They also had two of their developmental years during lockdowns with the minimal social exposure.

I've heard from some teachers that the younger children they see coming up find it very scary to interact with real kids.

I though as well, and without a doubt it added to it (I have teacher friends that give me bleak reports for the cohort that went through it), but this thing started before the pandemic.

Also, I told myself, it's like watching sport instead of playing it, but something seems different.

I think it's more like sitcoms. A cast of slightly funny and charismatic characters going through mildly interesting experiences has been a mainstay of entertainment media for some time now.

Possibly, like latino soap opera but for kids.

I never could grasp the former, so maybe that's why I don't get the latter.

I browse youtube anonymously and so I get the neutral youtube experience, with what it things the average user wants.

Today I say a video suggestion with kids in the pics and a title "we made a blind test to distinguish frozen food from real one".

It's a really easy thing to do with your friend and family, unlike the soap opera scenario. It's typically stuff I have done, and actually still do.

So there must be a component I miss.

No, I meant American sitcoms like Friends, Seinfeld, Home Improvement, Modern Family, etc. None of these shows show anything dramatic or larger than life - it's just a couple of friends or a family going through relatable yet sanitized everyday situations.

Many of these shows were the pillar of people's evening ritual - the whole family would gather around the TV to watch a fictional family experience life.

What happen in friends or seinfield is way more creative and dense than those youtube videos. Friends start with a depressed guy wishing fir a girl and a nlond in a wedding dress shows out, follow by a killer punch line.

It's not something you can replicate every day with just having a drink with your buds.

I relate to your sentiment, and then I think about how hard it was to explain to my parents why I enjoy watching others play video games.

In person, I get it. You chill with someone you like, you don't need to do much to enjoy it. Like reading together, or just being there.

However, I don't get watching pewdiepie playing something. I just can't groke it. You don't know the person, the person is not in the room, the person is not even currently playing since it's a recording. It's a flat image of someone else having fun. And not somebody particularly good, interesting or special.

I tried to tell myself it's like watching porn: you watch somebody else having sex, why not play video game? But something doesn't click for me.

I miss the point entirely.

You enjoy the feeling of having friends, as you develop a parasocial relationship with the person on the screen.

It is essentially a hack for the brain's social processing systems. Generally, we'd have only seen others in real life and interacted with them. This confers evolutionary advantage so we feel good interacting further with people, and perhaps even seeing people do things we find enjoyable in the first place.

Now with video, we feel good as we "spend time" with the other person, even though they don't know of our existence. Our caveman brain doesn't know about this sort of one sided relationship at all, it wasn't present in the olden days.

We will see the same with AI and chatbots as the decades pass, only at least now we're actually able to interact in a two sided way. There are already people doing this with ChatGPT or even Replika.

After you've watched a person enough on YouTube or Twitch you start feeling that you know them (even though it's completely unidirectional). I think there is a term for this but it's for sure an established phenomena. At that point it feels like watching friends do stuff I guess

The term is "parasocial"

I get that. Humans can get close to anything or anyone.

But to get there, you have to spend time doing so before it happens.

Which means you have to watch many videos where somebody is explaining their school day or reacting to a movie trailer before you get to that point.

> Which means you have to watch many videos where somebody is explaining their school day or reacting to a movie trailer before you get to that point.

Indeed, which is exactly what these creators do. I've watched a few of their videos before and I can't get over how...mundane their content is. There really is nothing of actual substance there. But I assume watching more of that content over time cultivates the same feeling as bullshitting with your friends, hence the parasocial relationship forms.

I've never developed a parasocial delusions myself but still frequently watch various YouTube millionaire's plays games.

For me, it's just low effort entertainment. Like I don't enjoy talking with people, but it's kinda nice to have someone talk in the background to remind me that I'm not the only human alive.

I'm in my thirties though, these parasocial teenagers might be less jaded then I am.

I've explained it to myself like this: It's exactly like watching sports.

You want to watch it live on tv, even though the fact that you're watching has zero impact on the result. You're just watching other people play a game. You could do anything else and just check the scores afterwards, but still you want to watch it.

Some people will watch a recording of the game and still enjoy it even though the scores were determined hours ago.

The younger generation does the same thing, but instead of sports they watch someone play a game.

I don't understand either, but I can live with it =)

See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35207785

But I can live as well with it. I don't blame the kids that watch those. I just don't understand it.

Why watch sports or tv shows or anything at all? It's other people having fun.

To be honest I never got that either, somebody scream for red or blue in front of a screen.

But at least for sports, you will see a level of play that is itself can be interesting because you can't just see it in day to day life.

Watching a video of a guy opening a kinder egg or playing badly at cod for the first time.

I get people watching streamers that are good at what they do. Rankers. Speed runners. Analysts. Jokers.

This is not what I'm talking about.

I think people like to have something to watch and something to listen to. It makes it harder for your brain to go off at a tangent because it has more to occupy it. I think this reduces anxiety and intrusive thoughts. They may even be fidgeting with something to keep their hands occupied for the same reason. Maybe it is more like meditation than porn.

It honestly for me depends on how deep one is in a community. I am pretty heavily part of the Guitar Hero/Rock Band/Clone Hero community, and I watch a decent amount of such streaming. However, I also know many of them online, and a good few of them I've even met in person.

It's okay if you don't get it, if you don't enjoy watching others game. Doesn't mean others can't

It's easy: people watch other people play ball on television instead of playing themselves. Sometimes they watch celebrities play ball, because they suck at it, but it's entertaining. Same thing here with video games, you might watch a pro, you also might watch a great entertainer.

> Sometimes they watch celebrities play ball, because they suck at it, but it's entertaining

That's the part I don't get.

Also, at least some celebrities are indeed professional entertainers.

But the videos I talk about, I would have thought the people in there were not funnier than my real friends, even at 12 years old. They have nothing special about it.

Maybe that's the key? That they are as average as the viewer?

I watch people play Squad to pick up tips and tricks and ettiquite. I watch people play other games to try to see if that would be a game that I would like to play. I watch people play DCS because I really want to play it, but don't have THAT much time to invest into a game. DCS is my favourite to watch, you learn so much about fighter jet tactics and technology.

Keep in mind, childhoods are a lot different now because you are exposed to a lot of information and people you never would have had a chance to meet when you were a child. As a kid in the 90's, my parents gave my brothers and I a choice: cable TV, or DSL once DSL came to our area of the city.

We chose DSL, and definitely the Internet experience I had growing up was way different than every other kid at school since it was actually feasible to download a few small movies or games at the time, and to talk on chat apps/message boards at a very early age. All the online activities became part of my childhood along with my friends who lived locally and my other activities, and turned out, I enjoyed those a lot more than the in person activities which I mostly just _could_ do, as opposed to wanting to do them. So I had a pretty good balance I felt between physical activities, meeting with friends locally for bike rides or playing games, and the online social life also.

Edited addition: One of the most positive parts about this was that it was so new that my parents had very little to say because they did not understand it; if I wanted to join a message board or crack a game, my parents and teachers and other authority figures in my life absolutely could not say anything about it in a reasonable way; it was brand new, there were no guides or playbooks, I had to learn this all on my own. While I was a very independent child, it was mostly stuff in a familiar scope for my parents. They "knew" that if I went on a bike ride with friends, probably we were up to some mischief, because that's what happened when they were kids. Same with if I went to a friends house to play games, to the park, etc. The Internet was (and still is) completely out of their scope along with all the tech and knowledge required to use it at the time, so it was a major point of growth for me to learn this new world and how to survive in it. That felt really nice as a child, as I'd slowly start to learn the skills that helped me succeed as an adult.

I think that the current childhood experience probably would be what most of us would have had as online is now a normal aspect of kids lives, whether it's games or various chats/message boards, etc.

When you write:

>It's like there is an entire part of the children/teen population that have such a blend [sic] life they feel good while watching somebody else living it.

(I assume you mean "bland")

I'm not sure it's about a bland life. There is a lot of social interaction, just in a different form. Some people have trouble with understanding that online light interactions don't have the same weight as in real life impersonal interactions, but that's pretty normal I think. Most adults from the previous generation still have troubles with communication in my opinion (at least a fair amount of persons from businesses I work with have weaker communication skills that most children I know), so I'm not sure it's that these children are missing anything or have a "bland" life, it's just different. A lot of my younger friends are often in shock at my childhood pastimes before I had a nice computer and access to the Internet, cause man my friends and I used to get into a ton of trouble and do really dangerous/mean stuff to each other sometimes. We meant it in good fun, but in retrospect, I think that I'd rather my children were doing social stuff and learning/reading like I did when I got Internet as opposed to the stuff I used to do as a kid, which frankly speaking, was petty vandalism at times even just because we were so bored and wanted something "fun".

So it's not really that one is worse than the other or that modern life is bland, it's just different. There are lots of videos you can watch about early 2000's and 2010's internet culture, and it's really interesting for me because it wasn't the Internet I experienced as a kid; stuff like virtual worlds or alternate reality games that pop up on message boards seem like they were a lot of fun, and looks to have sparked a ton of creativity in the kids participating. I don't think this is a bad or bland life at all; just different.

> (I assume you mean "bland")

Yeah, Frenchman here :) Let met edit that.

happens :)

It's not "old man yells" - your observation is very on point, a lot of people are simply lonely for one reason or other and I think that this kind of videos or livestreams serve as substitute for real person. There are many popular services where it manifests: twitch, youtube, vtube, OF, etc.

And of course it's not only teenagers who are feeling lonely and isolated and of course answer is not simple "just have friends, lol" There are even quite popular threads from HN, examples below in the footnote.

As I already written in other thread - I'm very convinced that this need will be a target for software developments especially with what's happening recently with AI. There are even early birds like Replika AI but I belive that more will come with more and more advanced "personal assistant/companion". Vision straight from Bladerunner https://bladerunner.fandom.com/wiki/DiJi :)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17279773 - How do you meet new people?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24492550 - How to Make Friends as an Adult

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32197381 - How to make friends in your 30s?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25817605 - Can you treat loneliness by creating an imaginary friend?

To the 4 questions:

1. Go outside 2. Go outside 3. Go outside 4. No. Go outside.

It sounds dumb, but really. I'm an introvert, I have social anxiety, I've had periods where I don't see another human face for months. On the other hand I've made good friends just from random strangers talking to me in public.

Even the most socially inept can make friends. It's just a matter of placing yourself in the physical vicinity of other human beings on a regular basis. If you struggle talking to people Like I have, have a few drinks. That's been my experience anyway.

> If you struggle talking to people Like I have, have a few drinks. That's been my experience anyway.

This is a lot of people's experience... and a whole lot of us really, really, really regret it years later. Alcohol is an incredibly dangerous and insidious tool to use for social anxiety. It works great at first, so you ignore the negative effects. But over time, it makes everything worse.

Drinking alcohol decreases anxiety initially, but over time causes the body to raise base anxiety levels. It also lowers testosterone, messes with the lining of the gut and gut microbiome (which can also increase anxiety and negatively impact mood due to the strong gut-brain axis of emotional regulation and signaling) and negatively impacts numerous other parts of the body.

My education around "alcohol is bad" was either warnings about bad behavior while inebriated or vague intangible health risks in the distant future, both of which were easy to ignore. Sharing because I wish someone had informed me that the drink in my 20s to temporarily blunt social anxiety would make my life so much worse by my 30s.

I'm not suggesting becoming an alcoholic, which I am not. But I have become addicted to other drugs before for similar reasons. But to say that light-to-moderate drinking will seriously worsen your life is a bit hyperbolic. It can very much help if your anxiety is so bad you can't even bring yourself to say hello to someone and if someone does, you disappear up your own a-hole. That used to be me. Alcohol helped me take that initial step of talking to anyone at all, about anything, ever. Once I did, I got more practice and I managed to get more comfortable talking to people even when sober.

One unit of alcohol can be sufficient. No need to get drunk or even be around other people who are drinking.

Drinking is just like anything else. It can be a tool or a crutch. The really hard thing me was it was so bad I couldn't even have a meaningful conversation with a therapist. And meds were a total waste of time for me(though I very much recommend trying if you think they might help).

I don't want to trivialise your experiences, but you might be unintentionally trivialising my experiences too, though I'm not at all offended :)

Strangely enough, I never even began to approach any risk of addiction with alcohol. It's puzzling to me because I get easily addicted to just about anything else, even weed.

Somewhat of a Puritanical/ probably very American take on alcohol. Most European cultures have alcohol baked into lunch and dinner meals from the teenage years, and those countries seem to have better health metrics than Americans do.

Having a few drinks is not inebriation, that's all-or-nothing thinking.

Have a few drinks to reduce social anxiety except if you're prone to addictive behaviors (in which case there are a suite of things to watch out for).

"Go outside" is not always the solution, not every city, country, society is the same and this advice sounds similar to already mocked by me "just have friends, lol".

Even if you assume that it's not difficult to met some people then it is difficult to have really meaningful relationship, not facade with fake smiles, fake greetings and bam! contact lost on a whim. It's not coincidence that true, years-long,lifelong friendships are often forged in the school, military etc. - it's just very long process to find compatible people, become even more compatible, learn to rely on each other and learn to value that. I guess this also depends on how one's definition of "friend" looks like - there are multiple other words to chose from: coworkers, acquaintances, random people, etc.

It's certainly true that very meaningful friendships are much rarer. But the only way to find them is to wade through lots of less meaningful ones.

Hell the person I consider my very best friend was just some dude I bought hash from at some point. I basically met him by accident looking for some drugs to sit at home and be alone and depressed. Then we realised we're kindred spirits, hackers, same taste in film and music, similar yet different philosophical views. We eventually ended up working together for over a year in a startup, and though we no longer live in the same city, we still try to arrange a week or two a year hanging out together hacking away on whatever we want to.

I have almost no friends from school that I keep in touch with today at all. And the ones I have on social media look like truly boring people for the most part.

I agree wholeheartedly with everything you said. I go one step further with this logic.

Grown men watching other men play a sport that they like to play with their friends is equally weird.

This is pretty narrow minded.

I like playing basketball. I will never be as good as Lebron James. It's fun to watch someone else play at the edge of what is possible. I might even learn something I can use myself.

I like software development. I'll never be as good as John Carmack. It's fun to watch someone else talk and think about what I like. I might even learn something.

Don't steal other people's joy just because you don't understand it.

> This is pretty narrow minded

As narrow minded as claiming people who watch a certain type of YouTube video must necessarily have a "bland life"

> It's like there is an entire part of the children/teen population that have such a bland life they feel good while watching somebody else living it.

Or consider that some portion of the population would always be interested in such videos at any time in history, and it's only in the last decade that they have unlimited access.

My browsing of internet forums has led me to understand this issue as “living vicariously” among the youth. They have outsourced even the joy of experiencing new things in life to tech. And the tech companies are also getting paid in the process. Truly 21st century stuff.