It has been over six years that I have been writing on this blockchain and one of the conversations I have continually focused on is how I observe behavior, because I am interested in how we tick and how we act. One of my focuses has been on how younger generations are failing because they have been raised on screens, unable to build the necessary skills and behaviors on how to develop and hold relationships.
I have these going back to the start and I remember one where I was talking about an observed group of fifteen year old kids sitting around "talking" to each other, but most of the time on their phones. When they did talk face to face, they were looking over each other's shoulders, always on the prowl for something - more interesting. Another article I remember mentioning how all the relationships are transactional and how unless a person could provide some value, they were value less and when they couldn't give value, they were disposed of.
I am talking about teens here.
Before Covid.
At the start of the Covid panpanic and when the lockdowns were first mentioned, I wrote articles about how it was going to break social ties and people would struggle even more to connect, to build friendship circles and depression and social dysfunction would increase.
I came across an article today with the above headline and what they have mentioned in here is that Generation Z (those born between 1997-2012) are struggling to make and keep friends because of Covid lockdowns. But this is only a part of the story, because the anti-social behavior started well before Covid and was observable well before any of this. The fifteen year olds I mentioned, would now be around twenty two or twenty three.
From the article:
“Completing my course remotely and speaking to minimal people face-to-face, predominantly family members for a good part of a year, really impacted my confidence and communication skills. Before the pandemic, I was extremely social and had no issues being in new environments with new people, so it was quite difficult trying to deal with the fact that I was struggling.”
While I don't know this young woman named Lily, I call bullshit on what she is saying if she was anything like the average teen six years ago. Because, while they believe they were social, they weren't. Being around a lot of people a lot of the time doesn't mean you are good at socializing, which is why so many people these days can be surrounded with people, yet still feel lonely. They weren't connecting with each other deeply and building lifelong friendships, they were hanging out due to convenience, boredom and whatever else.
Covid conditions just exacerbated and amplified their slide into irrelevance, working as a catalyst to speed their social degradation. However, they were already making others transactional and disposable, only staying friends for as long as there was a tangible ROI on the relationship.
The height of disposable people is dating these days, where (I have written about this several times too) people use the app to get dates, but don't actually have the skills to build relationships. And, when things get hard, they don't learn to work it out, because there are always more people waiting to be swiped.
The biggest user group are GenZ, which if you think about it, shouldn't be the case because they are also the group that should be out socializing the most at bars, going to parties and chatting each other up at random events. But, while they are still going out, their friend circles are small and their inability to socialize well means that they are piss poor at talking to each other, let alone doing the validation work to calculate suitability.
The impact of Covid is going to be enormous and I am glad that at least some people are realizing the implications are far worse than the virus itself. However, we as a society have been fracturing for far longer, polarizing, reducing our tradeable skills, our interpersonal skills, our ability to connect with each other, our resiliency to different ideas, our ability to be uncomfortable .... and the list goes on. What we have built quickly however is, our instant gratification mindset - especially in the younger generations.
This has massive impacts on investor mindset too, but in regard to what we are talking about here today, it has an enormous impact on social ability. If we aren't able to invest our time and resources into building relationships, no matter how many people we spend time with, we aren't going to develop deep enough bonds for strong and lasting friendships to form. We can't build friendships like we are buying a gadget, only to be thrown away and replaced, if we want long-term connection, because it means that we will be thrown away too.
There is a golden rule somewhere.
And, while some people seem to think that they are able to do without social interactionbecause it is easier and cleaner, once they get to my age, it is likely that they will realize that it is all about connection, it is all about the relationships we have. If we don't know anyone and no one knows us, what are we in this world, what kind of experience do we have?
And the response is that people are getting lonelier and more disconnected, which drives them into becoming more anti-social, more driven into the digital life where no one knows who they are, and no one gives a fuck about who they are either.
“Younger generations and remote workers are facing challenges making friends in remote environments, which threatens their happiness, productivity and creativity at work, not to mention their company loyalty,”
Ha!
For those who have followed me a while, how many times have I mentioned this, yet people still argue that remote work is good. Hybrid work is a tool that can give flexibility - remote work is isolating and holds us back from being our best and, experiencing our best. This stuff is obvious. It doesn't need a study, it just needs someone to look up from their smartphone for long enough to observe interaction between people and how awkward it has become.
And, when it comes to the ramifications of social disconnection, depression and addictions take the fore, whether it be addiction to drugs, alcohol, games, food or porn - and often there are groupings of these things together today.
As a society, while some people worry about things like gender pronouns and celebrity breakups, the most important parts of our community are falling into such a state of disrepair, that for most, there will be no recovery. As a parent, it is my job to try to ensure my daughter is a healthy and well-rounded individual, but that really requires her to be able to interact and build lasting relationships with other healthy and well-rounded individuals.
It is a rapidly shrinking group.
We can blame Covid, but it wasn't the cause of this disease.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]