Others are saying the end of leaded gasoline, I’ll add that around 2008 when the trend accelerates schools started becoming more locked down and consequences for being a kid can now follow you into adulthood much easier due to social media.
I think we’re seeing a natural result of kids being scared of that one bad night being immortalized or that one fight turning into an arrest.
Interesting; for what it's worth, as a black person who grew up in a relatively privileged environment, the "one bad fight" rule was subconsciously our entire existence in a way that it wasn't for many people around us.
More likely to get hit with a Zero Tolerance punishment for a single isolated incident, which derails your entire trajectory through the school system.
Right -- like "later" is one of the luckier outcomes.
Win or lose, start or end the fight, regardless of what actually happened -- there's always the extremely lopsided chance that I'm seen as the aggressor and get strongly punished; especially in the days before cell phones.
+1 for the Lead Hypothesis. Apart from negative health effects, lead exposure leads to more impulsive behavior and reduced inhibition - which kind of covers nearly everything here.
Have to say, I am glad that the world is safer and less wild, but I do miss the creative energy and "real world" social engagement of 1980s-1990s
That generation were a bunch of mindless, selfish dicks. Free from poisoning, the new generations can think clearly about how to be selfish dicks, and plan it out more deliberately.
Generalizations about generations are pretty silly. Every generation, baby boom, X, Z, millennial, etc. has a pretty heterogeneous mix of mindless, selfish dicks, geniuses, morons, artists, business people, wizards, creeps, and normies.
> I think we’re seeing a natural result of kids being scared of that one bad night being immortalized or that one fight turning into an arrest.
> You’re just not allowed to be a kid really.
I learned yesterday about the skull breaker challenge, where you and two friends line up and jump at the same time to see who jumps highest, except the outside two people conspire to kick the legs out of the middle one. Is that being a kid? If anything, the proliferation of social media is enabling the normalization of deviance in the form of these meme challenges. People are going around spraying bug spray on the produce at the grocery and posting it on TikTok.
Yeah I would be willing to bet serious money that this is a few kids and that the number is not even greater than a fractional fraction of a percent.
You're seeing point wise incidents, chosen to generate outrage, and trying to apply them like all kids are doing these things, which per all trends they are not.
Sorry some fraction of people will always be stupid, we shouldn't apply constraints on the many to save the few stupid ones.
How many of these trends are we seeing and how much of a fraction of a fraction do they represent in sum? The article discusses specific declines but doesn't look at data regarding increased incidences of social-media-driven acts of deviance. That's like pointing at the declining use of the saddle while ignoring the rise of the automobile. I guess I should revise my previous hyperbolic statement as I don't know if the deviance is made up for in other ways, I would just have appreciated a broader view.
I'm sure you never heard "if your friend jumps off a bridge would you?" question growing up. But it seemed to be very common saying in my family and in others at the time. So it seems like kids were making bad decisions based off of peer pressure well before social media. It's only that it goes "viral" that anyone pays attention at all. Just more ammunition for the "kids these days" type of people I guess.
Deep water Jetty's are way more fun - from the deck at a king high tide, barely ten feet, from the top of the service shack at a King low tide, fifty feet and more.
Plenty of time from primary school to junior high to work up to a proper jump.
The lead in gasoline hypothesis is certainly plausible, however, I blame the larger picture of car dependency as well as the Thatcher/Reagan revolution, when 'stranger danger' was the big fear.
The article does go into this aspect, with a map of Sheffield in the footnotes showing how far eight year old kids were able to travel over the different generations. There was a time when the child could go across to the other side of the city to go fishing, whereas now, a child is essentially imprisoned and not expected to be going very far.
The Thatcher/Reagan revolution created exceptional oppositional culture in the UK, with 'rave' being the thing. The last 'free range' children grew up to be the original ravers and they had considerable organisational ability, needed to put on parties and other events. Furthermore, the music of the rave scene was banned by the BBC and the government ('repetitive beats').
In time, most of the rave generation grew up, got day jobs, had kids and all of that fun stuff. They got old and moved on, however, there was nobody to fill their shoes. Instead of illegal rave events and lots of house parties, organised festivals and city nightclubs took over. The cost aspect meant going with a small handful of friends rather than just the closest two hundred friends.
A good party should be heard from a considerable distance away (sorry neighbours) and I am surprised at how few parties there are these days. I travel by bicycle on residential roads, often late at night. Rarely do I find myself stumbling across people having house parties. This doesn't mean that parties aren't happening, but, equally, it doesn't mean I am old and out of touch.
I would suggest that another trend which contributes to this "one bad fight" is the growing personal disposable income in the US, which allows parents to be highly litigious, demanding things like arrests of kids their kids get in fights with:
Anecdotally, teachers have been talking about fear of getting sued by parents for a long time now. I suspect this is a big driving force behind the "everyone gets a trophy" mentality and not at all liberalism. Teachers have been kowtowing to moneyed tiger/helicopter parents in ever more egregious ways.
I think we’re seeing a natural result of kids being scared of that one bad night being immortalized or that one fight turning into an arrest.
You’re just not allowed to be a kid really.