I’d say all generations are affected by this.
My dad (gen X) for example, he has tiktok, Instagram and Facebook on his phone and watches YouTube shorts on his tablet. It’s everyday life for him to scroll on these platforms for over 8 hours per day. It’s like he becomes brain-dead every time he comes into contact with a glass sandwich.
For myself (gen Z), I used to scroll Instagram reels for at most 2 hours per day when I was in high school, but now I barely touch it, instead I prefer long form YouTube documentaries and sandbox games. The worst of it is my around 5 minutes or less of YouTube shorts daily and browsing lemmy for around tops 2 hours per day but effectively 1 on average.
I also believe that the stereotyping of gen Z being addicted to everything digital is a bit dubious, since we’ve lived through life as “digital natives” and are likely more able to avoid addiction. The ones I worry about are the older generations, since many fall into the trap of accidentally integrating these addictive services into their routines and get more severe health consequences such as early Alzheimer’s or putting too much faith into LLMs and for example change their medication dosages without actual approval from their doctor, and many other examples.
As a millennial it feels like we were at an apex of technology literacy. One of the major motivational factors for me was thinking the next generation was going to be more well equipped than mine. So id better keep my head down and work hard because these kids that coming up with tablets from the start are going to eat my lunch with whatever this new common core stuff is. To me we were just the youngest generation that really had tech at a young age so it seems natural that all the older kids were progressively less technologically capable. But at some point you look over your shoulder at who is coming up and it like… Oh no.
From stock market gambling, LLM gambling, Crypto gambling, or sports betting gambling gambling, to subscription services for every thing and reduction of consumer protections, E-V-E-R-Y F-U-C-K-I-N-G T-H-I-N-G in this world is a god damned scam.
I remember one of my peers from high school dropped out to start gambling his money on the stock market (ASX), and didn’t have any other plans for careers or anything. I wonder how it’s going for him.
I feel like vapes have undone all the progress against smoking and more.
Pretty sure that was why they were invented, cig companies made so much money
Disposables, yes, but at least where I’m from there was a big independent industry of “flavor” industries that quickly popped up around 2015, and in those years hardware had a ton of manufacturers and “DIY” aspects. You’d make your own liquids and coils using cheap specialized metal wire and cotton and you could go on for months with 20€. Then a bunch of absolute horseshit laws from both the national and EU level seemed to try and make that experience as inconvenient as possible, for example requiring you to buy half-filled bottles that you must fill yourself using nicotine bases that can be no bigger than 10ml, resulting in 3-4 small disposable plastic bottles per liquid that you buy. Several countries limited what flavors you can buy, and/or regulated the market such that there is only one or two brands of approved hardware manufacturers.
Now if you think that reducing accessibility of vapes is good, this would all be fine and dandy, but at the same time all the kids are vaping disposables, which are not subject to some of the same restrictions and you can buy online or in corner stores for the price of a pack of cigs. Of course almost all the brands are owned by old tobacco money, but I still can’t really understand how we took a perfectly good and simple system like an electronic cigarette with a decent industry behind it, made it borderline illegal, and then normalized the same thing but imported from a cartel, that works the exact same except that they refuse to put two holes for refilling and charging it. Fucking disposable lithium batteries in 2026.
Yup. When vapes and ecigs started being a thing, I kicked so many pissy whiny babies out of my store on the daily for it.
Not allowed to do that at my current job.
You don’t need to say “crypto rug pull”, “crypto” is sufficient.
Some crypto was designed to be useful, and some was designed to be an investment scam. But everyone is investing in all crypto so none of it makes sense.
What’s wrong with gooning, boss?
Ain’t nuthin wrong with a good ol goonfest
Yyyyyyep
Gonna be real as an old and fat and gay millennial, I’m actually pretty optimistic about Zoomers and Alphas. I think they are gonna become more anti-tech and move into a more analog kind of lifestyle. I have a ton of zoomer friends who are deleting social media accounts or even gettingh dumbphones, and my 13 year old niece was even asking me about how to burn CDs or transfer stuff to VHS tapes.
Yeah, I’m being optimistic about them. I think they’re gonna be okay.
one of these things is not like the others
I would put all those hooks up my ass and let them stretch me in all eleven dimensions. Thank God I grew up only with 4chan and Reddit when they had subs like spacedicks and jailbait. Fuck, you remember Ren n Stimpy? Rocko’s Modern Life? Caligula? The shit that poisoned our lil brains…
Gotta respect the honesty.
It’s wild that Rocko and Ren & Stimpy we’re considered “kids shows” lol especially Ren & Stimpy
Yea, imagine seeing Caligula when you were of the age where you were unsure if the blue mold stuff growing on your balls that tasted like pennies was a part of the new hairs you were getting down there.
Sorry, got sucked in by the gambling ads before the video. Now I’m $20,000 in debt.
FUCK SPINNIN’ RIMS
You gotta pick two, boys — which ones are you picking?
Zoomers and Gen Alpha. They’ve got good heads on their shoulders.
Funny how they are genuinely so bad and then there is… gooning like, did you finish the ideas? xD
gooning isnt just self satisfaction. its like, an unhealthy obsession with it. to put it bluntly its being “lost in the sauce” but on like steroids.
its basically an addiction
I think crypto rugpulls are the easiest to avoid. Some of them are so obviously rug pulls idk how anyone put their money in. Better off putting your money on a Kalshi bet.
I was more thinking these have the potential to turn into addictions. Putting an extra $20 on the game is fine too imo.
It’s honestly worse not having any of these at this point because you’re very isolated.
Hey now, I have gooning and vapes and I’m plenty isolated thank you very much!
Gooning is free and generally a 1 person activity.
I’m not really into that.
It’s ok nobody’s perfect.
