Aibu. To think being a teenager today must be awful

[mikkyr]

So I’m 40 and have spent the last week watching crap on Netflix. My husband has been away so I’ve had nobody to filter my choices...

So watched the documentary about the young girl Michelle carter who apparently convinced her bf to kill himself via text message, watched 13 reasons why, you and have just started euphoria.

I really need to stop. But gosh are these series (obviously the documentary is real) what teenagers and young adults lives are about. I’m trying for a baby now but watching these has made me doubt whether this world is somewhere I want to raise a kid in.

Many thanks op. I'm in uk and wanted to see it but will have to wait! X

Im only two episodes in - Not sure how many are in the series.

And its actually mostly what prompted me to post here. Those kids were both so fcked up for lack of a better word. I know someone said its an anomaly and thats why they made a documentary. I think the fact that she prompted him to kill himself is an anomaly. But I think the teenage torment that they had going on is probably quite rife, it just doesnt all end in suicide fortunately.

Dh told me there were knife fights and gangs in his school in the 70s, mine was pretty grim too. and no films are not usually representitive of real life. Things seem better now if anything, stuff not tolerated that used to be.

My almost-17 year old seems pretty bloody happy, why wouldn't he be?

Ive got seven nieces and nephews that are all in their teens atm. They live in different parts of the country (and some in US) and each of them ha ve had it rough. The thing they all share in common is being bullied/harassed through sm. I was a teen in the noughties, so unless I logged onto MSN messenger I was alright. Now (in the case of my fam) they can't escape it. And even if you switch your phone off, nasty horrible shit just stays online being shared around the school and it's still there when you log back on.
Every single one of my nephews have been involved in fights which has involved knives. One nephew was stabbed at ag e 14 on the school field, and it was filmed and put online. Nephew in US has been in school when TWO shootings have occurred.
Being a teen is rough in any age; people compete in who's had it harder. Tec h certainly doesn't help this generation.

Ok so just to add to my case. Wake up this morning to read about Bianca Devins who was killed by a 21 yr old she met on Instagram who then posted pictures of her corpse online.

Sure every generation has its sickos but like I said before DEPRAVED is the word that comes to mind. It’s like tech and SM have made a generation lose touch with reality.

RE the pressure to have sex, teens are probably having less sex than previous generations and/or are less likely to become teenaged parents which has got to be a positive.

www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/uk-44902411

@tomatosalt

Based on my dealings with my step son who lacked and appeared to not miss social interaction, I also assumed that kids were having less sex than before. He has a fascination with Japan and Japanese culture and if you read up about their population crisis and how young people there are not having sex or getting married, it would be naive to assume that kids not having sex is a good thing because its not just about sex its the lack of interaction with other people that causes the lack of sex and that cant be a good thing.

And then on the other side of the coin, are all these series and sex is so cheap and nasty and common to these teenagers.

Thats why Im asking all these questions. What is it really like to be a teenager nowadays? I understand that most kids probably live in the middle ground and both my scenarios above are the extremes I guess.

Yeah they are having less actual sex, but the pressure to send nudes and inappropriate messages is massive. Talk to any group of teens frankly about it and you will find a significant minority have done it.

Well look, I was a teenager five years ago. Not current but all the social media etc was around. We didn’t have sex because it wasn’t the done thing at my school. We had a couple of girls with eating disorders but no suicides. Most of us were fairly normal and happy. We enjoyed a bit of teenaged angst but our lives were quite sanitised. Our parents didn’t hit us, our boyfriends (by and large) didn’t try to pressure us into sex we didn’t want or rape us, we were all looking forward to having good careers and generally were treated with respect by everyone we came into contact with. Stis and teenage pregnancy weren’t really an issue until we went to university (and one girl at school) but by that point we were all fairly reasonable. If anything I would say that social media was a good influence-we knew that if we did anything terrible it could end up floating around the internet forever so we made very few stupid decisions. Obviously it carries across different demographics but our lives were significantly better than our counterparts from twenty years earlier who had to deal with a lot of sexism, a lot of pressure to have sex etc. I really do think that social media was good for us (with the massive caveat that it was limited to Facebook back then).

I only just skipped FB in secondary school. MySpace was very much a thing and MSN but FB only started taking off once I left. I’m so, so happy I didn’t have those pressures on top of everything else in school. It’s just not good for a teenagers wellbeing at all.

All generations of teens have had problems: mental health, suicide, bullying etc has been around for years. Ok they have a bigger platform with SM but tbh you could argue our teenagers are luckier than previous generations. They have information readily available to them via the internet that just wasn't there before. They have access to helplines and organisations for every single thing you could imagine. They have grown up encouraged to report sexual harassment and abuse which ago was often brushed under the carpet. They have more opportunities than the teens of before and they have more tools available to them.

I think teenagers have it harder now because of social media and technology. Anything that goes online stays online and has been used time and time again against people when applying for jobs/colleges etc.
Rogans' podcasts mention this a lot if anyone's interested. Any stupid crap teens do haunts them for the rest of their lives. I think of some of the daft (and mostly harmless) stuff I did and how that could've affected my life and it 's scary.
I lived in Japan for several years. It may not be reported that they're all having sex (and believe me, a lot of teens ARE), there's also a trend (want of better word), of school kids recording their classmates using the toilet and postin g it online.

I agree that we have information at ou r fingertips, HOWEVER that again has caused many problems. One being problem solving/researching skills are starting t o be lost. There's an awesome TED on that exact subject.

Are these things reflective of what happens nowadays?

I've watched 13 Reasons Why and… That's Hollywood!

I have a 16 and14 year old. Both completely brilliant kids, hard working, polite, not a bit of trouble. Both love school, have great groups of friends and seem happy.

I hated school in the late 80s, early 90s as I was badly bullied. There were sooooo many teenage pregnancies in my school year at 14/15/16. My dc have had none so far at school.

The dc know no difference.