more time with glass than with people.” He goes on to say “young people today have fewer real-world friends and spend less time with those friends.
Mikhail Nilo
For sure there is some nuance to consider… Some of this “screen time” may be on Facetime, or Zoom looking at and engaging with someone you know in the real world through a screen….That would be a teen not truly being alone, isolated and antisocial. However, the reality is a wake-up call. In recent data shared by Meta with the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) the reality is that 90% of what people are doing online is NOT facetiming, zooming or socializing with friends and family form their real world. 90% of people’s time online they are watching videos. Meaning social media itself has essentially become television. To look at it another way is that all of this time that we are not spending with people we know, we are spending (through the videos) with people we don’t know REALLY know… or know at all.
This goes along with tons of academic data finding that it is very easy, and convenient, to be alone, to work from home, to take classes online, to order the food and groceries to your door, to never go outside, to live in your PJ’s, to watch TV alone. Derek says this convenience comes with a curse. He says that most people, when asked, say that these activities which are most convenient are in fact the least meaningful. By contrast time spent in real world in real activities, time outside our homes, with real live in person people is in fact what people find the most meaningful.
Nandhukumar
Younger people are doing less drugs, drinking less, getting fewer drivers licenses and going to parties less. An initial reaction might naturally be that this is a good thing. The first reaction is to likely think young people/teen life is safer. BUT the negative trade-off is an astronomical growth among young people of social solitude and isolation combined with a large body of evidence of a mental health crisis on the rise among young people. It translates into rates of anxiety, depression, OCD and PTSD that are skyrocketing among our young. They are sadder than peer generations who socialized more with real friends and out in the real world.
An interesting finding by author and professor Scott Galloway is that in London 40% of nightclubs have closed because young people don’t have money and a movement to drinking less or not at all. However, he observes, based on legitimate concern, “ I think the risk of alcohol to the young person’s liver from this trend is dwarfed by the risk of anxiety and social isolation.” His advice, as an authority in his field advice, and based on credible data, to young people? He recommends, with humor, some legitimate advice back up by research, “Get out of the house more, drink more and make a series of bad decisions that might pay off.”
Kindel Media
This growing social isolation feeds and perpetuates increases in teen, and young adult, anxiety so much so that it spirals into a self-fulfilling prophecy. It becomes a crutch of negativity for some individuals. Here’s the scenario — I can’t go out because social interactions make me feel uncomfortable and anxious … so I go out less because of my anxiety… resulting in the next time I do go out I feel even more stressed and anxious …. Consequently, I go out even less worsening my anxiety and so it spirals. Parents and young people should look at it this way, social fitness is like physical fitness. Teens and young adults schedule time at the gym because they know it is beneficial and needed. They may not want to go but they go because it is good for them physically and mentally. They may have low or weak performance initially but the more they go the more skill, strength and stamina they build up. The same is true for young people’s social fitness. You have to put it your schedule. You have to make an effort and, work at it to get good at it.
Parents today are more anxious, god forbid their teens, young adults, touch a drop of alcohol. Parents keep kids in a bubble. Parents track every move; in other words, they are in fact (with the best of intentions) the worst parents for the kinds of teenagers we have today. Who are not socializing. For many, not all, parents are keeping children from developing the kind of life and life experiences that make a whole healthy self-confident, self-sufficient human. In other words, to protect our kids we sometimes need to know how to stop protecting our kids. True love means knowing that too much protection is not protection because it keeps kids from things they need to master in order to be healthy independent adults. Part of growing up is having the freedom to make mistakes. In fact, yes kids are more caution and careful but when that extends to becoming a fear of engaging in the real physical world that is dangerous and unhealthy. I recently posted a somewhat related quote from an unknown source, “Kids [preteens, teens and young adults] learn to make good decisions by making decisions…. not by following directions.”
Here are some suggested resources’; journal article “Why Are American Teens So Sad” by Derek Thompson, John Haidt’s book “The Anxious Generation,” Howard Putnam’s “Bowling Alone” and BBC video news story “Americans Are Socializing Less – Here’s Why It’s Worrying.”