I’ve noticed a weird trend where scrolling short form media alone-together has become a social trend. I work as a firefighter and we eat our meals communally. While the eating portion has continued to be social, the lingering time has become a lot of folks scrolling on their phones then sharing something they found funny or interesting with the rest of the group. I don’t have TikTok or Reels on my phone, yet I find myself sucked into other people’s algorithms by proximity and social bonding.
I can see the appeal/compulsion which is why I don’t have these apps, but it does become harder to avoid. I suppose we’re all melting together.
My girlfriend and her roommate sometimes "co-scroll" where they airplay one of their phones to the tv and watch together. Or she and I will watch the reels she has sent me throughout the day together before bed.
On item 23 and optimism: being optimistic/pessimistic about the future is less about the actual state of things than the (perceived) direction of change. A lot of people hold a bleak view not necessarily because they believe things to be better in plague-ridden Europe, but because they expect things mostly to get worse from now on. And, in fact, if you read most of the points here, it's hard to refute them. Sure, there are some new drugs for tackling obesity, but people don't read, don't party, don't have a religious community, houses, and jobs. And AI is getting exponentially better and, if we grapple with the reality, will probably outpace humans in middle-class white-collar jobs soon enough. A lot of them would really like to change places with their parents! I think a case for optimist can be made, but it should be a bit stronger and more cohesive than the 'child mortality fell in Africa' and 'at least there is no black plague and Mongol hordes around anymore' arguments that we so often see being made.
Congrats to you and your wife, Derek. Sending good wishes to your family.
Re: liberal young people and meaninglessness, I have a strong sense that this is from the Doom Dogma that rules the commentary. "We'll never have a good job, we'll never have a house, climate change will kill us all if AI doesn't first." When I read "youth-oriented" threads and the like, I am not at all surprised that despair is so high with young people.
I know old people always think the latest invention will destroy a generation, but I think social media might be the real deal in this sense.
Holy crap at the rollercoaster this post was. Kudos on the tempo between the points.
I'm truly at a loss between the getting high and getting drunk points. I recall back in college that the biggest detractors to legalizing weed were the stoners that were literally wasting away on a couch instead of showing up to class. Kind of scary to see that playing out in the present.
To me it seems like the worst case of alcohol use, drunk driving and abusive anger, are worse than the worse case of weed use. However, nominal alcohol use (more social, some health issues) is better than nominal weed use (social isolation, sloth, stupidity)
I mean, driving under the influence of weed is also not exactly safe. Quite dangerous, even. :)
That said, I did mean that as a tongue in cheek callout to the partying culture that was much bigger in the drinking crowd. Seems the rise of "sitting at home high" is directly related to the lack of people drinking.
Derek, you cite the meta-analysis showing heavy short-form video users have deficits in attention, memory, and inhibitory control. And you note that "a daily diet of hyper-rewarding, rapid-fire stimuli may gradually reshape attention and regulatory systems."
I think you're exactly right, and I'd push it further. The mechanism isn't just cognitive. It's somatic. The attention economy induces the same defensive architecture as trauma: constriction, narrowing, the collapse of presence. That's why the reading crisis isn't really about reading. It's about whether the body can stay with anything that doesn't offer variable reinforcement. Books require duration. Duration requires a nervous system that hasn't learned to treat presence as unsafe.
Congratulations on the birth of your child! Thank you for drawing attention to these trends. I fear for the future. But I am a baby boomer, so of course I am going feel the threat of change. It's young people I worry about, not myself. I hope your generation and the ones that follow pay close attention. Much is at stake.
Congratulations on the new person -- and on finding this great medium for your thinking. We all benefit. I'm sure you have selected replacements well, but we look forward to your return.
You wrote "(Y)oung people care much less than their parents or grandparents about getting married or having children. What they do say they care about is finding a job and getting rich." and I'm going to gently push back on that framing, as a young person myself.
It's not that we care more about getting rich than we do about having kids. I want kids. The vast majority of my friends want kids. But I think the issue here is that we care more about being financially prepared to have and raise children (apparently it's expensive) than previous generations did. I know it's what I care about. Hopefully that provides some clarity on that particular issue :)
I feel that points 19-21 could be better understood by the finding in the book "Poorly Understood" that nearly 60% to 75% of Americans will experience at least one year in or near poverty (150% of the poverty line) between ages 20 and 75. And that's a full year, think about what that means for people that spend 11 months under those lines but are able to pull above at the very end and don't actually "count." America has a ton of poverty and a lot of people that spend time in it because of our lack of welfare state and that has to be in the mix for explaining at least some of the misery you're describing.
Really strong synthesis here. The housing-to-crypto gambling connection is probably the most underrated trend in this piece. That Northwestern/Chicago finding about renters "gambling for redemption" flips the usual narrative about speculative investing - it's not greed, it's desperation disguised as optimism. The idea that middle-income renters are treating the econmy like a slot machine to unlock homeownership says someting pretty dark about how blocked pathways warp decision-making.
Re: TikTok.
I’ve noticed a weird trend where scrolling short form media alone-together has become a social trend. I work as a firefighter and we eat our meals communally. While the eating portion has continued to be social, the lingering time has become a lot of folks scrolling on their phones then sharing something they found funny or interesting with the rest of the group. I don’t have TikTok or Reels on my phone, yet I find myself sucked into other people’s algorithms by proximity and social bonding.
I can see the appeal/compulsion which is why I don’t have these apps, but it does become harder to avoid. I suppose we’re all melting together.
My girlfriend and her roommate sometimes "co-scroll" where they airplay one of their phones to the tv and watch together. Or she and I will watch the reels she has sent me throughout the day together before bed.
On item 23 and optimism: being optimistic/pessimistic about the future is less about the actual state of things than the (perceived) direction of change. A lot of people hold a bleak view not necessarily because they believe things to be better in plague-ridden Europe, but because they expect things mostly to get worse from now on. And, in fact, if you read most of the points here, it's hard to refute them. Sure, there are some new drugs for tackling obesity, but people don't read, don't party, don't have a religious community, houses, and jobs. And AI is getting exponentially better and, if we grapple with the reality, will probably outpace humans in middle-class white-collar jobs soon enough. A lot of them would really like to change places with their parents! I think a case for optimist can be made, but it should be a bit stronger and more cohesive than the 'child mortality fell in Africa' and 'at least there is no black plague and Mongol hordes around anymore' arguments that we so often see being made.
Congratulations Derek!
Congrats to you and your wife, Derek. Sending good wishes to your family.
Re: liberal young people and meaninglessness, I have a strong sense that this is from the Doom Dogma that rules the commentary. "We'll never have a good job, we'll never have a house, climate change will kill us all if AI doesn't first." When I read "youth-oriented" threads and the like, I am not at all surprised that despair is so high with young people.
I know old people always think the latest invention will destroy a generation, but I think social media might be the real deal in this sense.
Holy crap at the rollercoaster this post was. Kudos on the tempo between the points.
I'm truly at a loss between the getting high and getting drunk points. I recall back in college that the biggest detractors to legalizing weed were the stoners that were literally wasting away on a couch instead of showing up to class. Kind of scary to see that playing out in the present.
To me it seems like the worst case of alcohol use, drunk driving and abusive anger, are worse than the worse case of weed use. However, nominal alcohol use (more social, some health issues) is better than nominal weed use (social isolation, sloth, stupidity)
I mean, driving under the influence of weed is also not exactly safe. Quite dangerous, even. :)
That said, I did mean that as a tongue in cheek callout to the partying culture that was much bigger in the drinking crowd. Seems the rise of "sitting at home high" is directly related to the lack of people drinking.
We all need to drink more if we are to survive 2026
Derek, you cite the meta-analysis showing heavy short-form video users have deficits in attention, memory, and inhibitory control. And you note that "a daily diet of hyper-rewarding, rapid-fire stimuli may gradually reshape attention and regulatory systems."
I think you're exactly right, and I'd push it further. The mechanism isn't just cognitive. It's somatic. The attention economy induces the same defensive architecture as trauma: constriction, narrowing, the collapse of presence. That's why the reading crisis isn't really about reading. It's about whether the body can stay with anything that doesn't offer variable reinforcement. Books require duration. Duration requires a nervous system that hasn't learned to treat presence as unsafe.
I wrote about this last week in "The Attention Wound: What the Economy Extracts and what the Body Cannot Surrender" https://yauguru.substack.com/p/the-attention-wound?r=217mr3
Wow! This is the most densely depressing data dump I've read in weeks. Data tells our stories, right? So, I guess thanks are in order? Not really ...
Congratulations on the birth of your child! Thank you for drawing attention to these trends. I fear for the future. But I am a baby boomer, so of course I am going feel the threat of change. It's young people I worry about, not myself. I hope your generation and the ones that follow pay close attention. Much is at stake.
Congratulations on the new person -- and on finding this great medium for your thinking. We all benefit. I'm sure you have selected replacements well, but we look forward to your return.
Congratulations!!!
You wrote "(Y)oung people care much less than their parents or grandparents about getting married or having children. What they do say they care about is finding a job and getting rich." and I'm going to gently push back on that framing, as a young person myself.
It's not that we care more about getting rich than we do about having kids. I want kids. The vast majority of my friends want kids. But I think the issue here is that we care more about being financially prepared to have and raise children (apparently it's expensive) than previous generations did. I know it's what I care about. Hopefully that provides some clarity on that particular issue :)
Small typo on item 23: it should read “mid-500s CE” not “BCE”
Congrats on your second child!
I feel that points 19-21 could be better understood by the finding in the book "Poorly Understood" that nearly 60% to 75% of Americans will experience at least one year in or near poverty (150% of the poverty line) between ages 20 and 75. And that's a full year, think about what that means for people that spend 11 months under those lines but are able to pull above at the very end and don't actually "count." America has a ton of poverty and a lot of people that spend time in it because of our lack of welfare state and that has to be in the mix for explaining at least some of the misery you're describing.
Really strong synthesis here. The housing-to-crypto gambling connection is probably the most underrated trend in this piece. That Northwestern/Chicago finding about renters "gambling for redemption" flips the usual narrative about speculative investing - it's not greed, it's desperation disguised as optimism. The idea that middle-income renters are treating the econmy like a slot machine to unlock homeownership says someting pretty dark about how blocked pathways warp decision-making.