Do younger people go home earlier now? Or go out less? Is it since COVID?
Someone asked a question about how frequently young people have time to socialize and it made me think about what people do with their evenings. I recently asked my son to go to a concert (free ticket to see a band i know he likes) and he declined because it was an hour away on a weeknight. If we invite our kids or niece/nephew to dinner they always want to go at 6/630 which feels so early. Edit: Kids are 30ish.
Early 30s. Outside is a scam. Everything there involves spending money and dealing with people. I'll talk and play games with my friends online but don't see people unless I am at work or forced to go out.
Almost all the good socialization has become commercialized. There's no town square anymore, it's turned into a Walmart.
And not even a 24 hour Walmart.
I think that's a big point, hardly anything is open late anymore. Seems like the world stops at 10PM these days and everything has to shut down then.
Yeah, many places that shortened hours during covid have not resumed their BC hours.
Which i get, finding and keeping workers to work those odd hours can be hard and it is nice to get out of work at decent times if you do work at one of those places... besides bars if ur over 21or movies, i cant think of annother place to go when it gets late
hmmm.. has a square but doesn't have a 24 hour Wal Mart.... Portland?
My town actually has a square. It's nice to have.
Nice, I love town squares. The place to be
not even a walmart. where i live it's a neiman marcus. if you don't have $2000 to drop on a single coat, GTFO.
Libraries still exist! They have activities every single day!
Late 30's. I don't always spend money when I go out and if I do have to spend its usually on cheap public transit to get somewhere else. I often leave the house and just walk around town. Good exercise and I'm not always stuck at home driving my cat bonkers.
Games are a scam too.
If you buy the ones with paid dlc/season passes/microtransactions, yes. You have to use your powers of observation and critical thinking and buy the complete games instead.
Some are, and some aren't. 100 dollars with bg3 gets you 100 plus hours of enjoyment. That is 1 dollar / hour. That is value. I am still playing Skyrim after 10+ years and it was 60 bucks. I have 1000+ hours in it. Worth.
I don't go out because post covid everything costs 100% more and is 100% worse.
I spend $60 on two beers and a mcdonalds quality hamburger + fries last week. F that. in 2019 that would have been 20 bucks. in a place that was crowded and it took me like 30m to get my food. and almost every place is like that now. double the price for half the service or quality of product.
if going out was fun and affordable I'd do it more. I went out regularly before covid. I just don't want to have to drop 30-40 bucks for a single beer and junk food meal anytime i want to socialize.
all my old spots that were affordable, chill and fun, are gone. i used to hang out in coffee shops after work because they were quiet and i don't drink.. now they all closed at 2pm. bars are noisy and crowded and want $15+ for a cocktail and $10 for a budweiser. that used to be $10 and $5.
Dude even stuff like bowling is too much now. An hour for two people can approach $70 at certain places. Not the bougie places either, those places are even more. I was browsing Google reviews for one place nearby like that and the owner responded saying that they should look for a Groupon.
Around here, all the affordable bowling places shut down. All we have left are the boogie places.
My mom sent me $60 to take my kids, and it was not even close
I get that. On top of increased cost we got into this overtipping to help people who were working and it's all gotten out of hand.
yeah i'm not even counting tipping. that shit is insane. lots of places in my city now want a 20% tip, and a 5-10% fee. on top of a 9% tax. So basically your meal is now 35-40% more than the prices in the menu. and it's expect at literally every joint now, take out and coffee joints too.
it's just not worth it. for that kind of pricing I'm better off just getting delivery. which is what i do now. ubereats is a 20% tip and like a $5 delivery fee. it's cheaper and i don't have to deal with slow/rude service and other customers being loud and obnoxious.
😳 US pricing in restaurants felt always crazy to me, but this just sounds crazy!
We doordash or order from the restaurant more than going out because of the tip and restaurant alcohol costs.
Don't forget to tip your dasher!
Nah, fuck that. I stopped ordering from apps. If I want takeout, I call the restaurant or use the restaurant's website directly. GrubHub and Door dash add fees to the items' cost and then delivery costs and then want you to tip the driver. I can drive myself, or walk in some cases, and pickup my own food. My orders went from like $95 down to like $65 instantly (family of 4)!
I do usually check the restaurant website first to see if they have their own system or just link to dd, etc. Need to start doing the call in/pick up.
We did not get into over tipping to help people who are working. Tipping popped up everywhere because it's profitable for POS terminal operators and business owners. It wasn't something society decided on, most people complain about it. It was brought about suddenly when the POS terminals changed, mainly from Square Cash, but everyone else followed suit.
I'm not saying that's why we started tipping. During COVID we started really overdoing it.
Yeah, I was fine overtipping during COViD, and did my part to raise that bar, but that should NOT be the new norm
Seriously? I thought a beer'd be 4-5 American dollars, burger 5 and fries 2ish.
Depends on where you are and what you want. In Texas, you can get a beer in a small bar for $4-5, especially during happy hour. Hard to find a burger delivered to your table for less than $10. Fries and non-alcoholic beverages have become surprisingly expensive. Fries can easily be $5-7. Restaurants have gone over the top on portions - half pound burger on a giant bun and a bucket of fries for $20. They sell more, charge more, and half of it goes to the trash.
Burger is usually 20 now with fries. Beers 10 each.
Where do you live that burgers are that expensive? At most they're maybe $12 here in one of the nicer places.
Seriously I live in a high COLA and that's expensive
Not young anymore, but when I see the price of live music, alcohol, etc, and combine that with things like student debt, low income jobs and the pressure of potentially being humiliated via social media, I wonder how on earth young people ever go out.
I feel incredibly lucky to have been in my late teens/early 20s during the late 90s and early 2000s. I suspect a lot of my generation dodged a fair few bullets, and never even realised it at the time.
So so glad i grew up without social media!! My bad decisions would be meme warnings for future generations.
parental money and credit cards.
my work hires lots of 22 year olds. most of them are getting an extra 1-2K from the bank of mom and dad per month, and loading up on debt. i've seen their statements that they download onto their work computers. kid making 40K a year has 15K in CC debt. (of course this same kid got fired because they were doing personal shit on a work computer).
poor kids live at home with their folks to have any semblence of a life.
I remember seeing P. Funk for $20 in the 90s.
We need the funk
I hate to break this to you... but it's likely because they want to do their own things as well.
For dinner 6.30 seems very late to me imo
I typically eat around 730 8 630 sounds early to me.
yeah, i grew up with 4 meals. breakfast, lunch, dinner, supper. eating at 6pm seem early for supper and late for dinner to me
Sounds fancy, where are you where that's normal? We usually eat dinner after coming back from work, and maybe coffee and snacks in the evening around 8.30.
I'm Canadian, but my father and grandfather were born in Denmark and grandpa would always feed me 'dinner' around 4ish, then 8ish was 'supper'
Aren't you all at work/school around that time?
when i was in school, i was off about 3ish. When i know ill be working at that time, i do pack enough to eat around that time
Interesting idea. It sounds like a lot of extra work though
It's funny how much this varies from family to family. We never eat dinner before 9PM. Usually two meals per day, lunch at maybe 1PM and dinner between 9 and 10PM. We're just doing desk-work though, so no extra calorie needs. If I'm doing physical stuff I'll usually add a light breakfast.
I'm usually starving at the end of my workday so I couldn't imagine having to wait that long
Like have time with each other or simply sleep before work next day.
Like to do something else afterwards? Maybe that's it.
Yep. I don't mind doing it for birthdays or other special events, I'll just need to take the day after off.
Cost of living and going out is insane. We don’t have the expendable income to do so.
At least for me, its a threshold problem. The internet means that staying at home is always going to be at least somewhat interesting, which makes it a lot harder to take a gamble on a random late night outing. It’s not just staying out late, either—Gen Z shows declines in a whole host of risky behaviors. Smoking, alcohol, drug use, teen pregnancy, are all way down in our generation. In some sense, we’ve found a drug that we prefer to actual drugs.
I have two 15 years old sons. One of them is never home. He is always going out with his friends, either to the gym, or just walking around town. The other one rarely leaves the house. He'll invite his friends over to hang out, and sometimes he visits them, but they usually talk at school or online.
One difference I noticed is that back in the 1900s, we had to get a ride from our parents in order to play video games with our friends, but thanks to the Internet, it's very easy to play and socialize with your friends from home, and being in the same room now PREVENTS people from playing together.
The kids are actually socializing MORE because they don't need to meet at the same location, and I don't have to drive their asses all over town, so I'm ok with that.
1900's... 🤣🤣🤣 Thanks for the age gut punch.
One of my kids said it a few months ago, and I decided that MUST be how I refer to it from then on! 😂
I like to say "before the turn of the century", but someone always gives me shit for it.
Next time say "last millennium."
"Back when the world was young."
I still use "In the beforetimes"
I don't think they had video games in the 1900s, since Tennis for Two was invented in the 1950s.
The 1950s are part of the 1900s.. same as 1850 was part of the 1800s. They were just being facetious using "1900s" anyway. That will change as we all get older though, eventually it will just be the 1900s.
I'm in my 40s, I'm not gonna go out to a concert an hour away on a weeknight because that means I'm not getting home 'til after 1 and I have to be up in the morning with a functioning brain because I have a damn job.
speak for yourself. same here. i still go to concerts and come home at 1am. at least concerts are still affordable and like 20 bucks.
Maybe near you... A hundred or more in some places.
They can be expensive for big shows, but there's also alot of great local music; bands that are just happy to have an audience.
How old are you, what time do you wake up for work, how much sleep do you normally require, and what's your job?
Me? 50ish. Usually sleep around 11 to 630. I work with kids so i have to be alive, awake, alert, and enthusiastic.
Same except that concerts seem insanely expensive to me now!
Again, I have to actually use my brain for a living.
No need to be a dick about it.
If you'd bothered to read my previous comment, I wouldn't have had to repeat myself.
I'm 46. I took a half-day off last time I went to an event an hour away so I could sleep in the next day. It's the only way I can do it and I do it rarely because I don't have much PTO.
I don't know about your location specifically or the specific age range you're refering to, but at least where I am, school/college tends to start at like 8:00 am, and most students want to or need to work fairly busy jobs given the ongoing cost of living crisis. Considering that, it means they can't stay up late, and don't have much energy to socialize compared to older generations. Although again, this varys by area and individual.
I should have mentioned that the kids are 30ish. In the US, Texas. We all work generally 8-5 jobs and my husband is the only one who drives more than 20 minutes to work. He's almost an hour each way- maybe that's why we tend to go out later - come home, love on the animals, have a drink, go to dinner.
I’m nearly 30. When it comes to family dinners, I want to eat earlier because I need time to unwind after the dinner. I want to get home by 9 so I have time to wind down before bed. I’m very introverted, and even though I get along well with both my family and my in-laws it’s still tiring to be around them. The only person who doesn’t wear me out is my husband, so I feel the same about hanging out with friends.
I think that has always been the case. Working that is.
I'm in my 30s and with constant stress of life, I have no interest in really doing much of anything besides sitting on my couch playing video games and forgeting everything in my down time.
I used to go out and party every weekend and during the week, but that was my early 20s.
I am a young person and I only leave the house to go to work, but I am currently looking for a wfh job. There's nothing really interesting outside and the weather is rarely nice. If there were less roads and stores and more parks or places you could just exist in then I probably would go outside more, but that would be during the day and not at night. Usually during the evening I just lay around and relax. I am so tired and stressed from the day that I never feel like doing anything when I get home.
I feel like just going for a walk or a drive or to sit on a patio for a coffee is so refreshing and helps me distance from the news of the day.
Your kids aren't kids and probably understand the value of a good night's sleep in order to work the next day?
I generally don't go out on week nights especially not late because I want to get at least 7-8 hours of sleep or I'm a grumpy unproductive mess. My evenings I'm making dinner, getting ready for the next day, and trying to find an hour or two to relax before doing it all over again
I don't know I hate going out any more. I quit drinking, me and my girlfriend like so smoke a bong eat dinner cuddle with he cats and go to bed early (9pm) to wake up for work (5:30a), but if a band I like is playing the next city over on a week night the music lover in me makes me go. I'm 36 and it's the only thing that I get excited to go out and do any more, not that's it's a super frequent thing.
Super reasonable! I'm not out until 2 every night, but I was excited to go see some great live music and we were home by 1230. My kids rarely drink - they learned lessons in their 20s that i didn't learn until my 40s. I've shifted more towards cannabis, especially during the week - better sleep and no hangover.
I just don't feel like it anymore, I'm a different person than I was in my 20s. COVID has nothing to do with it.
Either your son is more responsible than you or he already had plans to sneak out with his friends or gf 😂
Also are your kids and nieces/nephews more like young adults, teenagers or middle schoolers?
My kids are 30ish. If he's sneaking out, his punishment comes from his wife, which i suspect is more effective than any grounding he got from us. 😁 Niece's and nephews are late 30s-mid 40s. The older ones seem more likely to go out later and stay someplace longer drinking and chatting than the younger ones.
Oh, they are full grown adults. During the week, they are grinding at work. Sometimes they just want to come home and reset with their own family (wife, kids, games, catch up on shows, whatever). Not sure what their commute or work is like, but I can definitely see dipping out on random family events early or just not going out completely. Especially during working days.
I think you just need to plan it better. Maybe schedule family dinner and events on the weekends.
Kids seem depressingly lethargic these days. They will probably doomscroll tiktok instead of going out with friends.
The world is a depressing place what do you expect?
I don't have any expectations. I'm not making a judgement. Just an observation.
You can't deny judgment being implied in your statement. It's very clear how you feel so own it. I will say, however, that shitting on "the kids" or zoomers or whatever is not helpful to anyone. We desperately need to be lifting up future generations so they can help us through the shit. Talking about them in the way you do only serves to keep them "lethargic".
FTFY
I don't think you deserve the negative reaction you're getting. I think it just hit a nerve with some people. There does seem to be more depression in younger people and lethargy is a symptom of that.
I don't like it any more than anyone else. I believe social media has a negative impact on children and likely all people who use it.
Covid isn't a factor for me anymore, I keep up with my shots. It's financial reasons and time restraints mostly. I got too much shit to do to have any sort of fun. My off days is catching up on sleep debt and errands. Speaking of which I need to do right now.
I'm 30ish. There is no time. Gotta go.
This year I've been going out more than ever. COVID gave me a new appreciation for out-of-the-house activities and now I can't get enough of them.
Ironically, I met my current IRL social circle on discord during the pandemic. Most people in my old social circle started having kids over the last few years so I don't really spend as much time with them anymore.
My kids, the teenagers, definitely do not go out like I did - it's not money, most of what we did back then was just drink in empty parking lots, go to garage punk shows, concerts when we could. Sometimes the beach at night too. We had no money. They do similar (much less drinking, more of a police state now) but way, way less often and not usually till late.
The older set, 25-31, it varies. Some eat at civilized 8-9pm when they do go out. Some like to go at teatime then just go home.
The husband and I, we do usually go out to eat at teatime but sometimes go out for a drink, literally one, or to a concert or show.
Every single one of us, adults and teens, like outdoor concerts because they have to end by 11, noise ordinance. Or concerts at clubs that wrap them early to open afterwards as a dance club. Nobody likes staying up till 3am at a show anymore, but maybe nobody actually liked it in the first place?
Agree with everything you say except the final point - I absolutely LOVED being out clubbing until 3 (4, 5...)
Maybe it was just a product of my time as a young person, but being out that late and having a great time long after most people were asleep just felt so fundamental to my young adulthood.
That's not a criticism of those who prefer to stop sooner though, just a statement of how doing so would have felt alien to me. Each to their own though, as always.
The only time I really liked it was working swing shift. It was so wonderful to get out of work around midnight but still be able to catch some live music or even just sit at a bar on my walk home, have a couple of drinks. A lot like having the coffeeshop on my way into my day job now, it connects you to the community, and made the later work WAY more tolerable.
I will still go out to see a favorite band any day of the week, of course. But that calculation is very different now because I feel so much better with consistent sleep 11-7 every night, and do have a pretty demanding day job, kids, whole big life now.
Yeah, life does get in the way somewhat! :-)
If we have a show or something we eat early, or sometimes go to happy hour and eat there. Normally, we come home, talk to the animals, have a drink, and decide what to eat. We have an agreement that if we say NO to 5 restaurants, we're having for tacos. All of that usually occurs between 6 and 7 with dinner around 8ish.
I love this rule.
It has really reduced the 'what do you want for dinner' arguments.
I wish I had that rule back when I had roommates, one of which would constantly beg their wife to get delivery. It always caused arguments and would hold things up too much.
I agree with that. The best thing to come from the early-ending shows is less waiting. Remember the old days of standing for an hour between bands and the headliner started at midnight?
My daughter is in her 20s and will go out to the climbing gym at 8pm or later some nights.
I blame video games! No, seriously. During COViD, my kids leaned on video games as their only social outlet - everything is online and they’re generally chatting the whole time. We stopped limiting their gaming time because that was their socializing time.
Since COViD and work from home, I don’t go out anywhere nearly as much. It’s too much hassle
My ex moved to a new town and my younger kid (high school) is very active so spent the summer exploring the town. He’d spend entire days walking around, and never found “where the high school kids hang out”, I don’t think they do (outside the house)
My older kid spend all his money on the “occasional” Dunks. Even coffee drinks have gotten so much more expensive
Yes, let's blame video games. they are the typical scapegoat for complex societal issues.
Or sometimes the answer is more complex than the first two sentences and you have to read the rest too
Or maybe the other response was correct and video games were the solution to the problem during COVID. If they didn't play video games they would have found other solutions to hang out with friends and they might not have been as good.
NO! It's the rock music.
I'll say maybe they are right but it might not be a bad thing 🤷♂️
Okay, but, video games aren't the problem here, they were a solution to the problem; so I'm not sure how they're to blame.
They couldn't go outside (stay at home orders), couldn't really play around outside with friends (social distancing at least), and didn't really have options to simply hang out with friends, at all, ever. Many schools were doing remote learning too. So they spent all day, every day, physically alone.
So they played games with their friends, so they could chat, emote and dance at eachother in the game, goof off if they wanted (within the limits of the game), and work together or against eachother to achieve goals or whatever the purpose of the game was.
It seems video games were not the problem, but rather the solution to a litany of issues during the pandemic. On top of all of that, they didn't have to beg for money to go to the shops or movies or whatever.... Which is a benefit not only to the kids, who rely on their parents approval to do those things and provide them with the required funds to participate, but also on the parents pocket book. Overall a win/win.
On top of that, they don't need to worry about curfews, or any danger from strangers, or bullies battering them. If they don't want to associate with someone they can simply not team up with groups that include that person. They can jump into public groups if their friends are busy and make new friends. Literally the only sacrifice they make is that they're not going outside or getting much exercise.
If you don't go to dinner at like 6:30 these days then you probably won't be able to go while the restaurants are still open.
I would say from personal experience it's nice to have an evening to myself after events. I've stayed out late playing shows at bars in my early 20s while working a full time job and it is a godsend to have time that isn't for sleeping to spend my own way. Again, this is my own personal experience not everyone yearns for that introversion time.
The potential for device-driven entertainment right at home is so much greater now than it was for prior generations. It’s not just social media but also games. Kids these days hang out on Discord while playing a game together.
Too much to do indoors.
Younger people are weird as shit compared to older generations
I don't think they're more weird; just different weird. Every gen has different shit they deal with and react to.
Young people can't do anything these days without their emotional support ferrets or without their phones clutched in their hands so they can ask the internet what to think. Also fresh air and green grass is somehow scary to them, as is any kind of social interaction. They also can't take any responsibility for anything or else they experience PTSD or some other debilitating mental trauma.
What a useless generation.
I wonder which generation could be responsible for such a "useless generation".
Probably the next to come. Such a bunch of tossers!
Oh, let me add "can't take any responsibility or else they experience PTSD or some other debilitating mental trauma" to my list.
Lol, tell us how it was so much better back in your day grandpa. Shoe us how out of touch you are and how worthless the opinions of people like you are 🤣
Maybe it could have been stated differently but there is a lot of 'gaslighting' and 'feeling triggered' that seems to occur. Is there a decreased perseverance or resilience? I think grit is the word they use when they compare US schools to those in Finland.
Finland schools aren't being gutted by right wing nut jobs and being shot up several times a week due to more fascist nut jobs who would fuck their guns if they could.
-- Socrates