Ultimately I didn't know anything when I left home at 18 and I figured it out. Other people can too. How long does it take to learn how to drive, open a checking account, cook, pay bill, etc. after all ? You can learn these things privately over the Internet so there's no longer a social stigma holding you back. To digress, I eventually taught my older brother responsibility, job skills (he worked at my business), how to file taxes, basic math, etc. He became even more bitter and resentful and then one day broke down and admitted how painful it is to know nothing useful and most of what he does know he had to learn from his little brother. But eventually he started just Googling instead of calling me when he had a question he should know the answer to.
I truly feel sorry for these lost souls and if I hadn't been naturally good at math, I'd likely be one of them.
There is an incredible amount of shame and self-directed anger and fear in men who have found themselves in this position.
All of those feelings are heavy to carry, but they can be shoved aside and ignored by constant entertainment (video games, tv binges etc). Shoved aside they don’t hurt as bad.
But those feelings don’t go away. They get bigger as each year goes on & they flare up when confronted with having to do something they aren’t capable of doing (or think they aren’t capable) like moving out, getting a job, getting a better job, having an adult relationship etc.
Those feelings of inadequacy have to be taken on and grace & forgiveness has to be granted to oneself in order for them to spread their wings / leave the nest and not come back.
For me, the question is how do you get someone so deep into a dark emotional morass to take on the emotional dragons they’ve been hiding from?
What worked for me was a hero's dose of mushrooms, and about a 4-5 hour talk with the universe to shift my perspective 180 degrees.
You're not wrong generally, but this one costs about $1000 where I live, which is close to average national monthly salary and approximately twice the minimum salary.
Not pocket change for someone who has trouble finding work (and many jobs require driver's license).
Then a year ago I just called a driving school near my parents house on her behalf. I offered to pay for everything including study time and taxi rides to and from the school. Whatever it took. She said she still needed more time to read the book, but I said the school would help her. So when the time finally came to schedule a pickup time, she texted me and just said that she isn't interested in learning to drive.
So that basically ended our relationship since this lie was too much. Now the only lever I have left is shunning her for her irresponsible life-style choices that put a burden on others. It has had no effect on her but at least I sleep better.
I doubt that.
It sounds to me like none of your family does a very good job of understanding her. The behavior you describe sounds much less like someone who is uninterested in driving and more like someone who has significant anxiety around that activity that they are surpressing.
I remember one lady in particular tried desperately to see if we could get her son a job. He'd taken a crane operator course but was scared of heights. He wouldn't even come in the room or speak with us.
The thing is, this guy didn't even seem to help at home. His mom had went out and mowed the entire very large, very sloped front yard before she came in to ask us about a job for her son. He sat in the basement the whole time.
Or the time on a weekday afternoon, dude comes out in his jimjams yelling at his mom to make breakfast while she's trying to deal with us in her kitchen which was mostly not usable.
Then there was all the people in that age range i worked with who would last less than a week. People who'd show on their first day and immediately ask when break time was or people who'd just walk out half way through the day or people who'd just straight up say they don't care and they'd rather be at home smoking weed.
Anyway, this got a bit ranty, i've got plenty more stories from over the years. Suffice to say, this is a trend i've seen a lot over the years first hand.
So I did what I would have wanted. I walked over to the neighbor kid and asked "Would you take $550 to fix up our lawn?". He looked at me like I was an alien. He said one word, "no", then awkwardly walked away.
I would have killed to get a job offer like that in my early twenties, probably two days of work for $550! Would have grabbed a friend, six pack of beer and finished it -- that day -- and used the money for books!
I guess part of it is the fact that my circumstances didn't even make that lifestyle an option. By my late teen years it was increasingly obvious that I had to go in the kind of direction I did if I wanted my family to have a decent life. If I had a middle class nuclear family, is it likely that I would've tore through CS classes and leetcode as much as I did? I kinda doubt it.
A family member of mine has not ever had a job. Everyone has tried to help him. I've given him two jobs at two different companies personally. His mom works at a dollar store and a cheap clothing store just to pay rent. She begs him to work. He spends all his time playing Xbox. She's gotten to the point where she's going to kick him out and move in with her other son. He's responded by drinking and hanging out with homeless junkies. Thank fuck as far as i know he hasn't started doing the strange purple heroin they do nowadays apparently and shit. But it's really terrible watching this. He's almost 30. There's no reason this should be happening.
Probably one of the reasons immigrants from poor backgrounds fare well.
My life was held back by time spent gaming for so long and later in life I realized TV was doing the same. Moderation in all things right? For me it is easier to cut them out period.
I'm happier and have a far more productive life as a result. I'm now in my 40s and have productive life and career but this didn't start until my mid 30s.
Psychology obviously can't always be simplified, but I think a key component underlying when consumption goes in a bad direction is why someone is using.
If you're playing videogames because your life is otherwise fine and you want to sprinkle some leisure on top, it's fine. Hell, you can play for hours a day and it's not really a problem if you're content with the time spent.
But if you're playing videogames as an avoidance strategy for underlying psychological problems, then you're setting yourself up for addiction. Because avoidance tends to cause those problems to grow. You aren't working on them, and seeing yourself avoid them subconsciously sends a signal that the problem is too big for you to handle. So the whole time you're avoiding, you're building it up bigger and bigger.
I have hope for people who are addicted to video games though, because I know they have obtained the knowledge/capability to figure out the underlying metagames and redeploy those skills to other areas of their life. And judging by the anecdotes on this thread it looks promising.
Now imagine if they're addicted to drugs; They'll be having another health problem to resolve. If you have a choice of being addicted to something at least let it be video games.
Boredom is intolerable.
Humans inevitably become more creative and/or social to escape boredom. See what you're drawn to when you cut out media consumption. You can always go back to reddit after a few months if you've just been bored the entire time.
I think video game addiction is an incredibly underreported and highly destructive phenomenon. I encounter (and had to fire a few days ago) lots of young men who don't appear to ever sleep, and are highly unproductive, unmotivated, and constantly distracted. The kid I had to fire (I call him kid, but he was 28 and incredibly immature) reminded me of a former colleague in the construction industry who relapsed on his crack/cocaine addiction. Distracted, listless, kind of just there for the ride.
Edit: Apparently ASKING about video game addiction merits downvotes with zero responses explaining why.
This is not to say that you should never play video games. I've found that they've been great for staying in touch with friends I would've otherwise lost touch with. A few hours a week isn't bad at all. It's just that it can snowball very quickly if you're not mindful about how you spend your time.
I luckily never really became addicted to any video games, but I'm concerned for my future children who will undoubtedly encounter video games in the future some day.
It permanently destroyed my interest in video games, along with the fake rewards it offers.
The dorm in college had a pinball machine, the old mechanical contraptions before LEDs took over. I was fascinated by them, but had no money, so playing them was a rare treat (10 cents a game, 25 for 3 games). One day, the coin op broke, and free games galore. Yay!
After playing that continuously for hours, something broke in me, and I just couldn't stand playing pinball anymore.
I honestly cannot fathom people managing to spend their lives playing video games.
The same thing happened to me with fireworks. I grew up fascinated by fireworks, and would blow every penny on them on the 4th. One day, in college, I had enough cash to buy all I wanted. I bought a lot. Went out to a field, and started lighting and throwing the black cats one by one. Bang, bang, bang. Some hours went by, again something broke. I haven't bought fireworks since. I have no interest in firework displays. The needle doesn't even move.
Go figure.
Never lost my interest in muscle cars, though :-) I grin like an idiot when I drive mine.
I don’t think it directly causes issues as much as it enables or locks in certain behaviorally patterns such as being a NEET or similar. It’s really more of a symptom of a lack of support system in a person’s life, the same way social media overuse or drug abuse comes about.
Real addictions have severe physical consequences like chemical withdrawals that can lead to death.
I find that Self-Determination Theory is a good model to look at this with. Modern school and work life provide little autonomy, little relatedness, and little (desirable/appreciated) skill for the vast majority of people whereas video games do the opposite by providing essentially an ideal playground.
You are stating this in absolute terms, which indicates to me that you have a solid source, or are an expert in the field. If so, can you please detail?
From my background working in psychiatry (in-patient) for six years, it is certainly not that clear.
> Real addictions have severe physical consequences like chemical withdrawals that can lead to death.
So the sex addicts I treated didn't have a "real" addiction?
The gambling addicts I treated didn't either?
Or the extreme adrenaline addicts?
Also, many experts in the field seem to disagree with you. See the proposed internet gaming disorder [1].
https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/internet-gaming
People don't seem to understand that drugs like cocaine flood the brain with dopamine and that's exactly what these video games are designed to do by the psychologists the game companies hire. I don't get why people don't seem to understand that it's alarming when video game companies are hiring people from the gambling industry in Vegas.
Of course, the parents played a part in enabling this. Their mom (my sis) will often suggest I buy them video games for their birthday/Christmas but I refuse to do that. What they need is a kick in the ass to get them outside.
That's not video games though, that's the general digital addiction going on. And honestly, as a teenager I used to avoid everyone with books and I doubt anyone would have described me as addicted to a paper drug.
That’s what most people are getting their hit of when they’re staring at a screen during a family gathering.
Games are the mild stuff in comparison (so long you steer clear of gambling and the ‘basically-gambling’ of loot box-based games)
He was failing out of school and had lost interest in sports. I put all of his Xbox controllers in a safe and if he wants to play games he has to maintain a straight a average and be playing at least one sport or have a after-school job.
Within about 2 weeks he was back on track at school and is now a straight a student again.
Obviously this is just an anecdote but I don't think he was suffering from any form of anxiety or anything like that. He got hooked on the games and then his brain was just unable to be excited by other things for a long time.
Very few things in the real world are as optimized as the playing experience and overwatch or the social aspects of fortnite.
I worried about my own son playing video games incessantly through his teens and twenties, but now at 28 he has been holding down a stable job for a year and I have got good reports from his employer. He's still a loner IRL though.
Would I worry so much if he were a gym rat or ultramarathoner-- an "exercise addict"? Good question.
Too often people think that because their kid is introverted they shouldn't be alarmed by them not having a social network of any kind. The reality is that there are many many very healthy introverts who still have strong friendships with other people. I'm only saying this because I've seen too often people write off their children's bad lifestyle choices as simply being introverted.
I don't think I got so freaked out by video game addiction until working at my last company where we hired a bunch of people from the gaming industry. They were the ones who told me about how many top-notch behavioral psychologist are employed in the gaming industry to maximize the addictive potential of video games.
We can say what we will about exercise addicts but at least they are getting very healthy bodies and the highly positive mental health benefits of exercise. Plus when you're in a gym or if you are running trail marathons you are going to be doing so with other people who don't sit in there darkened rooms for days on end.
But competing in a lot of ultramarathons isn't necessarily healthy for the long term either. In extreme cases athletes end up with heart muscle scarring and calcification. Somewhat shorter distances might be better. Everything in moderation.
They could do all sorts of things in their spare time, from watching tv shows, movies, youtube, anime, browsing reddit/twitter/instagram/tiktok, etc.
I’ve been ‘born again’ twice, once after opiate addiction and once after alcohol. I had an adult parent enabling me throughout as well. Two rock bottom moments, after the first I decided to disregard the advice I was given, and it didn’t take. The second time, I was humbled and did the work by heeding the advice I was given again. Sober house and outpatient after the inpatient stay, getting a job after outpatient, going to meetings for a year, and staying sober.
Almost 6 years later, I went from making $10/hr part time to a salaried position making low six figures in total compensation. I have a much healthier relationship with my adult enabler parent and have paid back a substantial amount of the money I guilted them out of over the years. My relationships with family have never been better, I have a great partner, and a job I enjoy. It is possible to escape, but sometimes does require a rock bottom moment.
I also spent a considerable amount of time escaping into games and TV shows, there’s a lot of overlap there with drug addiction, escapism, gambling/day trading, etc.
As a parent of 4 kids who for various reasons are all at elevated risk for substance abuse, what can I do if/when this happens to one of my kids to not enable them?
I have seen the results of not doing this. Don’t pass the pain down. You want your children to succeed, but you also don’t want them to suffer needlessly. Being homeless is an incredibly difficult gravity well to escape, more so without appreciable skills.
(not an attorney or financial planner, not your attorney or financial planner, please consult one of each, educational purposes only)
From an environmental perspective, this kind of minimalist lifestyle actually seems quite healthy. They don't drive, and I assume they don't fly or buy a lot of stuff, so their carbon and other resource footprint is small. They don't take up much extra space, so they reduce suburban sprawl and land required for housing. They probably won't have kids, which further reduces their environmental impact. Maybe we should encourage more people to live this way.
I guess it's just not ready yet.
Sounds like an episode of Black Mirror. Life is meant to be lived; the purpose of life is at least eudaimonia, not slowly rotting away in front of a computer.
Many video games similarly skip time to focus on heroic moments. You don't role-play the 10,000 hours studying tomes at Hogwarts to become a 1st level wizard; instead you start the adventure at graduation, or at most do a training montage.
Nah, the grandparent knows exactly well the good old times were the decades of toil and hardship. The kids won't get it if the grandparent tells these core truths anyways, until they live it.
The problem is sustainability.
A virtual life cannot sustain itself indefinitely, and is not very robust. If money runs out or a tragedy occurs, it will be a scramble to get a job and interact in the real world. A virtual life does not contribute to society (if we mean a purely passive virtual life), and if people start adopting it en masse we'd be in trouble.
As far as I can see, we could simply try create a virtual life (or any kind of activity) that both is sustainable, and gives an interesting, engrossing life experience.
(The previous comment used to include something about people wanting to quit their jobs and just play games all day) For your point about playing games all day — there’s definitely some aspect of “having a purpose” that makes some hold down a job even if they are already rich. So for some it’s definitely their life dream to sit in their room all day, and for some having something that you can point to saying “I contributed this” is an invaluable part of their lives
As far as I can tell, he'll sit on his couch collecting disability until 65, at which point he'll switch to retirement.
To be eligible in your own right, you have to have paid into Social Security for a total of 40 quarters before becoming disabled. Given child labor laws, it's rare that you could accumulate enough quarters before age 26 or so.
The other way is to be eligible on a parent's social security, as a "disabled child", which is defined as someone who became disabled before age 22. If you suffered a permanent disability at age 21, and have a parent who paid enough into SS to be eligible, you can receive "child" benefits from their account even as an adult: https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/disability/qualify.html#anchor7
This leaves an unfortunate gap for people who genuinely become permanently disabled due to an accident or medical condition that happens around age 22-25, because they can't qualify through either route.
Looks like there are different rules for disability for young workers:
"To be eligible for disability benefits, you must meet a recent work test and a duration work test.
The number of credits necessary to meet the recent work test depends on your age. The rules are as follows:
Before age 24 - You may qualify if you have 6 credits earned in the 3-year period ending when your disability starts.
Age 24 to 31 – In general, you may qualify if you have credit for working half the time between age 21 and the time you become disabled. As a general example, if you become disabled at age 27, you would need 3 years of work (12 credits) out of the past 6 years (between ages 21 and 27).
Age 31 or older - In general, you must have at least 20 credits in the 10-year period immediately before you become disabled."
-- https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/credits.html
The flip side is this person is hurting society significantly less than some committing crimes - even worse crimes that are sentenced to jail time (which is very expensive).
But is that one thing going to stop him from ever working/living a productive life?
If you lose disability by starting to work, suddenly life becomes a lot more expensive and you can't afford things.
The Welfare Gap is real.
Real life's feedback loops and progression mechanics are slow and unreliable when compared to games.
I will tell you it is a LOT more complicated than this. This type of single point simplification and pronouncement about 'coddling' is decidedly unhelpful.
For starters, if you grow up in two working parent household, both parents can easily come home completely exhausted and unable to provide the extended engagement necessary to help a child develop. Add in the social pressures of school where EVERYONE has an iphone and games where it is socially isolating not to do these things - which carries its own set of risks. Add in a public education system that doesn't focus on development and instead focuses on learning material. Add in an economy designed to optimize extraction of capital from individuals through psychological programming and ads and more stuff to buy.
None of this has to have a single source of blame, much of its realistically structural and cultural. It isn't one bad actor or one failed thing...it is a large number of individuals, groups, and organizations individually performing Goodhart's law and the result is some get cast aside.
The fact that the parents are providing a roof over their head and paying for their food/water/electricity/internet/clothes/games/etc is why they haven't had a job nor any desire for one well into their 30s.
Honestly, because the parents keep providing for them, there's no impetus for them to change, so they may as well do this into their 40s or 50s.
Minimum wage is enough to survive, and almost anyone that's not severely mentally/physically disabled can do most minimum wage work. In this case, it's not a matter of lack of ability, but lack of willingness.
That said, I have nothing against parents willing to provide housing/support if the child is working, still furthering their education, or need some help getting their feet back on the ground. But at this point, this is none of that, and just enabling their behavior.
I'm in my 30s and have now seen several high school classmates with similarly poor prospects eventually succumb to drug overdoses.
2) don’t assume rich kids don’t opt in to homelessness
FWIW I do have friends that were forced out of the house at 18. At the time I was the same age and I thought it was harsh. Many years later though, I can see that it worked out just fine.
When all the goals are chosen for you, it does not matter if you were over-protected or not. You cannot build true self esteem and confidence if you don't succeed and/or fail at a dream of your choice. There is no point learning to drive a car if you do not know where you want to go, to earn money if you don't know what you want to buy, and to get into a career if you have no sense of purpose.
Videogames are addictive not only because they are fun, they provide you with a goal and 'achievements'. In my humble opinion, sex for the sake of sex (real or porn), promotions for the sake of promotions or else are all caused by the same emotional male problem ; the inability to feel emotions and learn from them what is truly important for yourself. The % of young men in the labour force is just a symptom of that.
My opinion now is that sense of purpose AND being able to support yourself are essential; you have cash balance to keep in check with the tribe, and an emotional balance to keep in check with yourself. An adult should be able to do both. I think that people who do the former without doing the later may succeed economically, but on the long run they drain everybody and subconsciously expect others to take care of their own emotions. My father was like that, and his own children don't call him 'daddy'.
I also think its a very male difficulty, because boys learn to suppress emotions at a young age. It makes it harder to find meaningful careers, but also to sustain relationships and to evolve in your spirituality. Men drop out of school, do not enter the workforce, and lament that tinder is unfair. In my humble opinion, it is a purpose problem, not a ''how do I clean my room'' problem.
An ideal situation requires pressure to succeed, while also providing resources and guidance to be successful.
I was quite addicted to video games until my early 20s, but I eventually understood that gaming falls down the priority list as you take on more responsibilities in life. My friends were the same.
My university roommate played video games nonstop. Then he graduated, got a job (as a video game developer) and has a wife and three kids. It's like any addiction, its filling a void, but the object of abuse is not what's to blame.
We don't expect everyone to be able to run a 10-minute mile, even though most people can. Likewise we shouldn't expect everyone to be able to hold down a 40+ hour-a-week job and "functional adult" life, even though most people can.
not so different than runaway teenagers, or ex-Mormons that escape Utah
It worked for me when my parents kicked me out. Took around a decade though.
None of these stories have issue that started at 24. They all have parents enabling the kid ever since kid was 6.
Or they end up as homeless drug addicts.
Both outcomes have a none neglible likelihood.
Two distant family members of mine fit this description fairly well...One was raised in an unstable, low income household, with mentally ill parents, is on the autism spectrum, and both parents worked multiple jobs that included overnight shifts. There was no ability, energy, or understanding to seek assistance and intervention early enough to make a difference. The other family member comes from effectively the complete opposite end of each one of those variables.
Then again, I'm a father now and I can't imagine ever asking my daughter to leave home. But I would definitely expect her to have a job and contribute to household expenses well before her 30's.
Plenty of people will read this comment and think that is not them but if there is not a point in your day when your phone is not on you, out of sights and out of reach for at least an hour you're not as "present" as you think.
It's not a popular sentiment... But it was required as part of our certification in california. When separated from mom and dad, they call it the primal wound, but our society accepts separating children from one parent without any of the guilting they require adoptive parents to go through.
From a purely empirical standpoint, in aggregate, biological father's are the least likely to hurt or kill their children. Both adoptive father's and step father's are more likely to. Says nothing about individuals, but as a society it would behoove the powers that be to ensure most kids are raised by bio parents. And by far most states adopt this approach, even to the point of absurdity.
I see a lot of Jordan Peterson-esque BS professing these “no biological father == neet” rules, and I’m not saying that’s the point you’re leading with your question, but am jumping at any opportunity to dispel it, just in case.
It’s not even an outlier experience, either. Even among high achievers. Consider that ~50% of African American NBA players and ~20% of white NBA players come from a single parent household. [0]
0: https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.86...
If you can explicitly state the ‘metrics under discussion’ I’ll give an honest response a go, but I really don’t know what you’re saying here.
(As a practical matter, it rarely comes to this as a couch-surfer will go find another couch instead of wasting money on attorneys and the like. But, typically, the owner of the property can’t just unilaterally decide a resident is a trespasser and kick them out.)
A few people I know come to mind that reminds me of your nephews and I simply cannot understand it. Right now there are hiring signs up in almost every business in my town. I would rather work (if I could) than take unemployment even if it would be a pay cut.
Having no rent cost is pretty big.
For an early death
They're already in their early-mid 30s, what outcome do you think is going to happen to make them even less integrated into society?
It's nice. My dad makes us lunches, my mom cooks dinners, and I do yardwork. My girlfriend lives a few miles away with her parents, who are great. We regularly eat with one family or the other, and we often sleep together at one house or the other. We use the family cars.
Except for the job, we'd be considered failures for this nice life.
The contractor who just renovated my house in Colorado is actively looking for a low-skill, high-effort worker for $35/hour.
The mason who did some stone work for me is looking for an apprentice and will pay $25/hour.
The electrician in my area is moving away, leaving a huge gap in the market. He earns well north of $200k/year.
The jobs are out there.
The jobs are out there AND DO NOT PAY ENOUGH TO LIVE IN THE AREAS THEY ARE IN.
And before some genius comes in and says "Well don't live in those expensive cities then", those expensive cities still want burgers and stocked store shelves and everything else, they just don't want to pay people enough to live off of.
Youth unemployment in Spain or Italy is clearly structural.
The story as conveyed by OP is textbook people being lazy.
You are correct to observe that people at the bottom are being left behind.
Sure, I also have the "desire" to play video games and do nothing all day, I just realize that it's not going to end well for me...