Re:The global fertility rate is falling
by sandworm101 on Tuesday July 14, 2020 @11:25PM
(#23840911)
It isn't just the choices. Young people are having less sex. Japan has noticed this. Declining sales of contraceptives but declines in both STDs and pregnancies, especially amongst the young. Incidents of the "oops we are pregnant" scenario have declined all over the western world. Western culture has for decades complained that young people have too liberal a view of sex. Remember those abstinence pushes in the 80s and 90s? Remember purity rings? They worked.
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Re:The global fertility rate is falling
by randallsquared on Tuesday July 14, 2020 @11:56PM
(#23841149)
I'm pretty skeptical that abstinence pushes and purity rings worked. I'm pretty sure that the slack was picked up by widely available pornography.
I attribute this to anti-social tendencies rising due to technology addiction. People are getting worse at social interaction. When you spend so much time in front of a screen, it has to have some effect on your ability to socialize.
That's my take anyway.
I think you've found a confounding variable. The root cause here is that people are entertained by something that pushes their buttons. What you've said makes it sound like people want to socialise but are hampered. I would argue that people are not that hampered but rather choose not to socialise in a way which leads to dating (or community engagement)
The main retort to this is, what about all those people who have a gnawing pain of loneliness. Well, with fewer people that pressed to find a partner, local community engagement is down. This forces dating online which results in people screening, judging and not taking chances, leading to a low success rate. This is not a consequence of a lack of social skills. When people engage in person, there are multiple interactions that occur which are not judgemental (in dating terms), leading to more opportunities for people to see the interesting bits in others.
> Remember purity rings? They worked.
Yeah... I'm not so sure about that. My bet would be on easy access to porn, entertainment, and social media resulting in less in person social interaction.