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Comment by echelon | Hacker News Reader

This has nothing to do with economic security.

Everyone is now dopamine maxxing on smartphones and internet. There's no desire to have kids because kids were a pre-internet and pre-modernity phenomena.

Now that we're fully entertained, there's little need for having children. The FYP has enough entertainment to overcome the biological itch.

Evolution did not anticipate social media and hyper addictive algorithms.

We're microdosing on pleasure and that's desensitized every biological urge to raise children.

Technology did this.

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Evolution did not anticipate social media and hyper addictive algorithms.

People have been having children later since about the 1930s. The change has been gradual, so it's only really hitting hard now because they've not had any children during the years when it's relatively easy, and now some can't. That could still be due to technology but not social media exclusively.

Coincidently though, this aligns pretty much perfectly to people's stability also shifting to happen later in life. Specifically the economic stability to raise a family on a single income. That's not really possible any more, so it shouldn't be a surprise that people don't do it.

Just to add a little factual data to this point, the fertility rate in England and Wales has been below two children per woman since the 1970s.

>That could still be due to technology but not social media exclusively.

the tech before social media - TV:

https://mahb.stanford.edu/blog/tv-birth-control/

"TV As Birth Control

...

The impact of the new TV programming in rural India has been profound—and very positive, say Jensen and Oster. Their interviews revealed that when the new TV services arrived, women’s autonomy increased while fertility and the acceptability of domestic violence toward women significantly decreased."

Exactly.

We've been replacing biological imparatives with strange forms of nonbiological entertainment.

And it's increased now to the point that it's in endless supply and constantly attached to us.

How can you tell that tech is the cause of people not having children, and not just what they're doing because they don't have children to fill their time?

I don't think you can point to the rise of tech as a casual just because it's popular. If people aren't having children they'll do something else instead. To say what that is you need more evidence that what people are doing.

"I'm so worried I can't have children, I think I'll go watch a movie or do something online instead" is so obviously wrong on cause and effect.

People get hooked on this stuff before they even have biological urges to reproduce.

And it supplants the urge to reproduce.

Tech and entertainment are birth control.

I was thinking more along the lines of "I'm not in a position to have children because I can't afford them, so I won't. Now I have more time to fill, what's on TV?"

How can you tell that isn't what's happened from looking at the rise of tech?

The wealthy demographics aren't having kids either, and the decline correlates with each inflection point in the rise of pleasure and mental stimulation technology.

Sub-Saharan birthrates are starting to decline just as they're gaining access to smartphones.

All of the countries where women have fewer rights are also experiencing decline in birthrates. They have ~10-30% smartphone penetration.

"Having a child seems fun" is dopamine opportunity cost as much as a financial one. People have always been poorer, but they've never been so endlessly stimulated.

> I'm not in a position to have children because I can't afford them, so I won't. Now I have more time to fill, what's on TV?

Replace this with, "I'm bored. What's on TV / YouTube?" Everything else is unnecessary complication.

Germany, Italy and Japan already had a fertility crash in the seventies, way before the social media dopamine maxxing.

People from the 70s are in their 50s today. Approaching retirement age, but most still able and employed. Things will get interesting in those countries as they hit old age and quit the workforce in a large wave.

>Everyone is now dopamine maxxing on smartphones and internet

Childbirth has been collapsing for decades before Mark had launched "thefacebook.com". Japan's TFR cratered in 1960 and never recovered. Did Japan have smartphones in 1960?

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