- A rising number of young Americans are disconnected from work, school, and a sense of purpose.
- Disconnection rates have been increasing since the 1990s, affecting young people’s futures.
- Poor mental health and a lack of a financial safety net contribute to rising disconnection.
Are you kidding? The parents can’t figure out why? Really? Neither can mine by the way.
They don’t understand that the social contract is broken. Working for a living wage is a concept that’s all but disappeared. A job can’t pay the rent and food. And employers aren’t giving any significant pay raises or promotions in order to cut costs. They’ve been through TWO major economic events - 2008 and COVID - and the massive layoffs that go with them.
I think I heard Jimmy Carr say something about this along the lines of the reason that millennials and the younger generations play so much video games is that it’s the only way to experience the fantasy of actually doing something and progressing in any significant way that we don’t experience any more in real life. And forget about owning a home and building a family with kids and all that. It’s become incredibly difficult and something reserved for the wealthy elite.
Boomer parents who were able to get a well paying job with a high school degree and got good raises their whole life will never understand this.
You don’t need to play video games to accomplish something and feel progression. Any hobby will do that. Some are essentially for free, other than the time spend. Hence I do not see that one specific connection. Otherwise should be a good starting point to figure the reasons out.
The person being quoted isn’t saying that everyone who needs to escape reality does so through video games but that most people who play video games are doing so to escape reality. Your example of other hobbies providing the same effect doesn’t counter this claim
Of course! But, I’m saying it e generation in general has been doing that to fill a void.
There never was a social contract lol what are you talking about?
You people act like the capitalists weren’t always trying to get the most out of us while giving us as little as possible…but none of you will change your buying habits or sacrifice anything to save the system.
Kids rail against how hopeless it is while spending $20 on chipotle and paying these companies they’re complaining about.
well yeah we increasingly cant see the fruits of our labour.
just feels like we are grinding ourselves for nothing
And then the fuckers fill our games with grinding!
so we are compelled to spend more money on microtransactions to speed it up. even our distractions gouge us for our time and money, so exhausting.
I don’t think it’s just not getting a fair slice-- they don’t like the pie.
When I was 20, there was hope that technology was serving us better, we could (and would) fix pollution and global warming, people’s health around the world was improving, open space and protections for wildlife were increasing. Progress seems much less of a straight line now, and young people I know are skeptical of human effort in general. The easy solution seems to be just do less and have less, which doesn’t motivate you to work for rich people. I don’t agree with all of the gloom, but you can’t expect them to just snap out of it.
And now tech is used solely for marketing and surveillance of the people who created it. Back in the day we knew new ground breaking tech would be used for weapons, but at least those weapons weren’t mostly pointed at the residents of the country that invented it.
Foucault tried to warn us
I think that’s gonna be a global issue very soon. I’m a millennial in the EU and feel already like that. I more often see it in younger generations.
I get financially by. That’s it. No huge savings. I don’t own a car because it would just make it more expensive to be alive. Thinking about buying a house or apartment? Hell no.
Right it’s our fault the entire world, the government,the economy is on the verge of collapsing and staying in work and school will solve all of our problems we can’t afford to have a life, staying in school to get into work is pointless having a job is pointless you can’t afford to live anyways. So who’s fault is it let’s think real hard about that.
I don’t think giving up is the solution though.
Laying around being a burden is the worst way to go about it.
A growing group of America’s young people are not in school, not working, or not looking for work. They’re called “disconnected youth” or “opportunity youth,”
There’s already a term for this: NEET. Not in Education, Employment, or Training
