Young Adulthood Is No Longer One of Life’s Happiest Times
Young Adulthood Is No Longer One of Life’s Happiest Times
The U-shaped curve that pegged youth and old age as the happiest times of life has changed
To save you a click, no one is ever happy now.
Not quite.
I also thought my youth sucked, but life only gets worse from there. Sure looking forward to upcoming retirement gave a spike of happiness to previous generations but that no longer applies to us.
Retirement 😂
2049: You failed too many CAPTCHAs and they're sending a blade runner for your retirement.
Coincidentally on point, I just happened to rewatch the IT Crowd episode “FriendFace” (IMDB).
It came out December 2008, just as Facebook was going mainstream, and it fucking it nails it, all the way back then.
Transforming the internet into a single monolithic social space is just not a good idea. And it was likely the beginning of data mining, privacy breaches, manipulation etc. None of that makes anywhere nearly as much sense without big social platforms.
It could and should be remembered as our generation’s cigarettes/smoking. Something we all just did despite how obviously bad an idea it was (again, IT Crowd nailed it out of the gate, which means it was there for anyone to notice).
Something we all just did
Nope, sorry to disagree but there were many of us who very loudly mentioned how Facebook is a terrible idea for society and mental health.
More like most people assumed it was safe, cause plenty of us saw it coming.
I hear you. I was also one of them. Never had my own Facebook account (someone made one “for me”) and I always found disturbing (there’s a scene in the IT Crowd episode that is exactly something I saw early that freaked me out). And being against Facebook is what brought decentralised social into my awareness.
But realistically, a large amount of people are active big social. Enough to characterise the way the world works.
It's not The Internet or Smartphones. These are communication devices.
It's people learning, thanks to increased networking and information access, that we live in a layer cake of dystopias.
I don't think you are correct. Since the best way companies found to make money while giving things away for free is advertising, they need to keep people watching. Sadly the things that engage people most are fear and hatred. So that's what we get served up.
It's just the same old adages that news used to have, "if it bleeds, it leads", but pushed up to 11.
I think that's just because boomers own all the assets. Assets are pretty much happinesses.
Young adults didn't have much assets in the past either. I suspect a strong factor here is rather that due to high rents for apartments in population centers, young adults are forced to stay with their parents which can be quite miserable at that age.
People earn more as they age there's no doubting that. However young adults now own less assets overall than their parents or grandparents did at their age. It continues that way for every age cohort too.
The baby boomer generation owns and has owned more wealth than any other generation in US history even when accounting for age.
I don't think that's it either. Young adults have been living with their parents for generations and in many parts of the world that is still the norm. You just go from dependent, to independent, to caretaker of your parents as they age. My own opinion on this is 1) social media. Before we only compared ourselves to our immediate peers. Now we are exposed to millions of people online. Especially when combined with the insidious algorithms made to keep you on these platforms. 2) The constant feeling of impending doom that makes us feel like we don't have a future. Makes everything we do feel pointless.
Or if you don't have parents, or can't move back with them for whatever reason, you just suck it up and remain in the rent poverty trap forever, unable to save up for a downpayment quickly, while house prices get higher faster than you can save otherwise.
I'm not even in a population centre, I work remotely and live in a tiny town rent a shitty mouldy damp basement, but even rent alone for this place alone is higher than what median monthly take-home is for almost half of the population. My neighbours upstairs, who have a hole in their ceiling, pay for an apartment not much bigger than mine as a houseshare of 5-6 people, they're packed in there like sardines.
I was meant to be happy?
I’m happier in my 40s than I ever was in my 20s.
I mean, shit’s still fucked. But it was so much worse then.
Maybe a shocker to you, but you're not a young adult anymore.
This study is specifically about people in their 20s. Usually in that age you're supposed to be happy and full of hope for the future. Sure, your time maybe sucked, but you're not the average.
Today's youth grows increasingly frustrated and hopeless, because if you look around, there's nothing to hope for. The future is bleak. That wasn't the case 20 years ago.
I was worried about climate 20 years ago, when I was a young adult. I essentially Cassandra’d large parts of today’s world (growing fascism, worse access to quality of life, healthcare etc, bad job opportunities, enormous youth unemployment, massive environmental damage).
I was for the record also miserable, and it surprises me to hear that everybody else wasn’t. Now I actually feel even worse about that period of my life.
I'm in my 30's. Going through school was hell. I wasn't a bad student, but the pressure to succeed made me hate every day. Now that all I do is work, so much more relaxed.
Yep same here. I get home and I'm done. Zero all-nighters. Worst case scenario they fire me, which just means I get paid unemployment while looking for the raise I'll never get from staying.
My friends all went to uni and I went straight into full time work after college. They were having a blast while i was speed running the adult human condition. They had overseas trips and big uni balls and I worked and saved.
By my mid 20s I'd bought a house and was quite advanced in my career, and now I'm middle aged I'm in a far better financial position than they are, and I'm old enough now to put aside FOMO for my youth.
But here's the thing, I did the work really hard thing and got the pay off that was promised. This generation? I don't think it matters what they do, they're fucked. And that's bitterly unfair.
If I were their age, at least in my country, I'd do a trade, travel, try and live off the grid or look into tiny homes and communal living. The system was always rigged but once upon a time there were ways you could get ahead, with some sacrifice and delayed gratification. It's just not true anymore and it's bullshit to tell them otherwise.
I'd counsel young people (again in my country) to learn useful skills and live it up. Don't even try to play the game.
“What you need here is something that starts around 2014 or so, is global and disproportionately impacts the young—especially young women”
Instagram expanded to Android April 2012. That left a year and a half for existential dread to settle in.
I'll be happy when there aren't any time pressures. Basically when I'm dead.
I hope you get your wish soon! Hang in there!
That was interesting. Thanks, OP.
Fucking duh