> I notice that this graph is suggesting something happened around 2011 that impacted everyone, and disproportionally impacted only liberal girls.

The author uses this point to (IMO) bash liberal views as forcing kids to act depressed. A lot of the article was subtly tainted with the authors personal politics, and I think this is one of the times they distracted themselves with their own views.

> Another aspect of liberal politics is the focus on various forms of identity, including demands for how kids must react to things and then potentially severe punishment if caught reacting the ‘wrong’ way...

I was a high schooler in 2011. Thats basically when phones started to get common (in my rich, liberal, suburb at least). I do think it's more likely that the introduction of 24/7 social media that is in-person during the school day would have a worse and immediate affect for girls. This assumes that liberal girl is actually upper middle class and suburban or urban (who would have a family that provided them a phone in high school).

I think the author made a lot of good recognitions elsewhere, but this line of logic just read like political bias.

Homes are prisons thanks to car dependent design.

Car dependent design predates homes being prisons.

The case of Lenore Skenazy aka "America's Worst Mom" shows that it's the mindset that's the problem.

I don't have the link, but there's a study showing that Americans are split on whether 12-year-olds should be supervised when playing in a park.

> Car dependent design predates homes being prisons

Part of the home-as-prison is from fear of being outside/out of reach. That has existed in large pockets of our society for a very long time. Cars have not improved that reality for many people and have actually made it worse in many ways. eg: Predators now have as much range as they can drive in a day... or rich predators have as much range as they can fly in a day.

The future was perhaps even bleaker 40 years ago. You had to be a grownup at the age of 18. Now, what is the difference with 40 years ago?

I’m not saying the logical conclusion is phones and socials, but it isn’t a feeling of doom just by itself.

The feeling of doom is a real thing though.

This reminds of this "This American Life" piece [0] focused on people who just couldn't distance themselves from the world going the way it is, the fight for the climate eating their whole lives and impacting their family and social life. That's an extreme, and the reason why it ends in a podcast, but I'd imagine a lot of people sharing part of the same path.

Decades ago the main threat in the "west" was if nations went to nuclear war, with the hope that nothing drastically changes. Accessorily, not going to war for oil was also on the table. So basically, we'd be fine if we kept the status quo.

Right now the main concern would be wether we can drastically change our societies, which is just so much more of an ununtainable goal than the status quo.

People who are poised to be anxious about the future are just so much more fucked in the current climate that decades or centuries before, IMHO.

[0] https://www.thisamericanlife.org/748/transcript

> Decades ago the main threat in the "west" was if nations went to nuclear war

Yeah, that was unpleasant.

> not going to war for oil was also on the table.

The oil crisis was just over, and the effects were still there.

> Right now the main concern would be wether we can drastically change our societies

As was the concern 150 years and 40 years ago. The report from the Club of Rome was the OG IPCC.

> As was the concern 150 years and 40 years ago. The report from the Club of Rome was the OG IPCC.

The difference is on the public ingesting the information I think.

The previous generation was raised in a climat of growth, and the notion of producing/consuming too much just doesn't resonate with most. A few decades ago, reports on pollutions were also met with a kind of "technology will fix that" attitude, as technology effectively fixed a lot of the existential problems they've seen in their life

The current generation looking at IPCC doesn't have that background. They had the societal and environmental issues thrown at them from the start, whith adults showing a very clear "our kids can deal with it" attitude.

Reports of future climate issues resonate a lot differently to the current generation IHMO.

We’re more aware of how fucked the world is and how little we’re doing to fix it.

What do you even mean? Just because you’re not looking doesn’t mean the information isn’t there.

How was future bleaker in 1983? It was basically a beginning of long economic growth.

Nobody knew it. We might be on the brink of a fantastic future right now.

But, there was an economic crisis, there was a cold war, and there were serious worries about the environment and sustainability (Club of Rome's report). "No future" was the motto.

So, my point is: a feeling of doom isn't the difference that could explain the change in attitude/perception. Phones and social media are very viable candidates, though, given the repeatedly shown effect on mental health.

Everyone back then thought nuclear holocaust could happen any day.

Of course, that's true right now too, but for a long period between 1991 and recent years, the idea of nuclear armageddon seemed like a bad memory from the Cold War.