What’s funny is that I hear today’s conservatives moral panicking about kids apparently not having sex or breaking the rules like they used to. The narrative goes that they are too busy just staring at screens and being placated.

Conservatives. I hear conservatives saying this. That’s the wild part. In my teens the conservatives would have given anything for what they’re whining about now.

I don’t know how true this fun recession is. The stats say there’s a kernel of truth to it but it’s being exaggerated, and if you talk to young people they say it’s as much about the high cost of anything as digital distraction. It’s become crazy expensive to do things in the real world.

Blaming this on cost doesn’t really make sense. Sex and minor delinquency are extremely cheap forms of entertainment (as long as you successfully avoid pregnancy).

> That’s the wild part. In my teens the conservatives would have given anything for what they’re whining about now.

I suspect that's because what they [0] overtly asked for was not what they actually desired. The true desire was to be obeyed, for their teens to eagerly mold themselves onto stated parental-priorities, disassociating with peers their parents had a bad feeling about, etc.

In other words, control, rather than outcomes.

[0] Here, I'm treating "conservative parents" as a persistent group identity, even though individual membership changes over the decades. The ocean-wave exists even when it's not the same water molecules, etc.

> In my teens the conservatives would have given anything for what they’re whining about now.

Are you complaining about 'conservatives theses days'?

'Conservatives' is a label that you put on people whose views are currently seen as conservative.

If there is a wild part at all then it isn't that 'they' are saying it, but what we came to view as conservative.

In a couple of years you might find yourself in that whining bucket.