To think we're going to have a generation of adults unable to socialise?

[Ezlo]

By that I mean in restaurants. I see so many kids glued to their iPods in restaurants, barely uttering a word to the rest of their family. The future unsettles me.

@MidnightPatrol
Consumer electronics are cheaper than ever.

A kids Amazon Fire is about £100 and will last the span of their childhood.

And in terms of your overall budget… stuff like food is a lot cheaper, people don’t spend all their money down the pub etc."

Also I have read an article, arguing against the older generations opinion of 'if millennials stopped buying avo on toast/spotify etc' that in relative terms now luxuries are relatively cheaper, whereas necessities are more than ever.

In my grandparents 20s going out for dinner would have been very expensive and only a massive treat, or for the 'rich', and clothes were a lot of money - whereas buying a house was much a more affordable than modern days.

My God, someone’s very wound up and angry today aren’t they!

You might be right, OP, although my teenagers (19 and 16) have pretty good social lives.

I actually laughed out loud, hilarious, only on MN 😂 I guess you can't get the tone across on here can you?

You are clearly very easily entertained then, and you know what they say about easily entertained people?

What's that? I'm interested to know?🤣 I don't feed into universally used stereotypes and judge using them, but you do you. Have a great afternoon.

I think there's some truth in this, but many people have always been unwilling to interact, or at least highly selective about their interactions. There's indeed a bit of a stereotype about the British being polite but reserved and socially awkward, while those in some other countries are more sociable but more aggressive. As with most stereotypes, it's of course, well, a stereotype! But I do think that there are a certain number of people who only feel able to be sociable if they've had something to drink, which leads to a certain amount of excessive drinking,

There's at least one way in which modern technology can make people less unsociable. In the past, people were often very resentful of other people disturbing them when they were watching TV: reasonable and manageable if they just had a few favourite programmes; more difficult if they spent most of their free time watching TV. Nowadays, with the possibility of catching up on iPlayer, people tend to be a bit more relaxed on this subject.

And there's always been some form of technology or activity, which was being blamed for people's social difficulties, or seen as a bad influence. For my generation, it was indeed TV. A generation or two earlier, comics and the cinema. Go back far enough, and I've been told that Aristotle was complaining that this new invention known as literacy was interfering with oral communication and with memorization.

I think that the biggest problems with screen use are that it reduces physical activity, and that it reduces time spent in reading books. And that social media can be misused for purposes such as cyberbullying, grooming, and spreading disinformation. But I'm not sure that it really makes us less socially competent than we were in the past.

And the rolling eyes because?

But that isn't what people have said. From a one off observation in a restaurant or during a walk, you don't know how much screen time a family has.

Not to mention the person observing other families for the entirety of their time in a restaurant surely can't be interacting very much with their own table.

This. ^

What a stupid comment. 'People 'choose to be introverted' so they don't have to socialise with others' What utter rot. Some people genuinely ARE introverted, and shy, and suffer from anxiety when they're in crowds/socialising.

And if some people DO make it up/make excuses, it's because of people like the poster who is mocking. To avoid having to see them! I don't find seeing people/socialising 'draining,' I find socialising with certain people draining.

Have a word with yourself @Greyish2025 Just because some people enjoy their own company and prefer to stay in, or be alone most of the time, that doesn't make them 'wrong.'🙄

Seriously, when I read shit like this, I can see why some people make excuses to not see certain people.

And pay no attention to the stupid and patronising 'oooh U sound so ANGRY' posts. They're designed to mock and deride, and shut women down. People have lost the argument when they say this, and I will never respond to anyone saying this.

(And you didn't even sound angry anyway!)
.

Yes, easy (as usual) to blame the youngsters, but where are the parents in all this?? Far too many parents are "abdicating" any responsibility and just giving toddlers a tablet to keep them busy rather than looking after them properly. Years of that and it's no surprise that teenagers aren't engaged with the real world and are obsessed with their phones/devices - it's what they've been brought up with.

Yep it's starting in the prams!

Thank you @LikeWhoUsesTypewritersAnyway it seems MN have stepped in. The ignorance to MH is sad, and to think it is 2025. Some social meters get full quicker than others, and that is okay. If people are happier staying in/more of a homebody, than that is absolutely okay, or vice versa.

Screen use/addiction is a huge problem across all ages, but a 5 year old using an iPad watching a cartoon for half an hour in a restaurant once a month while their parents catch a well earned breather is the absolute least of it. Kids watching a bit of TV/cartoons while the grownups catch a break isn’t some new thing.

And yet apparently the average British teenager is on TikTok 2 hours a day. Two hours a day every day of mindless short video junk. Swipe swipe swipe at a time when teenagers should be developing, exploring and socialising. That sort of statistic is a rather bigger concern.

The issue is once one has been to one party, rave, dinner, kids party, wedding, or BBQ, it becomes like Groundhog Day...
Plus the general cost of a trip to the cinema for example can come in over £100.

You're going to the wrong cinemas.

We have a cinema for £4 a ticket for just released movies (north London) and then if you really want a drinks and snack it's maybe £6 total on top

https://reelcinemas.co.uk/cinemas/borehamwood

Movie Madness is £3.99 👌

Why do you care whether someone else claims to be introverted or not?

It's not some personal attack against you

The fussy kids want Showcase with the large electronic seats in the xplus big screens. 😂
I took them to the local Vue, a cheap deal and they noticed the lack of reclining seats and the smaller screen.

I think the problem in some cases is the 'vice versa'. Recently, I have seen an increase in 'performative introversion', by which I mean people actively promoting their preferences as having some level of intellectual superiority.

This is, in part, a reaction to the promotion of the opposite, but attempting to defeat such attitudes by simply resorting to playing others at their own game seldom achieves much more than further entrenching differences as negative.

I say this as someone who prefers to watch the world go by on the bus than talk, but would never use such phrases as 'random dullards' to describe those happy to chat, just as I wouldn't refer to someone who prefers quiet as 'socially inept or awkward.

I also don't have such a high opinion of my own intellectual prowess to imagine that my lack of desire to natter to a stranger about the weather denotes any sort of cognitive superiority. I don't imagine that people who like a chat view others as 'entertainment systems', just as I hope people don't make presumptions about how I view other people based on my lack of chat.

The lack of understanding about mental health also works both ways. Different people have different requirements for achieving maximum mental health. It is just as possible that my lack of desire to converse impacts negatively on the mental health of someone wishing to converse with me.

I never said I cared

I think you're right to a certain extent. However, you are seeing a small snapshot with children in a restaurant. I'm pretty sure if they had been making noise, you would have complained about that (which I've seen so many times on here that toddlers and young children shouldn't be allowed in public unless they're silent).
I suppose parents use whatever is available to them. If phones and iPads were a thing back in the day, parents would have used them. I'm sure my mum had some questionable parenting in the 90s that we would be horrified with by today's standards.
Children are socialising all day in the week at school. I understand wanting to have some extra time when out for a meal, and if an iPad gives them this, then who really cares?!

You don't know if the parent is on social media or playing a game.

If I'm sat at the doctors/ dentist with my kids I might check my email / book a skip / reply to my texts that I haven't had the time for / send money to someone / check the weather / send a message to school etc.

That's purely because we didn't know any different.