First off, as a 25 year old who has never had a phone, I am more and more appreciating that this adamant refusal has been a Good Idea. Secondly, though this probably isn’t as easily quantified a factor, I think my generation has also suffered from the effects of our parents’ generation (for those of us born from baby boomers anyway) being the most narcissistic in human history. I know a lot of people my age or younger with abusive parents (I have them too), and that at least compounds all these other problems.
I definitely suffered from extreme social isolation my whole life. I seem to have lost the urge towards it—like, I enjoy interacting with people, but I don’t really seek it out outside text—but I was very lonely my whole late childhood and teenage years. This wasn’t due to phones and the internet though—the internet was my only way out! It was because I was homeschooled out in the middle of nowhere by narcissists, who seem to have not realized that children need to be around other children. But I think that’s a thing many people in my generation are dealing with: parents who don’t understand the needs of their children.
Epistemic check: Are you going off any kind of study or anything for baby boomers “being the most narcissistic in human history”, or is that just a thing that feels good to say?
I’m extremely skeptical that parents have become more abusive in general — life in the past was terrible in all sorts of ways and I’d be surprised if people were on average nicer fifty years ago. If you know more people your age who claim to have had abusive parents than people older than you who claim the same, consider the types of alternate explanations Zvi gives above, e.g. “maybe younger people are more likely to use the concept of ‘abusive’”. Both of my parents definitely had abusive parents, but neither of them ever used that term to describe it. Also like, disciplining children by spanking was entirely normal where they grew up (mom in US in 60s, dad in China in 70s), but if a parent did that in the US now it would be considered abuse.
You’re right that abuse is very old and is probably just now becoming something that people reflect on en masse, which would imply it’s not the major cause of this shift. As for my evidence that baby boomers are narcissistic, well, I only have popular culture, my own gut feelings, and various possibly biased history youtubers as sources; I have never thought to look for studies on the matter. I would place at least 70% credence on there being at least one well-regarded study finding that boomers on average have a higher proportion of narcissistic traits than earlier generations, however.
Self-centered parents and bad childhoods might tend to amplify intelligence, because the person growing up has more opportunities to notice that society and culture are confused and ill (and therefore more frequently noticing ways not to defer to that confusion and illness, automatically strengthening that muscle).
This is a minor nitpick, but if you’re 25 I doubt that your parents actually qualify as Baby Boomers, which is usually limited to people born before 1964. Not impossible (a person born in 1964 having a child at the age of 35 would result in the child being 25 today), but unlikely.
I bring this up because I’m annoyed by the ongoing shift towards people referring to every generation older than them as “boomers”.
I’ve been considering going phone minimalist, though phone-less wouldn’t be an option for me, and I’m actually interested in the outsider view of someone around my age here.
Well, there’s not much for me to write. I’m a NEET who almost never leaves my bedroom. I’m not much of a source of advice. Part of why I don’t have a phone is because I don’t need one. I imagine it would be more difficult to be all high and mighty about this if I was actually out in the world.
First off, as a 25 year old who has never had a phone, I am more and more appreciating that this adamant refusal has been a Good Idea. Secondly, though this probably isn’t as easily quantified a factor, I think my generation has also suffered from the effects of our parents’ generation (for those of us born from baby boomers anyway) being the most narcissistic in human history. I know a lot of people my age or younger with abusive parents (I have them too), and that at least compounds all these other problems.
I definitely suffered from extreme social isolation my whole life. I seem to have lost the urge towards it—like, I enjoy interacting with people, but I don’t really seek it out outside text—but I was very lonely my whole late childhood and teenage years. This wasn’t due to phones and the internet though—the internet was my only way out! It was because I was homeschooled out in the middle of nowhere by narcissists, who seem to have not realized that children need to be around other children. But I think that’s a thing many people in my generation are dealing with: parents who don’t understand the needs of their children.
Epistemic check: Are you going off any kind of study or anything for baby boomers “being the most narcissistic in human history”, or is that just a thing that feels good to say?
I’m extremely skeptical that parents have become more abusive in general — life in the past was terrible in all sorts of ways and I’d be surprised if people were on average nicer fifty years ago. If you know more people your age who claim to have had abusive parents than people older than you who claim the same, consider the types of alternate explanations Zvi gives above, e.g. “maybe younger people are more likely to use the concept of ‘abusive’”. Both of my parents definitely had abusive parents, but neither of them ever used that term to describe it. Also like, disciplining children by spanking was entirely normal where they grew up (mom in US in 60s, dad in China in 70s), but if a parent did that in the US now it would be considered abuse.
You’re right that abuse is very old and is probably just now becoming something that people reflect on en masse, which would imply it’s not the major cause of this shift. As for my evidence that baby boomers are narcissistic, well, I only have popular culture, my own gut feelings, and various possibly biased history youtubers as sources; I have never thought to look for studies on the matter. I would place at least 70% credence on there being at least one well-regarded study finding that boomers on average have a higher proportion of narcissistic traits than earlier generations, however.
Self-centered parents and bad childhoods might tend to amplify intelligence, because the person growing up has more opportunities to notice that society and culture are confused and ill (and therefore more frequently noticing ways not to defer to that confusion and illness, automatically strengthening that muscle).
It’s probably not as optimal as being born very smart, given lots of time to think, and heavily tutored by lots of smart adults; but the optimal upbringing is rare, and a vastly larger number of smart kids collide with bad childhoods.
This is a minor nitpick, but if you’re 25 I doubt that your parents actually qualify as Baby Boomers, which is usually limited to people born before 1964. Not impossible (a person born in 1964 having a child at the age of 35 would result in the child being 25 today), but unlikely.
I bring this up because I’m annoyed by the ongoing shift towards people referring to every generation older than them as “boomers”.
Yes, my parents are objectively boomers. My mother was born in 1960 and my father in 1953.
Okay, that’s a pretty serious age gap. Probably explains a lot.
Did you ever write anything on this topic?
I’ve been considering going phone minimalist, though phone-less wouldn’t be an option for me, and I’m actually interested in the outsider view of someone around my age here.
Well, there’s not much for me to write. I’m a NEET who almost never leaves my bedroom. I’m not much of a source of advice. Part of why I don’t have a phone is because I don’t need one. I imagine it would be more difficult to be all high and mighty about this if I was actually out in the world.