Do younger people go home earlier now? Or go out less? Is it since COVID?
Someone asked a question about how frequently young people have time to socialize and it made me think about what people do with their evenings. I recently asked my son to go to a concert (free ticket to see a band i know he likes) and he declined because it was an hour away on a weeknight. If we invite our kids or niece/nephew to dinner they always want to go at 6/630 which feels so early. Edit: Kids are 30ish.
The potential for device-driven entertainment right at home is so much greater now than it was for prior generations. It’s not just social media but also games. Kids these days hang out on Discord while playing a game together.
I would say from personal experience it’s nice to have an evening to myself after events. I’ve stayed out late playing shows at bars in my early 20s while working a full time job and it is a godsend to have time that isn’t for sleeping to spend my own way. Again, this is my own personal experience not everyone yearns for that introversion time.
In my early 30s, I don’t have time and I’d rather spend money on stuff for my house or trips (when I finally do have time). I don’t drink or party, AND I’d rather have a good night’s sleep and feel good the next day than stay out past my bed time. I’m asleep between 9-1030 most nights including weekends.
Covid isn’t a factor for me anymore, I keep up with my shots. It’s financial reasons and time restraints mostly. I got too much shit to do to have any sort of fun. My off days is catching up on sleep debt and errands. Speaking of which I need to do right now.
Your kids aren’t kids and probably understand the value of a good night’s sleep in order to work the next day?
I generally don’t go out on week nights especially not late because I want to get at least 7-8 hours of sleep or I’m a grumpy unproductive mess. My evenings I’m making dinner, getting ready for the next day, and trying to find an hour or two to relax before doing it all over again
I don’t know I hate going out any more. I quit drinking, me and my girlfriend like so smoke a bong eat dinner cuddle with he cats and go to bed early (9pm) to wake up for work (5:30a), but if a band I like is playing the next city over on a week night the music lover in me makes me go. I’m 36 and it’s the only thing that I get excited to go out and do any more, not that’s it’s a super frequent thing.
Super reasonable! I’m not out until 2 every night, but I was excited to go see some great live music and we were home by 1230. My kids rarely drink - they learned lessons in their 20s that i didn’t learn until my 40s. I’ve shifted more towards cannabis, especially during the week - better sleep and no hangover.
Young people can’t do anything these days without their emotional support ferrets or without their phones clutched in their hands so they can ask the internet what to think. Also fresh air and green grass is somehow scary to them, as is any kind of social interaction. They also can’t take any responsibility for anything or else they experience PTSD or some other debilitating mental trauma.
Lol, tell us how it was so much better back in your day grandpa. Shoe us how out of touch you are and how worthless the opinions of people like you are 🤣
Maybe it could have been stated differently but there is a lot of ‘gaslighting’ and ‘feeling triggered’ that seems to occur. Is there a decreased perseverance or resilience? I think grit is the word they use when they compare US schools to those in Finland.
Finland schools aren’t being gutted by right wing nut jobs and being shot up several times a week due to more fascist nut jobs who would fuck their guns if they could.
The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.
I blame video games! No, seriously. During COViD, my kids leaned on video games as their only social outlet - everything is online and they’re generally chatting the whole time. We stopped limiting their gaming time because that was their socializing time.
Since COViD and work from home, I don’t go out anywhere nearly as much. It’s too much hassle
My ex moved to a new town and my younger kid (high school) is very active so spent the summer exploring the town. He’d spend entire days walking around, and never found “where the high school kids hang out”, I don’t think they do (outside the house)
My older kid spend all his money on the “occasional” Dunks. Even coffee drinks have gotten so much more expensive
Or maybe the other response was correct and video games were the solution to the problem during COVID. If they didn’t play video games they would have found other solutions to hang out with friends and they might not have been as good.
Okay, but, video games aren’t the problem here, they were a solution to the problem; so I’m not sure how they’re to blame.
They couldn’t go outside (stay at home orders), couldn’t really play around outside with friends (social distancing at least), and didn’t really have options to simply hang out with friends, at all, ever. Many schools were doing remote learning too. So they spent all day, every day, physically alone.
So they played games with their friends, so they could chat, emote and dance at eachother in the game, goof off if they wanted (within the limits of the game), and work together or against eachother to achieve goals or whatever the purpose of the game was.
It seems video games were not the problem, but rather the solution to a litany of issues during the pandemic. On top of all of that, they didn’t have to beg for money to go to the shops or movies or whatever… Which is a benefit not only to the kids, who rely on their parents approval to do those things and provide them with the required funds to participate, but also on the parents pocket book. Overall a win/win.
On top of that, they don’t need to worry about curfews, or any danger from strangers, or bullies battering them. If they don’t want to associate with someone they can simply not team up with groups that include that person. They can jump into public groups if their friends are busy and make new friends. Literally the only sacrifice they make is that they’re not going outside or getting much exercise.
This year I’ve been going out more than ever. COVID gave me a new appreciation for out-of-the-house activities and now I can’t get enough of them.
Ironically, I met my current IRL social circle on discord during the pandemic. Most people in my old social circle started having kids over the last few years so I don’t really spend as much time with them anymore.
Not young anymore, but when I see the price of live music, alcohol, etc, and combine that with things like student debt, low income jobs and the pressure of potentially being humiliated via social media, I wonder how on earth young people ever go out.
I feel incredibly lucky to have been in my late teens/early 20s during the late 90s and early 2000s. I suspect a lot of my generation dodged a fair few bullets, and never even realised it at the time.
my work hires lots of 22 year olds. most of them are getting an extra 1-2K from the bank of mom and dad per month, and loading up on debt. i've seen their statements that they download onto their work computers. kid making 40K a year has 15K in CC debt. (of course this same kid got fired because they were doing personal shit on a work computer).
poor kids live at home with their folks to have any semblence of a life.
I am a young person and I only leave the house to go to work, but I am currently looking for a wfh job. There’s nothing really interesting outside and the weather is rarely nice. If there were less roads and stores and more parks or places you could just exist in then I probably would go outside more, but that would be during the day and not at night. Usually during the evening I just lay around and relax. I am so tired and stressed from the day that I never feel like doing anything when I get home.
I’m 29. Wife and I go out for food 4 times a week. Also to do things to get out of the house. But, I make software engineer money and we live in a relatively small city in Wisconsin. I bought my house at 27 and own a sports car.
I know shit is rough for a lot of people and inflation is nuts. I don’t take my career for granted.
EDIT: Oh yeah, probably a good thing to note: no kids, we’re both sterilized. Not our thing.
yes. nightlight in my city is predominantly wealthy people going out every other night. i go out like a few times a month and people think i'm a weirdo/shut in. i used to go out more, but it was way cheaper to go out back then.
i can't be dropping $500 in drinks alone every week. but for a lot of people in my city that's entirely normal.
Yeah that’s a bit much lol. I don’t drink at all really but I do try to spend pretty reasonably. Ideally a night out for both of us will cost less than 80-100.
There’s plenty of fancy nightlife here, but i really love going to a dive bar with a local band! Most of our nearby colleges have drama programs and sometimes we find free late night programs at museums.
My kids, the teenagers, definitely do not go out like I did - it’s not money, most of what we did back then was just drink in empty parking lots, go to garage punk shows, concerts when we could. Sometimes the beach at night too. We had no money. They do similar (much less drinking, more of a police state now) but way, way less often and not usually till late.
The older set, 25-31, it varies. Some eat at civilized 8-9pm when they do go out. Some like to go at teatime then just go home.
The husband and I, we do usually go out to eat at teatime but sometimes go out for a drink, literally one, or to a concert or show.
Every single one of us, adults and teens, like outdoor concerts because they have to end by 11, noise ordinance. Or concerts at clubs that wrap them early to open afterwards as a dance club. Nobody likes staying up till 3am at a show anymore, but maybe nobody actually liked it in the first place?
Agree with everything you say except the final point - I absolutely LOVED being out clubbing until 3 (4, 5…)
Maybe it was just a product of my time as a young person, but being out that late and having a great time long after most people were asleep just felt so fundamental to my young adulthood.
That’s not a criticism of those who prefer to stop sooner though, just a statement of how doing so would have felt alien to me. Each to their own though, as always.
The only time I really liked it was working swing shift. It was so wonderful to get out of work around midnight but still be able to catch some live music or even just sit at a bar on my walk home, have a couple of drinks. A lot like having the coffeeshop on my way into my day job now, it connects you to the community, and made the later work WAY more tolerable.
I will still go out to see a favorite band any day of the week, of course. But that calculation is very different now because I feel so much better with consistent sleep 11-7 every night, and do have a pretty demanding day job, kids, whole big life now.
I agree with that. The best thing to come from the early-ending shows is less waiting. Remember the old days of standing for an hour between bands and the headliner started at midnight?
If we have a show or something we eat early, or sometimes go to happy hour and eat there. Normally, we come home, talk to the animals, have a drink, and decide what to eat. We have an agreement that if we say NO to 5 restaurants, we’re having for tacos. All of that usually occurs between 6 and 7 with dinner around 8ish.
I wish I had that rule back when I had roommates, one of which would constantly beg their wife to get delivery. It always caused arguments and would hold things up too much.
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