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Comment by wetmore | Hacker News Reader

I'm with you that these are major issues, and ones that impact my mental health as someone in my 30s, but I sort of doubt these problems are the main contributors to the mental health crises among young people. Social media and phones have had a huge negative impact on the amount of time young people spend together in person and have amplified the stakes of one's social life. Maybe I'm forgetting what it was like to be young but I'd guess these impacts are a lot more relevant to the mental health of children and teenagers.

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> Social media and phones have had a huge negative impact on the amount of time young people spend together in person and have amplified the stakes of one's social life

Social media and phones are what youth had left, after adults systemically wiped out every inch of their development environment.

I'm an early genx; the last generation to grow up free of constant supervision. I went everywhere by myself and learned countless critical self-sufficiency and social skills - skill building that was utterly and thoroughly denied to my own kids.

That is, my kids risked their parents being charged if they were capably on their own. My kids had nowhere to go if they tried to be independent. Were my kids to risk having some ambition, they also risked adult-sized punishments for kid-sized transgressions.

We couldn't have designed a more stunting experience, short of tossing kids in forced-labor gulags.

> That is, my kids risked their parents being charged if they were capably on their own. My kids had nowhere to go if they tried to be independent. Were my kids to risk having some ambition, they also risked adult-sized punishments for kid-sized transgressions.

I'm not from the US, so my question is sincere. Is the situation the same across all states? You'd think the states self-describing as "freedom loving" wouldn't interfere with parenthood as much.

> I'm not from the US, so my question is sincere. Is the situation the same across all states?

It is fairly well the same everywhere in the US, red & blue states alike. There's no shortage of adults who are passionately stupid about kids w/o adults around. Maybe you educate one but there are millions more behind them.

At least one state passed a right-to-roam law. However, that didn't stop LEO from endlessly bullhorning false stranger risks or stop news orgs from thoughtlessly parroting it. The life-changing harm John Walsh has done to millions of kids is incalculable.

Generally conservative states are going to have the government more involved with how kids are raised as a method of social control. I'm in a liberal part of the country and I see kids walking/biking around all the time, while the conservative state I grew up in would almost certainly have the police at least stop them and probably take them home.

The 'parental freedom' stuff is really just the 'you're free to not ensure your children are educated'.

It’s very dependent on the local area. Talking to your neighbors once a year greatly reduces the risks.

I'd maybe put the doubling of rent every decade up there at the top as the thing that causes the most mental health harm. I'm in my late 30s and remember moving to NYC in 2007, when seeing two bedroom apartments in Brooklyn for $1200/month seemed expensive but doable. Now I hear of young people paying that for a room in a shared apartment, or end up moving back in with their parents. Add to that other costs of existing plus their student loans and it's got to make young people feel on the edge all the time.

Not to say that social media isn't bad for mental health, it certainly is. But I've been out in NYC and seen swarms of young people at bars and clubs, it's not like they're not socializing with each other.

> I'd maybe put the doubling of rent every decade up there at the top as the thing that causes the most mental health harm.

I can't say you're wrong. In my formerly inexpensive state, we went from 1 typical income to survive (1993) to 4 typical incomes. Just in 2021, we had to absorb a 70% increase in rent - and we were lucky.

State 'fixes' to home/biz insurance are quadrupling policy costs while mandating more people pay for it. Renters are going to eat every cent of that.

That doesn't even start to touch on things like this year's sudden 40% increase to auto policies, the f.u. surcharge for living in this state.

so... florida?

I praise your appraisement skills.

Of note on the auto insurance: We carry fat comp/med but no liability. Any damage to our cars from weather is fully on us and not the ins company. This means in our case, the f.u. FL increase can not be reasonably said to be proportional to our risk of weather damage.

Dang, I guess I am lucky in Wisconsin?

My 2-bedroom rent has increased only ~23.33% in 13 years, from 815 to currently 1005.

Where in Wisconsin? I'm a transplant, only been here 3 years or so, and luckily a homeowner now, but anything decent seemed in the 1500-2k range for 2 or 3 bedrooms.

Location matters a huge amount. If you are in Wisconsin and less than an hour from the edge of a big city (Milwaukee; Chicago; St Paul) you will pay a lot more than if you are out in the middle of nowhere.

Also small landlords with good tenants often don’t raise rents as fast as they should compared to the market.

I mean, I am only about 25 minutes from downtown Milwaukee, so not too from away from anything. Waukesha county.

Waukesha County

It's simple - Brooklyn just became a trendy place in the meantime. And so, of course it's overpriced. Smart people don't overpay for things - the solution is just to live somewhere else. 99.9% of places are not trendy and thus not overpriced.

There are thousands of cities in the US, and maybe 10-20 of them are so popular that everyone wants to live there. Of course the prices in those places are going to be crazy - you have to outbid everybody else.

> 99.9% of places are not trendy and thus not overpriced.

IDK man I've seen rents and land prices skyrocket in places like Franklin NC. You know what's in Franklin NC? Nothing.

I don't have an explanation for that, and I don't think it's limited to trendy places

Shelter has become trendy I guess.

It depends on what you mean by 'overpriced'. Most people are talking about housing unaffordability which is not limited to trendy places. The house I rented in Kansas City Missouri in 2009 for $900 was bought by the owners in 2007 for $120k. Zillow estimates that same home would rent for $1800 a month and is valued at $269k. KCMO is not trendy or even a desirable place to live.

It’s not simple. If “smart people don’t overpay for things” I’ve got some news for you about inflation. And no, moving somewhere simply because it’s cheaper isn’t a solution that fixes everything for everyone in every situation.

Social media is just the medium for which doom/despair is transmitted. Removing social media might slow down the transmission speed, but folks will eventually arrive to the same conclusions mentioned in OPs comment.

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