What? If this is correct (I doubt it) this alone sounds extremely worrying, also because it indicates that it's mostly a problem with the new generation. It's a 5-fold increase from 18 years ago.
There is a word we throw around casually that has always been a part of teenage life. It does however seem to be increasing exponentially and it’s behind a lot of these trends.
“anxiety” https://medium.com/swlh/american-teens-are-driving-less-and-...
It’s not like anything significant has happened transportation-wise to replace driving. If kids don’t want to drive it means they care a lot less about meeting up with other kids.
The point is those face to face interactions don’t seem to be happening the way they used to.
Sex isn’t going to happen if people don’t interact with each other. It’s all symptoms of the same “disease” (which seems to be or be strongly associated to anxiety).
> Financial, legal, and technological changes are all part of the equation
And anxiety seems like a perfectly rational response to driving a 1500kg oversized killing machine.
If I had to choose between anxious drivers and the overconfident who speed and run red lights, I would take the former
It's not as if cars were safer during the "Unsafe at Any Speed" era. Why anxiety now and not then?
Not sure I accept the premise there was no anxiety then.
But different generations think differently. Previous generations thought slavery was OK and accusing people of being witches a totally valid criticism.
I can't really speak to the USA in that era as I'm neither old enough nor have I ever lived there.But I know the 60s and 70s was intensely car-focussed. Incredible amount of resources were thrown at forming a car-owning population. Maybe the marketing and widespread acceptance made people feel better about driving? Vehicular laws were more relaxed? Marketing telling people it was safe (governments hadn't caught up to counter the marketing)? Could be many reasons
We're actually turning into a type of polygamous society where one in three (or less) men have sex have multiple simultaneous partners and the other men have none.
Also STD rates are going up very significantly among those who are having sex.
So it is a problem, but it isn't obvious what solving it looks like. Even if it is irregular, it might actually be a win for humanity.