Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz seems to have noticed all the stories about teens (especially teen girls) who are increasingly struggling with mental health issues over the past decade. I’ve written about this a couple times this month.
Author and academic Jonathan Haidt is working on a book on this topic. His theory is that the timeline of declining teen mental health matches with the rise of teen smart phone use and constant screen time for social media. It’s an unproven theory but he’s been collecting evidence for the book for two years already. Last Monday the CDC also put out new research that confirms teen girls in particular are having a very rough time, not just online but in the real world.
Almost 3 in 5 teenage girls reported feeling so persistently sad or hopeless almost every day for at least two weeks in a row during the previous year that they stopped regular activities — a figure that was double the share of boys and the highest in a decade, CDC data showed.
Girls fared worse on other measures, too, with higher rates of alcohol and drug use than boys and higher levels of being electronically bullied, according to the 89-page report. Thirteen percent had attempted suicide during the past year, compared to 7 percent of boys.
Over the weekend Taylor Lorenz weighed in with her theory about what’s going on.
Not to be a doomer but u have to be delusional to look at life in our country rn and have any amt of hope or optimism
— Taylor Lorenz (@TaylorLorenz) February 20, 2023
As Mary Katherine Ham pointed out, she sounds like she’s auditioning for something:
“Yes, I’m here to read for the part of Try-Hard, Dorm-Room-Dwelling Junior Who Gets High and Spits Knowledge for Freshmen.
“Should I just start— oh, okay, ahem: pic.twitter.com/XeU50VoiY0
— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) February 21, 2023
There are many layers of this onion that can be peeled. To start with, anyone who uses the phrase “late stage capitalist hellscape” is a Marxist sub-moron. If you haven’t heard the phrase late-state capitalism before, its whole premise is the Marxist idea that capitalism will collapse and usher in the next stage of human existence, which is full socialism. As you can see from this Wikipedia description, the Marxists have been waiting for this for a long, long time.
The term “late capitalism” (Spätkapitalismus) was first used by Werner Sombart in his magnum opus Der Moderne Kapitalismus, which was published from 1902 through 1927, and subsequent writings; Sombart divided capitalism into different stages: (1) proto-capitalist society from the early middle ages up to 1500 AD, (2) early capitalism in 1500–1800, (3) the heyday of capitalism (Hochkapitalismus) from 1800 to the first World War, and (4) late capitalism since then. Sombart’s work was never translated into English, but historians sometimes do refer to late bourgeois society in contrast to early bourgeois society in the 17th and 18th century, or classical bourgeois society in the 19th and early 20th century.
Vladimir Lenin famously declared that there are no “absolutely hopeless situations” for capitalism. The Communist International stated that with the first World War, a new world epoch of wars and revolutions had opened, and it defined state monopoly capitalism as the highest and final stage of capitalism.
The term late capitalism began to be used by socialists in continental Europe towards the end of the 1930s and in the 1940s, when many economists believed capitalism was doomed.
Anyway, I’m probably giving Lorenz way too much credit here. I doubt she knows anything about the phrase itself except that it’s something that hipsters say online which basically means there’s lots of income inequality and other unspecified problems. But let me be the first to assure, the Marxists will still be talking about this 50 years from now unless, god forbid, actual Marxists get control of things in which case everyone will be dreaming about the bygone glory days of late-stage capitalism.
But getting back to Lorenz’s rant, she follows that phrase by mentioning the pandemic and wealth inequality, zero social safety net/job security and climate change. The pandemic certainly has been bad but it’s probably a once in a century global event and we are coming out of it now. And it’s worth noting that the worst impact of the pandemic for kids seems to have been the interruption of the status quo, including the economic status quo.
As for their being zero social safety net, that’s nonsense. We have a massive social safety net in the form of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, three programs which are even now threatening to inflate our debt to levels never seen before. And that doesn’t count all of the state and local safety net programs we have.
But here again I’m probably giving Lorenz too much credit. I think what she actually means by “0 social safety net/job security” is that adults need to have a job to survive and it’s not always easy to get or keep a job. Put another way, you can become homeless if your life plans boil down to drinking all day and using fentanyl or if you simply dropped out of school and never wanted to work. Of course it has always been tough to survive if you’re looking to avoid learning/work.
Lorenz has been defending herself on Twitter ever since she made these comments.
No hate to this OP, but since ppl keep saying this, literally nowhere did I say I wanted to go back in time! You can think we're living in a late stage capitalist hellscape and worry about global warming without wanting to go back to when women couldn't have credit cards or vote https://t.co/rJ501N9L6u
— Taylor Lorenz (@TaylorLorenz) February 21, 2023
As for this next one, has it occurred to the people making TikTok videos complaining that their bosses aren’t looking out for their best interests that your employer is not your mommy?
Yup, many young ppl do not trust employers to look out for their best interests. There are whole tiktok trends dedicated to discussing this. Also it’s just a fact that most employment in US is at will, also the rise of gig work, creator economy, and other unstable forms of work https://t.co/idWK47FaLE
— Taylor Lorenz (@TaylorLorenz) February 21, 2023
And today she’s moving the goalposts quite a bit.
If u think cell phones are the greatest threat to millennial/Gen Zs lives then idk what to tell u lol. I’m not some huge phone defender, but it’s ridiculous to blame all problems in the world on a piece of communication technology and ignore every major structural problem we face
— Taylor Lorenz (@TaylorLorenz) February 21, 2023
No one said phones are the “worst thing on earth” of the “greatest threat to millenial/Gen Zs lives” and no one is blaming “all problems in the world” on them. That’s just attacking a straw man argument.
What some people, like Haidt, are suggesting is that there’s a serious rise in teen mental problems and suicide attempts over the past decade which deserves attention and which must have some cause. The phone itself isn’t the cause but the complete absorption of teens into screen time and social media could be part of it. In other words, maybe it would be better if teens started using phones later or used them less often because maybe they’re making some young people deeply unhappy.
Finally, Lorenz’ exact age remains a mystery but she’s probably about 40 years old and yet she really makes an effort to portray herself as if she’s about 21, which is deeply weird. It’s not just these tweets. She has a whole persona online in which she is clearly trying to be a 20-something.
@taylorlorenz
Granted she’s not saying she’s 20 but the level of self-obsession is something you see in 16-year-olds.
@taylorlorenz Replying to @skitz762
It’s just weird and makes a pretty good case for social media melting people’s brains.
Update: Iowahawk on the uncanny valley of tweendom that Lorenz inhabits.
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) February 21, 2023
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