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Comment by SecretDreams | Hacker News Reader

I will say the one problem with it from the perspective of young people is they always get the dick.

* Young people suffer the hardest from the housing crisis

* Young people suffer the most in any kind of job market challenges

* Young people have the least say in elections

* Young people now give up the app they use that actually makes them happy and helps to forget about how shit the world has become for them. Also an app that makes some of them real money.

Basically, the youth have no real legislation in their favour while their quality of life continues to degrade. I imagine that gets old.

This is a rant from someone who supports the tiktok ban.. but I'd extend it to all social media.

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> * Young people have the least say in elections

While this is true from the perspective of voting laws (you can vote after 18 but you don’t need to be 18 to see how f’d ip things are…), it’s also true that the age bracket 18-29 has the lowest participation in elections. I didn’t do the math but I would not be surprised if the last elections turned differently if this bracket increased to percentage levels seen amongst older ages.

https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/half-youth-voted-20...

Young people (and really any working age people) just really don't have that much time, energy, and (mostly importantly) money to dedicate to impacting election and legislative results. When you're working age you have more imminent things to worry about, but the matter of fact is that it's mostly retired people who think the world is going to s*t whose voices are heard the loudest.

Of course you can say it's a question of priorities and it's "their fault" for not being politically active, but I would argue the system is stacked against young people's political participation.

Also, most places in the US have minimum age limits for elected positions.

Voting isn't hard and costs nothing

People who don't vote have no right to complain about the government.

Arguments like yours are used by lazy people to justify non-participation. You aren't helping them by making excuses for them.

I'd say arguments like yours are why people don't vote.

They don't vote because people criticize them for not voting?

What are the demographics that don't vote and how do they compare to your current status (financials, privileges, etc) in life? Be data driven and get back to me.

It’s also true that age 18-29 bracket is less likely to have historically been registered to vote and that they are typically working in precarious positions with less ability to take time off to vote.

If voting registration was automatic, and election day was a holiday, I’d expect the participation across age brackets to be much closer.

I don’t know much about voting in other states, but Texas does have it. In a way. I never had to go anywhere to register to vote. It was a part of my DL application, and it got updated with each change of address. You don’t need the mail voter registration to vote either— just your DL. From my understanding there are some states where it’s still not that easy but many do have this integrated with DL renewals, issues or similar.

I agree that Election Day should be a holiday. There’s a slight issue with Federal Holidays being applying only to federal employees and not necessarily to independent businesses, which can choose to observe it or not… but it’s a start.

Also in Texas, the polls are open for early elections for like two weeks ahead of Election Day. I always take advantage of that. No wait, no hassle, in and out. Most states offer either that or mail-in voting.

Young people are also less likely to have driver's licenses.

put the election on a holiday, there is absolutely no justification for it not be a holiday.

> Young people now give up the app they use that actually makes them happy

Citation needed - social media seems to be very bad for young people's health, if anything.

If the US was doing this for teen mental health, they'd have banned Twitter and Facebook too.

This isn't about teen mental health.

I don’t think the parent comment was arguing the motive for the ban.

They’re just saying they’re not convinced TikTok causes the overall happiness the GP comment claims.

I think it’s hard to argue that any social media has a net positive effect on mental health of any age, let alone the younger generations.

My own claim is more like a dopamine high. Like smoking. Both bad things in the long run, but makes them happu in the moment. Video games probably up there too in their current manifestation.

Anywho, main point is more about giving this already vulnerable demographic more tools to succeed. Especially if, from their perspective, all we keep doing is making their lives worse.

That's like telling a drug addict that it's bad for his/her health. Sure you're staying facts, but they're not going to take it up. Might as well preach to the wind.

From a young one's perspective, it's natural they're going to take it as one more incursion into their lives, else Red Note, an app made for a largely Chinese audience by an unrelated company would not have seen so much uptake over the past few days.

Do we have actual numbers on signups for RedNote though? I feel that if I’ve learned anything in the past ten years of social media, a lot of noise is made by a very small percentage of users (not necessarily even people).

> Citation needed - social media seems to be very bad for young people's health, if anything.

One would need citation for either claim honestly, there's plenty studies around the idea that social media actually doesn't have as much of an impact on mental health as people seem to believe, as well as the other way around. If we get more specific, people who have or are prone to certain psychological conditions do get aggravated by social media, but the same way that's true, it could be for anything else would there not be social media. In the end, what the comment says holds true regardless of how it may affect their long-term mental health

I don't disagree with you that it's probably bad for them, much like smoking. But it makes them FEEL temporarily happy. Much like smoking.

Do you see my point? We're just taking random shit from them without giving anything back. Also, objectively, Meta's platform is just as bad for them as tiktok, so it's obvious to them that it's not being taken away because we actually care about their mental health lol.

I agree that young folks feel the pain more acutely - inflation, education and housing costs hurt the most as they have the least amount of income/savings.

I’m not sure I would elevate TikTok to that degree though - we have some serious issues especially for young men. Not sure that scrolling through TikTok videos is actually fixing any of that- it’s like saying “don’t take away the heroin, it’s the only thing that makes me feel happy”

We're aligned on your second paragraph. It just doesn't change how these demographics *feel*.

Maybe if we're going to cancel tiktok or whatever, offer them some tax credits to cover the cost of registration for a coed sport or other such things that might enable them to be happier. Do more to help them get their first house and get their life going.

Just taking things from this demographic, without giving back, is a surefire way keep them disenfranchised. Even if we're taking something away that is objectively harmful to them (but still keeping instagram around lol).

Thanks for pointing their position out. I work with and have these kids they have a lot to offer. They manage a lot of complexity - thus practicing for the always increasingly complex world. I know it’s cliche for prev generations to be down on the next. I have seen such an uptick in talking heads blaming them for {something}. e.g. Bill Maher They have little power! Lacking enough to execute what they are supposedly the cause of. Those who do should wield theirs to improve their education system or whatever deficit they believe the “kids” have instead of blaming.

Then either participate in your government or, at the very least, vote. Take control of your destiny.

> Take control of your destiny.

Deck is stacked against them from birth. The entire system discourages from a young age what you're proposing. So if these kids feel so disenfranchised (and often filled with misinformation) from a young age, it's entirely unreasonable for us to expect them to "step up" in a vacuum.

You need better systems in place from the beginning to help someone become a better person.

Well, better do nothing then!

It's like asking pigs to rebel buddy. If you want people to energize, you've got to give them more the a pulse. You've gotta at least let them think they've got a chance at the American dream of they energize.

Reality is the American dream is dead for most young people not born with a spoon up their ass. And that seems more and more by design. When you experience this reality your whole life, you carry a level of apathy that "get out and vote" is meaningless to hear.

Lives need to get better from a young age. People need to believe in the American dream again. But the policies set in place over the last 30 years are heavy.

Sure, but your choices are to:

1. Participate in the system 2. Violently overthrow the system 3. Do nothing

Sitting on the internet and whinging about how the deck is stacked against you is choosing option 3.

Fact of the matter is that a lot of people picked option 3 because of whatever reasons they had and now a bunch of oligarchs and criminals are running the joint now.

Voting is the least you can do if actually running for an elected position is not an option.

What do you propose as an actual alternative?

Just because I think it’s interesting to mention given your perspective about how the youth feel, here is how they’ve changed voting patterns [1]:

  In past years, voters under 30 have proved essential on the margins, especially for Democrats, where even minimal shifts in support can decide an election.

  It was a group that Vice President Harris had hoped would be part of her winning coalition this year. Instead, she underperformed, and President-elect Trump made gains.

  Since 2008, winning Democratic candidates have received at least 60% support from young voters, but Harris did not meet that threshold, getting 54%, according to early exit polls.

[1] https://www.npr.org/2024/11/07/g-s1-33331/unpacking-the-2024...

Gen Z is interesting. My brother and sister in law are Gen Z (my wife and I are older millennials). My brother in law and his girlfriend are openly Trump supporters (both happen to be non-white). They went to the rallies and stuff. So are a lot of his friends at work in a blue city (tech sales). My sister in law is liberalish, does the pronoun sharing before group meetings for school, but doesn’t feel strongly about the issue compared to virtually all the millenial women I know.

Over the last 16 years Democrats have occupied the White House 75% of the time, so for younger folk Democrats are the establishment and Republicans the underdog.

I'm not sure it's that simple. You have to take into account Congress and the Supreme Court as well.

I'm pretty sure that only a small minority of Americans, let alone those in the 18-29 age group, can name their senators and representative and anyone on the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, most Americans instead seem to imagine this country as an autocracy in which they get to vote for a new ruler every four years.

Probably the most impactful to your own life vote you can cast is the local municipal one. And that has such poor turnout among the youth it is crazy. Even in places where they mail you a ballot automatically and you have two weeks to vote at polls. People just don’t care to be engaged.

I think it’s more specific than that. The 2008 surge of young people to democrats was driven by rage at the failures of two institutions: the banks (the Great Recession), and the intelligence apparatus (Iraq war). But those institutions never were reformed, and today the Democratic Party has become the staunchest defenders of the banks and the intelligence apparatus.

But for Gen Z folks, that stuff is ancient history, isn't it? Even the oldest members (using 1997 as a starting point, but some definitions use 2000) were too young to protest or serve in Iraq[1]. By the time the youngest Gen Z folks were starting school in the mid-2010s, the US stock market and unemployment rate had reached pre-recession levels too.

[1] I mean when people cared about Iraq, 2003 to circa 2008. We still have troops there, but I don't think most of America is even aware of that.

Both of those institutions were, in fact, heavily reformed.

What you actually mean is that there was little personal legal accountability for past actions, which I don't disagree with. The legal and political frameworks they operate under has changed quite a bit though.

I've been fascinated by the shift towards Trump by 18-29 voters in this past election, and I think this is a good explanation that I haven't heard before. Yeah, and Bush 43 was so long ago that his popular image has turned from kind of a villainous "worst president ever" to a favorably remembered elder statesman according to some polls.

Note that it was a shift for Trump, still not a majority voting for him. Exit polls that I've seen still indicated an 11-point lead for Harris[1], but that's much more narrow than the 24-point lead that Biden had in 2020[2]. Anyway, I've been fascinated by this because it kind of broke my mental model imagining that the Republican party would eventually be marginalized as its voters died of old age. I definitely thought Trump was going to lose this age group in 2024 by the widest margin ever.

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/exit-polls [2] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-elections/exit-polls

Racism and mysogeny is still very much alive among the youth and quite a lot of the US lacks any diversity to combat those notions. Or if they do have diversity on paper it might still be somewhat segregated where these communities might be neighbors but don’t overlap in activities. Less a melting pot, more a punchbowl filled with different fruits bumping into eachother.

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