I'm a teenager too, and I would love to be "free" like you describe, but what could I do with my freedom? None of my friends equally yearn to attain such freedom, or if they do, they don't let on that they do, possibly due to societal pressure. Society feels like it's structured like a series of obstacles preventing me from doing whatever I want, and I feel like I'd be alone, like Clarisse McClellan taking a walk by herself. I don't see the Internet as freedom, but I don't see other options available.

Then there's also the issue of short-term gains. Isn't getting into the best college I can the best way for me to have a successful life? Do I want to have the most fun in my life as a teenager? I know that you think that being successful later in life and having fun as a teenager aren't mutually exclusive, but perhaps your case is an exception?

But then, I guess the definition of success is dependent on the mindset of the successful individual. Happiness is a mindset, as they say, not something to be achieved. But to me, success is the achievement of the goals you've set, and for me to achieve my goals, I need to get into a really good college (I think), or else I will have denied myself opportunities to go down the road I want to take, working for a (and founding my own) startup, or an equally exciting tech company.

Indeed, one of my goals is to be financially independent enough to do whatever I'd like. I wish there was a way for me to be able to do whatever I'd like right now without disrupting the path to achieving my goals, but there just isn't. It sucks, but that's reality as I see it.

Some people just aren't capable of interpersonal interaction because of mental makeup or what have you, and previously maybe they didn't have any alternatives.

Breaking this down into excessively simple terms:

Let's take ten people. Two of them are extroverts, two of them are reserved extroverts, two of them are reserved, two of them are outgoing introverts, and two of them are introverts. Note that by "introvert" and "extrovert" I do not mean "people who choose or don't choose to interact with others" as I should - I mean "people who can or can't smoothly interact with others." there's probably a better word. Humor me.

Prior to the internet, the extroverts had lots of interaction. The reserved guys had a modicum of interaction. The introverts didn't interact that much. However, chances are good that the introverts were interacting with the extroverts simply because the extroverts interact more. So in any engagement, the introverts are interacting with people who are good at interaction.

After the internet, the extroverts have lots of interaction. The reserved guys have a modicum of interaction. The introverts may very well be interacting more - but they're also interacting more with other introverts.

Without a value judgement on it, the interaction they're getting is definitely of another quality than what they would have gotten otherwise. So the question is this: are people

A) better off with minimal interactions among people who are socially adroit?

B) better off marinating in the culture of /b/?

I don't think that we can answer this question easily and succinctly. I do think that in a society where the adroit are calling the shots, the /b/tards are at serious disadvantage. And, until the Internet becomes substantially more important than, well, everything else in life, the adroit will continue to call the shots.

It was a shitty article, perfectly apt for truereddit.

"Well put," said the 3-year moderator of r/foodforthought. ;-)

I had an atypical childhood as far as freedoms, but I still find myself reflexively noticing and wondering whenever I see a kid who looks <10 by themselves.

At the age of sixteen, I once called home and left "Hey, it's me, I'm in Dallas, I'll be back by Monday" on the answering machine. Yet I'm of a like mind.

So a final question: is it something to "fix," as you say?

My primary objection to the article, and I suspect my primary objection to the book (which I do intend to read) is that it's an attempt to put one factor at the root of many problems. I read Free Range Kids and I've given it as a gift three or four times. Bringing up BeBe is similarly countercultural in that it wholeheartedly suggests de-emphasizing the importance of children to the benefit of children and parents alike.

but you make the convincing argument above that teenagers are the ones driving this trend. If they are, who are we to try and fix it?

Let me clarify that point a little bit.

Soviet teenagers wore Levi's. I have a friend who grew up in Samarkand watching bootleg American videos they paid for with equally bootleg Marlboros. Choice will find a way. The article basically makes the point that kids would love to be as normal as their parents, but their goose-stepping, paranoid parents won't let them. I'd argue that if Soviet kids can lead rock'n'roll lifestyles, over-pampered 'tweeners in Minneapolis can, too.

But they aren't. And that's the important thing - I don't think there's a lack of drive, I think there's a lack of motivation. Kids aren't socializing the same way their forebears did because they've found alternatives. Those alternatives, as argued here, there and everywhere, are a poor substitute for what came before, but the kids don't know enough to reject them.

Which means that yes - "the teenagers are driving this trend" but at the same time, they're kids. We don't let them vote, we don't let them drink, we don't let them rent a car, we don't let them join the army, we don't recognize their first amendment rights. Sherry Turkle and others have argued that without a conscious effort to re-socialize social media, an entire generation will suffer a degeneration of their socialization skills.

That's my biggest beef with Reddit, by the way. I've gone around and around with them about how to make their universe more social, more human. They don't give a shit.

Probably because they're just kids, and they're part of the problem.

1) For the past three generations, societal changes have been driven from the teenagers up, not the other way 'round. Tony Judt makes a pretty compelling argument in Postwar that children with no adult responsibilities and a disposable income (however modest) were a new thing in the world, and that the Baby Boomers were really the first generation of "teenagers" the world had ever seen. The social movements of the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s were all driven by teenagers. I don't think you can say social changes "hit teenagers the hardest" when they're the ones with the baseball bats.

What I meant by "societal changes" was more along the lines of what you mention here:

Parents follow societal cues - as they say, kids don't come with an instruction manual, so most parenting is guided by peer pressure. And peer pressure has, increasingly, been about paranoia.

That paranoia isn't being propagated by the kids themselves, is it? To me it seems like this culture of paranoia very harmful to everyone and as it has increased from one generation to the next, it does seem like it will influence a generation's ideas on how things should be. I haven't really read anything on that topic, so this is really just my perception, but I think there's something to it.

3) I'm not sure "winning" has much to do with it. Consider - it isn't just American teens that are finding themselves isolated. I'd also point out that the culture of "everyone's a winner" has been thriving for the past 20 years. This is also the first time in my long memory that the necessity of college is being questioned. And it's being questioned mercilessly. There sure wasn't no Khan Academy back in my day.

Well, I'd like to point out that the "everyone's a winner" culture is something that very much seems to clash with American professional and university culture. For a while, my father was an associate dean and would have to deal with kids raised thinking that they were capable and deserving of top marks every time. The rude awakening they received in university to a reality they weren't used to, wasn't their fault, but they were the ones that had to deal with it. For a person who is already trying to formulate an identity, that could be a pretty big monkey wrench. One day they're sure that they're #1, the next they realize that they're just another 1 out of 7,000,000,000,000. Or to put it another way, one day they're a winner, the next they're quite possibly a loser.

I'm aware that it's not just American kids who are feeling isolated, but it does seem that at the very least, more attention is paid to the American teenagers who do feel isolated. Also, I don't have much experience with non-American teenagers, except for Vietnamese teenagers, who very much seem to subscribe to the winner/loser mentality. Maybe the attitude of "winning" and "losing" doesn't have much to do with it, but I have certainly met people who have felt alienated by it and from what I've seen, it seems like it might well be a factor in how people feel about how they're doing.

4) Parents are easy to sneak stuff by. In part, it's because lots of parents would "rather not know" - plausible deniability is a powerful thing. You don't need ICQ to pull a fast one on the 'rents, it's just another way of doing stuff. On the contrary, if I wanna throw a keylogger on your laptop you have no secrets from me. There is, therefore, a tacit approval of all the sneaking. I sure as fuck didn't walk around with an Apple LoJack 4S in my pocket when I was a teen.

I'll admit that there is necessarily an element of "don't ask, don't tell" in the parent/child relationship, but with the advent of IMing, there was suddenly a lesser need to use the phone. Sure, a parent could look over my shoulder to try to see what I was typing, but there was much less of that dreaded exchange of calling a girl's house, having her mother answer the phone, asking who is calling and all that. Though my father is probably more tech savvy on some fronts than I am, I don't think that he would have known how to set up a keylogger in the '90's or early '00's.

Anyway, my point was, kids have fewer of those "phone type" experiences now and I'm not entirely sure that's a good thing. Learning to express interest in things or other people while not defaulting to embarrassment is something that is beneficial, in my mind.

Edited for stuff and stuff.