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comment by b_b
b_b  ·  3828 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Friends Without Benefits

Hold the fuck up. I'm calling BS on this, given that this article (and every other one I've read that is just like it) seems to suffer from an incredible lack of data. Teenage girls getting their hearts broken by asshole boys? Is that a new concept? Might as well be an 80's party movie. Drugs and partying? Uh, raves were an actual thing when I was young, and you don't see those anymore. Porn is everywhere now, and that seems to have some negative effects. I'm sure it's tough to be publicly shamed nowadays, as that's new, too. But come on. All of these issues are just more visible now. I know a lady who was sent away to a "home" in the early 60's for several months to have a baby (when she was 16) so that her family could hide the (forced) adoption. That was 50 years ago, and she wasn't the first, eh? I knew a girl in high school in the late 90's who blew her head off with a shotgun after her "best friends" decided she was a social pariah and turned on her. Seems like girls were bitchy and insecure back then, too. Knew another girl we used to call "Maureen the Blowjob Queen". She didn't need Chat Roulette to figure out how to slob a shameful amount of knobs. Here's a piece of advice to all you young people: don't take pictures of yourself that you'd be ashamed to be released into public. Other than that, kids are kids.





user-inactivated  ·  3828 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I hear you on all of this. The whole "teens addicted to social media" thing has always struck me as a "back in my day, blah blah blah" sort of thing.

Technology changes, and we adapt to those changes. Older generations will always feel like newer generations are going to end the world as they know it, that they're lazier and more reckless. I'm surprised people forget what it's like to be a kid. Feels like a lack of self-reflection.

Besides that, the whole article makes teens out as caricatures. The "anecdote as evidence/data" ploy doesn't do a very good job, in my opinion.

b_b  ·  3828 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I read the whole thing and there is literally zero data in it. That should make anyone skeptical, especially given that teen pregnancies (likely a decent proxy for teen sex, or at least unsafe sex) keep dropping.

thenewgreen  ·  3828 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    I know a lady who was sent away to a "home" in the early 60's for several months to have a baby (when she was 16) so that her family could hide the (forced) adoption. That was 50 years ago, and she wasn't the first, eh?
-This exact thing happened to my wife's aunt. She was sent to a nunnery until the baby was born. She connected with her estranged daughter 40 years later. They're best friends and she's a great grandmother to her kids. The horrible story actually had a happy ending.

Anyways, you are right in that most of this isn't new, it's just slightly amplified and much more visible to all.