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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2804 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 20, 2024

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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The so-called sex recession has been discussed both here and on the two old subreddits extensively, and a consensus seems to have formed for a good reason (I think) that it's not actually a sex recession per se but instead a socialization/community recession, a recession of social interaction. That is, it's not only sexual activity that is declining but also every form of socializing and all traditional social circles (churches, clubs, associations etc.), and the sex recession is just one consequence of that.

There are three related phenomena that I remember being occasionally addressed on the subreddits, namely:

  1. The decline of shopping malls.
  2. The decline of arcades.

(These two started to take place largely around the turn of the millennium and were exacerbated by the 2008 financial crisis, and can be explained by a combination of social and technological trends but that's not the point here.)

  1. The long-term effects of the federal enforcement of 21 as the drinking age, as a phenomenon peculiar to the USA. This meant that people over 21 and under 21 have no venues or social circles left where they can interact, and teenagers who graduate from high school and subsequently lose that place as a venue for socializing basically find no replacement for that, because every conceivable venue that could fill that role caters to people over 21.

  2. The proportion of 18-year-olds with driver's licenses has apparently also declined massively, which appears to be a phenomenon tied to the ones above; anyway, I don't remember it ever being discussed here in detail.

All in all, the obvious combined effect of all of this is the massive loss of what sociologists call third places for teenagers in particular. And all this happened before the proliferation and normalization of smartphone/tablet use, which had its own great consequences, of course.

So, to get to my question: have there been studies about this particular phenomenon and its effect on the sex recession or the social lives of teenagers / 20-somethings? Because there must have been one. Was it ever even discussed in mainstream media?

I think there is a decline in the number and affordability of spaces where young adults could just hang out with peers, and I’ll definitely agree that the (safetyist) push for graduated licenses and later driving ages have made this worse. It’s driving the loneliness epidemic, the dating recession, and I’d argue the phenomenon of online radicalism (and it’s both sides) are driven by just a lack of offline, cheap and easily accessible places where a kid between 15 and 20 can afford to hang out and don’t need to get parental permission to get to.

I’ve come to the conclusion that all groups of people in society need their own in-person offline spaces where they can be with other people of similar ages and backgrounds especially away from the prying eyes of outsiders who might not appreciate the activities or discussions had by those people. Incels, I believe are created when socially awkward boys are not given access to male only private in person and offline spaces where they can learn to be social and learn from other men how to approach a woman and how to not be awkward when dating one. You simply cannot do that in mixed company or around adult gatekeepers who will be offended by the discussion.

True. I remember there used to be dance clubs / discos specifically catering to teenagers under 18. They were the same as normal clubs but there was no alcohol served.

One could certainly compare to other developed countries, as this issue seems largely a US-specific phenomenon. As far as I can tell, third spaces are alive and well in much of Europe and East Asia, where the denser urbanization with proper public transit, among other factors, don't keep kids completely dependent on their parents to get anywhere at all. I remember watching anime as a young teenager. The thing that always stood out as most alien to me, more than the monsters or magic or whatever, was the way that kids in Japan could apparently just go out, alone, and see friends without needing parents to give them a ride every time. As a 14 year old who only ever knew life in my typical American suburb, walking distance from almost nowhere (the nearest non-residential building was a single gas station a 40 minute walk through rows of copy-pasted single family houses belonging to complete strangers), I couldn't help but feel envious. As an adult, I get the appeal of suburbs, and there aren't many great choices for walkable cities in the US (maybe someone from NYC or Chicago, etc. can chime in on if their experiences differed), but I don't know if I would ever want to force that kind of isolation on kids of my own.

The most frustrating part about this is that it's still possible to have walkable suburbs. We have them in the Europe. The problem is that US zoning laws usually make it illegal to build anything except houses in suburban areas. In the UK, suburbs have shops, parks, schools and pubs and it is possible to walk to all of them.

Suburbs have all those things, the problem is that you can't build any of that stuff amidst houses (except parks and maybe schools).

'Amidst the houses' is the suburb. If there's a zone for housing and a zone for commercial, then the housing bit is the suburb, from the perspective of the residents.

By contrast, in the UK there are pubs and shops nestled in between houses. To take a random example, the suburb Jesmond, in Newcastle. Look at it on Google Maps. It includes two metro stations, bus stops, pubs, restaurants, playing fields, hotels, parks, churches, allotments, schools, cafes and small businesses. You can easily walk from any part of the suburb to any other part, and you can get public transport to the rest of the city.

When I look at (also randomly chosen) Rio Rancho in Albuquerque, I see vast tracts of houses, many located in cul de sacs (so you can walk to the end of your road and that's it) and all of the shops and restaurants are limited to the big road that surrounds the suburb.

'Amidst the houses' is the suburb. If there's a zone for housing and a zone for commercial, then the housing bit is the suburb, from the perspective of the residents.

Are you American? This isn't really how Americans conceive of suburbs. The typical American suburb is a small town that's predominantly residential, but it still has a shopping mall or main street. A town that's predominantly a bedroom community with people commuting to work in the big city is a suburb, not just the residential zone of that town.

Edit: even within rio rancho (which is not in Albuquerque, it's its own town) there are commercial areas, such as they are, sandwiched between residential areas:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/KoF7M9v9AWqNx1JW9

https://maps.app.goo.gl/ziwk7cAqQejR81Hp9

I'm really talking about walkability. It doesn't matter if the residents describe the commercial area as part of the suburb if they have to get a car there. Once you're driving, it may as well be in another town.

I think this is really just a factor of scale that we've perhaps chosen poorly. I've visited some friends who live north of Dallas, which is quintessentially suburban, and their single-family house in the 'burbs is not directly on the main roads (a grid with about a mile spacing), but requires turning off on a couple of smaller side streets, but the zoning along the main roads is commercial, so there are half a dozen small restaurants -- admittedly, not Michelin fare -- and daycares and convenience stores within a mile or so. If OP really has a two mile stretch each way to anything (and I don't doubt those exist; I've seen layouts like that) it seems we've just spaced things poorly.

But even then, economies of scale and the availability of cars means you choose to drive to the huge grocery store, not the corner bodega, which doesn't have room to stock your favorite almond milk or more than two types of beer. Not sure how that variety is achieved by New Yorkers, but they tell me it exists.

How are 18 year olds getting around without drivers licences given that so many of them live in suburbs now?

They don't. It's not seen as an issue because if you're a suburban teenager you're expected to go off to college somewhere at 18.

Being driven around, obviously.

This tethers them to their parents more tightly.

federal enforcement of 21 as the drinking age

When I was young, I wondered if I'd stop caring about this one once I was well beyond the age that it was directly relevant to me, but no, the further I get from it, the dumber it seems. The arguments are so cliche that we've already all heard them a million times - these people are old enough to vote, old enough to fight in the military, but not old enough for a beer? Self-evidently ridiculous! We can even easily visit other countries with lower drinking ages and observe that nothing much happens differently without these dopey laws. Worse still, the effect isn't just on the underage, it's in pointless enforcement up and down the age spectrum. Nearing 40, I still need an ID to buy beer at a grocery store. Everyone involved has to pretend as though this isn't a completely retarded ritual, we all agree that there's really nothing to be done about it, the federal government decided that you need to card everyone and the company dutifully implemented a system where it's not even possible to sell a beverage without doing so. A small thing, really, but a constant reminder of how much I despise the petty, authoritarian weasels of the American federal government.

The vast majority of my excessive drinking was before 21. 21 was actually around the age I decided I should prioritize my health and not drink too much. I was much more mature than I was just a few years earlier. Also, if 18 year olds can get access to alcohol, it makes it a lot easier for 16 year olds to get access to it. My friends and I drank way too much in high school and we mostly got our alcohol from older siblings.

I totally agree that it's ridiculous that people over 30 are getting carded. This is not a thing in Quebec, but in the rest of Canda, they're way too strict about it. There's no law requiring them to do it though.

I suppose the social milieu was such that adults got spooked by the horrific specter of 18-20-year-old boys getting into car accidents, fistfights, having unprotected sex etc. and this measure was seen as a good idea. People generally don't consider long-term consequences in such situations.

that adults got spooked by the horrific specter of 18-20-year-old boys getting into car accidents, fistfights, having unprotected sex etc.

In other words, "teenage boys" [and to a lesser extent, men in general- the young men just get it worse as a consequence of how men accumulate sociofinancial value] became the new "niggers" (started in the early 1900s, and would become progressively truer each decade, with a quick pause around 1960 for the economic golden age where they became economically useful again). The prohibitions that were imposed for the latter group would transfer to the former; they'd be charged as adults for crimes committed before that time (for things that wouldn't be crimes if they were adults, even), be prevented from working, intentionally segregated, consistently demonized in the media because melanin hormones, get the phrenology treatment ('lack of brain development') for a justification for making the paper-bag test analogue stricter, etc.

I failed to stop Noticing this one once I was well beyond the age for whom a change in that cultural attitude would have been wholly selfish. Perhaps that's a side-effect of not actually having particularly identifiable "stupid kids" in class but "this is net-negative for at least 50% of the population" is a pretty damning condemnation ignoring that. We are already willing to accept 12/52-type consequences that result by giving rights to every other group and the fact we don't extend that downwards in the age range is... interesting, to say the least. I think it's socioeconomic in origin, for the same reasons other groups gain or lose the right to be considered human over time in industrialized societies (unindustrialized societies consider adulthood to be around 13-14, which strongly suggests that's when it actually happens, but it's not like they have any other choice in the matter; not that Western societies that delay it are being explicitly malicious when they do that, but if we accept that we also accept a lack of malice about race/sex discrimination more generally [assuming and to the extent that our scientific ageism is false], so...).

People generally don't consider long-term consequences in such situations.

I agree; I think forcing them out of any cultural milieu or circumstance that they'd grow up in (growing up is an inherently dangerous activity) may not have been the best of ideas. This is part of why the Amish have rumspringa- you're leaving as a child, and if you choose to come back, you're doing so as an adult.

The difference between teenage boys and black people is that teenage boys actually are disproportionately likely to be violent, irrational, and antisocial for unambiguously genetic reasons. Societies fall apart when they fail to take that into account.

unindustrialized societies consider adulthood to be around 13-14, which strongly suggests that's when it actually happens, but it's not like they have any other choice in the matter

This isn't true. Teenaged boys in agrarian societies might be expected to do adult levels of work, but they don't get adult levels of say in society(and of course they don't have freedom, because in undeveloped poor agrarian societies no one does) and coming of age rites in agrarian societies for male full adulthood are usually higher than the 18-21 common in the industrialized world.

Now teenaged girls in agrarian societies are commonly married off to much older men and subsequently treated as adult women, but that's not what you're talking about.

because in undeveloped poor agrarian societies no one does

My level of reference is "what was it possible for a 14 year old to do in 1900" compared to "what are they allowed to do today"?

Off the top of my head I can think of "get any entry-level factory job that doesn't require advanced education, support or start a family, get laid, move across the country, buy a weapon, have a beer after work" in 1900. At 15-16, provided you could had reached full adult height and weren't cursed with babyface, you could join the military. Even in the 1930s 14 year olds doing menial tasks like waiting tables was normal enough; evidenced by the youngest Hindenburg staff member that survived that incident being that age.

Today they're... allowed to play on the computer, I guess.

In 1900 the US and Western Europe were industrialized societies with on paper modern laws about the ages you could do things, with the exception of child labor. Sloppy record keeping meant there were lots of high school aged boys in the military, sure, but they lied about their age and got away with it because public records were spotty. And the idea that any appreciable group of people had more sexual freedom at any point prior to 1960 is risible, although I suppose the frequency of prostitution might count as a point in favor of our 14 year old in 1900.

Actually agrarian societies tended to be rather harshly restrictive of teenaged boys and marry the girls off. And that’s still how subsistence farmers behave today.

The thing that blows my mind the most as I look back is how many of my college friends did the worst of their drinking before 21 and calmed down after.

Yeah, I neglected to mention that part, that these laws unambiguously do not work. The idea of a bunch of teenagers just deciding that they have to be sober because it's illegal to drink is comical. No one is actually being saved from binge drinking by a 20-year-old not being allowed to have a glass of wine with a steak. But hey, on the bright, every now and then my wife neglects to bring an ID with her and it saves her from having a dangerous intoxicant with dinner.

To play Devil's advocate for a second (I too think 21 is unnecessarily high), maybe the point of 21 is that it makes 18 easier to enforce. Here the drinking age is 18, and alcohol was a normal part of my life from around the time I was 16. Normal as in my parents wouldn't have any problem if I drank alongside them for meals of social gatherings, I would go out to bars with friends and order alcohol without anyone bothering me, and whenever there was a party my friends and I would always manage to have beer case one way or another (family/siblings buying for us, one of us having a fake ID, etc...). I don't think I could have gotten into bars pretending to be 21 at 16. Maybe people were more lax with it back then too though, it felt to me like the rule was that as long as the ambiguously aged late-teen young adult seems the discreet type they wouldn't bother checking ID.

You're right, in that much of purpose was to split away from High School friend groups. Everyone in high school has friends age 18, few have close friends age 21+. When I was in high school, from 15 onward I could have gotten an 18 year old to buy me cigarettes, it wasn't until after I graduated that I could reliably acquire alcohol.

The results of all this are kind of uneven and mixed. As a kid it was easier for my peers, or me though I didn't at the time, to smoke weed than to drink alcohol, weed was already illegal so the dealers didn't card, and it's easier to transport than alcohol. Good kids, like me, basically didn't drink in high school, the bad kids who did want to drink found ways to, and it meant interacting with real shitbirds of adults who would help them get it. I'm sure there's a lot of bad people who make a habit of preying on minors looking for booze.

I'd love to see it set at the municipal rather than the state level, using the same techniques. No state government can turn down government highway funding just to let 18 year olds drink. But a city? Say, a beach town like Asbury Park, which would benefit from attracting 19 year olds to party? Or a college town like Ithaca, which would be able to better regulate student drinking if so much of it wasn't technically illegal?

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