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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   3688 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 12, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Are The Kids Alright?

Motivated by a mainline reddit thread I saw asking teachers "what do kids today not know?"

Because of my career + age + unmarried status, I have close to zero interaction with Gen-Z and ... whatever the next one is. I am starting to get second hand reports from parents in my social circle, as well as manager types who are now hiring Gen-Z.

By most, but certainly not all, accounts, the major differences seems to be just very under-developed basic social interaction skills. Anywhere from hyper-preferences for everything to be done via text/e-mail, to literally falling silent in in-person meetings because of inability to cope with (what I think is) base-line social anxiety (what I mean here is the general sense of awkwardness we all feel the first time we meet someone new).

Is this the case for Mottizens who have these interactions? Are there other signs or common symptoms? Most of all -- why is it happening (if it is)? Will I ever be a grandpa without resorting to Greek Mythology levels of sexual "fuck it, I'll do it myself!"

A common complaint is kids are too soft, people are too risk averse. No, they aren't. They're responding to incentives. Risk-taking is overly punished, such as wokeness, victim culture, and an overly-militarized police and punitive carceral state, so people, especially young men, are choosing to play it safe. A false rape actuation can ruin your life. A swatting means having your stuff destroyed. Yet going outside means you can still be mugged or assaulted by roving gangs of the homeless, the addicted, and the criminally insane.

I'm not trying to place blame on Gen-Z. As a committed boomer-hater, I couldn't agree more than people, groups, communities, and entire generations respond to incentives, learn cause-and-effect (or perceived cause-and-effect) loops, and behave in ways that are logical in the short term if not the long.

What I'm interested in is how all of these things, and more, are reflected in the behaviors of Gen-Z. With the limited contact - direct and indirect - that I do have with Zoomers, I've noticed seemingly unending layers or irony and a pronounced lack of social skills that goes far beyond normal awkwardness etc. Again, I am not blaming Zoomers for this, I'm only after a discussion on how this has come to be and what it could mean.

I've noticed seemingly unending layers or irony and a pronounced lack of social skills that goes far beyond normal awkwardness etc

When the only things permitted to you are the things that take literally zero effort to do, you're not going to [be able to] develop the skill of suffering until you get what you want. Social interaction is one of those things that you kind of do have to suffer through to get good at it, and in a cultural milieu of "disconnect, find another server", why not just do that instead?

As for irony, when the only expression you're really allowed/perspective you live in is "nothing really matters", humor devolves into a competition of how high one can stack the blackpills. (Interestingly, I've not really noticed this perspective from anyone I know in this demographic, really- one could claim "good parenting" averts this, but the same genes that result in good parenting also result in positive-thinking kids, so...)

how this has come to be

Karen could, so Karen did. It really isn't any more complex than that- evil triumphed because good did nothing, now we all have to suffer.

whatever the next one is

Generation Alpha, who, despite the name, are set to become the least macho generation of men in recorded history.

I don't really like the acceleration in generation classification; ie wikipedia is claiming '97-2012 for zoomers, which is only 15 years and a pretty aggressive cutoff for millenials to boot. For me to the extent that it's useful at all, a generation spans 20-25 years with the last 3-5 years being a bit of a no man's land/melange.

Millenial characteristics seem very present in people currently in their early 20s, and I predict that Zoomer ones will still exist in those currently being born. (although 'old enough to remember covid' will probably be a factor/cutoff)

tl;dr -- whatever the next generation gets called, hardly any of them are even in kindergarten yet, so we have no idea what they will look like.

I don't really like the acceleration in generation classification

Generations have always been this short. Basically, you want to squeeze in a generation between parents and children: the greatest generation fought in WWII, their children were the boomers, and between them you have the silent generation.

I have noticed the social awkwardness, and as someone who has always had these traits myself, it's weird seeing people converge towards me and I think it's very bad. But it is giving me a lot of insight.

I used to be on the extreme end of the distribution, doing things no one else did, that I now see younger people doing frequently. Things like not being able to make proper eye contact and shifting the eyes around awkwardly.

The phone thing I get. It's easily overcome with exposure. I went through a period of not talking to strangers much at all, and I then I had to make a phone call to a stranger. My heart was beating out of my chest. A few years later, now that I occasionally have to talk to strangers on the phone, it seems ridiculous.

Social skills atrophy without regular practice. I know from firsthand experience that if you go a while without talking to anyone, you're much more awkward even talking to people you know.

There are so many little things that we do in social situations that you can't possibly focus on at once. And the ones you can focus on take more skill that you night think. Things like using the right tone of voice, looking in the right direction, having the right body posture, and saying the right thing at the right time become surprisingly difficult if you haven't done them much recently, at least me, someone to whom these do not come as naturally as they to do others.

Anywhere from hyper-preferences for everything to be done via text/e-mail, to literally falling silent in in-person meetings because of inability to cope with (what I think is) base-line social anxiety (what I mean here is the general sense of awkwardness we all feel the first time we meet someone new).

As an elder Millennial that has worked for a large tech firm and handled some customer support for a much smaller company, might I posit that the hyper-preference for everything to be done via text and e-mail is often correct? Many meetings are things that really do fit the description, "this could have been an email". Many customer support requests via phone are endless and tedious stories about why they totally deserve something for free when the answer is always going to be, "you need to pay your bill or I will deny you access to the product". Having written records of engagements can be helpful to remove misunderstandings. Using asynchronous communication makes time management easier and avoids disruption to workflow. Older generations wanting to make every goddamned interaction into a half-hour meeting is often a pointless time consumer.

To be clear, this isn't true of everything. In person interactions can have significant value-add when there is an emotive component. Interactive testing sessions with live build-test-validate actions get things done a lot faster than the asynchronous approach. But really, the number of things that could have just been an email and are instead Boomers that want to have a chat about it don't improve productivity or happiness.

As an elder Millennial that has worked for a large tech firm and handled some customer support for a much smaller company, might I posit that the hyper-preference for everything to be done via text and e-mail is often correct?

You may posit it, but it's wrong. It takes much less time to say something than to write it and if you're speaking to someone, they can interrupt and much more easily ask you questions to get the information they need and therefore you don't have to anticipate those questions as much, resulting in less redundancy. It's usually a much more efficient means of communication. To replace meetings where most people don't need most of the information and people are less inclined to interrupt? Yes, emails are sometimes better. But 90% of the time, they're not.

As another elder Millennial, I agree. I now spend on average eight hours a day on conference calls where I can't do anything else because there might be a question that only I can answer, but I don't speak most of the time, and the remaining slots between them are too short to get me in the mood to answer some of the emails that have piled up in the meanwhile.

As a manager who is now hiring Gen Z I don't see any problems with social interaction, but they are no longer motivated by the same things, at least in the sphere of information technology:

  • Gen X are either
    • uber-geeks who used to run their own FIDO exchange, IRC server or mail server, or at least had a Spectrum. They love computers and want to excel at everything
    • former engineers whose services were no longer needed after the USSR gave up the ghost, so they ended up working with computers. They might not love computers, but they have a systemic and dutiful approach to their tasks
  • Millenials are geeks or uber-geeks. They had PCs at home and loved them, that's why they decided to make IT their job.
  • Zoomer geeks and uber-geeks exist, but they are lost in the sea of Zoomers that know that a job in IT means $$$, so they quit their job as a delivery driver and went to a QA/FE/DS bootcamp, please hire them now

Geeks and uber-geeks can let you down because there was this error that they almost fixed, so they stayed after work to try one more workaround, then another one, ended up leaving around midnight, but never told you they had this error it because they had a few more ideas to try on Monday. Most Zoomers just tell you there's a new bug, kthxbye, they are gone because they have more tickets to close.

Zoomer geeks and uber-geeks exist, but they are lost in the sea of Zoomers that know that a job in IT means $$$, so they quit their job as a delivery driver and went to a QA/FE/DS bootcamp, please hire them now

As an autodidact I keep defending the bootcamp people, but that's a dynamic I haven't considered. Sad, and should be banned.

What exactly should be banned?

Doing IT without loving computers. There needs to be a Robot Jesse Lee Peterson in every company, bootcamp, and university, asking "do you looove computers?". You can't do IT if it doesn't let you through.

It's sad, and off-putting as someone who likes CS and programming, but needs must. There is a need for programmers, so supply emerges. We can't expect most profession to be filled by the passionate, the wants and needs of people are not aligned.

Oh please, that just sounds like all the old corporate bullshit about "rockstars". Just install competency tests. If they pass, in my books they love IT enough.

Just install competency tests.

And then get sued for disparate impact

Are The Kids Alright?

Yes.
As always, the problem is idiot parents (who are either too close to the problem or don't quite Get It) and adult in general with either a motivated or unmotivated case of Last Thursdayism where they are either forgetting on purpose, or unwilling to acknowledge, that they ever were a kid in the first place (they sprang out of the womb fully-formed at [age of majority + 7]).

You can see this effect on absolute full blast in the other thread this week if you know where to look. In fact, it's in the sibling comment to this one and most of the replies will be missing the point entirely: kids are on their phones 24/7 because, to a large extent, there is literally nothing else for them to do, and the people who will continue to comment on that thread are all young enough to know that. Thus the amnesia is either literal or motivated, which was the conclusion I distinctly remember coming to when I was a kid myself: social conditions haven't changed.

Anywhere from hyper-preferences for everything to be done via text/e-mail, to literally falling silent in in-person meetings because of inability to cope with (what I think is) base-line social anxiety (what I mean here is the general sense of awkwardness we all feel the first time we meet someone new).

The pathway to this is sublimely simple:

  1. Pathologize/criminalize/trivialize any trait, like doing things for yourself, facing any sort of risk, etc.

  2. Kids get the message, don't take any risks, don't do anything for themselves

  3. Kids fail to develop that skill in the critical window

  4. Adults now complaining kids can't do thing you intentionally prohibited them from doing

  5. Clearly, it's not safe for them to do anything else -> look how incapable they are -> we need to protect them for their own good

  6. Go to 1

And yes, in case you were wondering, this is how racism leads to a downwards spiral of capability in the affected group. The effects are functionally identical- the group acts exactly like you've incentivized them and taught them to.

But hey, we can justify it to ourselves by saying "well, they'll grow out of it and magically become adults once it is Safe (25)". I'm sure that is a great plan and won't backfire horribly- of course, moral hazard being what it is around every generation that succeeds yours, you'll never truly be held accountable for the pieces you cut off your kids so they'd be Safe. And besides, they'll find yet another way to fuck up the next generation anyway, so who can truly say?

This is a guide to building a Nanny State and you're probably correct. I still think tech is a big issue, but while modern screens are pure dopamine, it's not being helped by not allowing kids enjoyable places to spend their time and exercise agency (this includes school, but also third space after school venues where their helicopter parents aren't around.) Incentives like you said.

As always, the problem is idiot parents (who are either too close to the problem or don't quite Get It) and adult in general with either a motivated or unmotivated case of Last Thursdayism where they are either forgetting on purpose, or unwilling to acknowledge, that they ever were a kid in the first place (they sprang out of the womb fully-formed at [age of majority + 7]).

I was that kid in the first place, and the adults wringing their hands at me were right. What now?

The pathway to this is sublimely simple:

I agree with this, but that doesn't mean the technology isn't a problem as well.

Anecdotal, but I've had a theory for a long time that too much screentime leads to atrophy of the part of the brain used for social interaction. I'm quite serious about this, based on personal experience. The more interactive the screen is, the more detrimental it is; basically watching tv < doomscrolling social media < videogames.

I remember reading some insights from a child psychologist about this back in 2012 who called it 'Electronic Screen Syndrome', a sub-clinical issue that proposed a link between nervous system overstimulation and social anxiety (amongst other things). From the link:

  • The child exhibits symptoms related to mood, anxiety, cognition, behavior, or social interactions that cause significant impairment in school, at home, or with peers. Typical signs/symptoms mimic chronic stress and include irritable, depressed or labile mood, excessive tantrums, low frustration tolerance, poor self-regulation, disorganized behavior, oppositional-defiant behaviors, poor sportsmanship, social immaturity, poor eye contact, insomnia/non-restorative sleep, learning difficulties, and poor short-term memory.[7]
  • ESS may occur in the absence or presence of other psychiatric, neurological, behavior or learning disorders, and can mimic or exacerbate virtually any mental health-related disorder.
  • Symptoms markedly improve or resolve with strict removal of electronic media (an “electronic fast”); three- to four-week electronic fasts are often sufficient but longer fasts may be required in severe cases.
  • Symptoms may return with re-introduction of electronic media following a fast, depending on a variety of factors. Some children can tolerate moderation after a fast, while others seem to relapse immediately if re-exposed.
  • Vulnerability factors exist and include: male gender, pre-existing psychiatric, neurodevelopmental, learning, or behavior disorders, co-existing stressors, and total lifetime electronic media exposure. At particular risk may be boys with ADHD and/or autism spectrum disorders.

I found limiting screen time to improve my own sociability, but unsurprisingly I'm ticking the boxes for some of those vulnerability factors.

edit: Anyway, I couldn't find some non-fluffy data around screentime use by age, but the fluff articles in a simple google search show that younger generations are using screens more (More than 6 hours per day). Also, here's a random paper showing a correlation between more than 6 hours of screentime a day and depression.

I... don't buy this.

I can acknowledge that there might be something happening. But the size of that is something is probably so small its negligible compared to..

  • masturbating too much
  • not exercising and in general living a miserable life
  • not getting enough sleep

All of which can atrophy your social skills to varying extents

What about team-based video games? Surely they should stimulate the right area of the brain.

Do online gamers strike you as the most sociable people?

Some games have strong social / political components, and the people who are good at those tend to be very sociable. Team shooters still practice your ability to communicate, plan, improve as a group.

Team shooters still practice your ability to communicate, plan, improve as a group.

That's what I was the most familiar with. That and WOW. People involved in them felt pretty anti-social to me, but maybe the demographics have changed since I was involved.

Yes, I loved to RP and shoot the shit with other MUD players back in 2002-2007

This is probably one of the main sources of my techno-pessimism, and anti-transhumanism. I get that it's hard to get away from a screen these days, I get how parents eventually succumb to the stupid arms race of "but all my friends already have phones" (though I think there's a special place in hell for the ones that hand them out to very young kids as pacifiers), but how is it that, at a minimum, schools don't force kids to put away their phones to a locker for as long as they're in the building? When I think too much about it, I'm prone to go full-tinfoil (though that's not unique to this subject).

Screens are amazingly useful when used in isolation moderation. Also, restricting them too much can lead to social isolation of the child involved (think about all of your child's friends being on instagram, while they are not). It's really a 'dose makes the poison' issue.

I think screens are useful to teachers and parents as a sedative (and as educational tools), but likely because the long term impacts of overuse have not yet been properly studied and disseminated in the wider community. This reminds me of similar issues like ultra processed foods (cheap and quick to prepare) vs obesity, or convenient modern plastic packaging vs endocrine disruption through microplastics. Tobacco vs cancer is probably the ur-example.

Basically it seems to be a common theme that there is some game changing technology introduced into our environment where the drawbacks only became apparent after a couple of generations, by which point the damage had been done.

I'm not some anarcho-primativist who advocates a Return to Monke, but I think its a good idea to always keep an eye towards living in a manner that our bodies were designed for. Our environment was meant to accommodate us, not the other way around.

Edit: moderation.

You'd think there would be a demand for private schools where the children are not allowed to have social media accounts at all. Anyone caught with one is expelled and the parents are expected to police this at home.

With social isolation it strikes me a lot more as "race towards the bottom", which is why I'm for banning it in places where a ban is enforceable on the entire social circle (it's not like not like that constitutes the majority of contexts the kid will find themselves in, anyway). I can see the educational potential in the technology, but quite frankly most of it is going to waste in our schools system, and with the way it's set up, I don't see it ever being used to it's full extent, so I don't think it's worth the negative impact on attention spans, for example.

As for using screens as a sedative - like I said, a special place in hell...

Whoops, I wrote isolation rather than moderation (fixed). I agree with your post. I think its important to create tech free zones for kids to interact naturally where you can. They need to learn social skills in a low stakes environment. Otherwise you get really awkward adults doing all sorts of things at the local Meetup.

COVID did a real number on young people who were supposed to be undergoing major developmental milestones relating to socialization.

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