It's sad to hear the hopelessness in this young man's voice, and your advice offers a solid starting point. My husband Peco and I are presenting a keynote speech this weekend at the Doomer Optimism Gathering and are addressing exactly this question. When we return, we'll share our presentation "How to unmachine your life, the universe & everything", which offers practical insights into living a life of meaning and connection. Stay tuned...
We are definitely more isolated and don’t see each other in person like before Covid, but I’m seeing and noticing in the last year how much people thrive when they do activités together in person, it might be playing a board game together, singing in a choir, hiking, or I’m even seeing meetups to read together in a local coffee shop!
I hope we all start waking up and realizing that our baseline is being human and not sitting in front of screen all the time.
There seems to be a slow awakening taking place at the moment. I've certainly noticed it within my circle of family and friends. We're social animals and we can sense something is wrong when we're isolated.
I would start with a very basic one, acknowledge people when you pass them. I live in a 36 unit apartment building in SF where a two bedroom apt is now going for about $5,600 a month and will soon be $6,000 with the influx of AI fortune seekers. The turnover of young people in their 20's early 30's is almost constant, and I assume they all work in tech of some sort as they're the only ones who can afford that. My wife and I are retired and in a rent controlled apt. When walking past anyone there is seldom any acknowledgement at all. They just walk by like we're not there , and if you say "hi" many react like you have just accosted them. It's not just us as other tenants have remarked on the same thing. It's not every new tenant , but enough that it's really noticeable.
The same change is taking place walking on the sidewalk in the neighborhood, where once people would smile or nod their head, but now there is seldom any eye contact and often clear none is desired. Similar behavior is displayed when buying coffee or food to go, though more often they are having food delivered rather than going out. I have friends who are still working and have noticed many young people they have hired have problems just making eye contact, and are seriously lacking in social skills to interact with others.
It's as though they have missed a fundamental development stage which was replaced by interacting on their phones, mostly through text, rather than face to face or at least talking to someone. COVID is not the blame as this was already showing up long before Covid came around. They almost need a remedial class in how to relate to people. The suggestions about getting involved in groups is great , but start by SEEING people in your everyday activities. The kids are not alright.
One thought, I grew up in a generation where "service" mattered. A smile, a greeting, chit-chat in a desire to be welcoming. That level of service delivery was modelled every where you went from a cafe, supermarket, gas station etc. For many of us "service roles" were our first forms of employment, often in addition to studying. We learnt that was how you engage with human beings above and beyond whatever product (coffee, groceries, fuel etc) was bring purchased. Now????? A screen to order from. An app and QR code instead of a waiter and menu. Service roles are no longer viewed as "customer facing" roles. A customer who wants to order at the counter instead of at the screen is often seen as an inconvenience. An aberration. A nuicance. What on earth is the message we are giving our young people? Well, I think we are seeing the fruits of that all too clearly. And, we can choose differently and I love when we do 😊
I'm seeing it on both ends , server and customer, and it's called "the gen Z stare". It's like two automatons interacting with each other , or more accurately , not interacting.
There have always been complaints about young people , but this is something deeper about what it means to be a human being and interacting with other human beings. To believe they want to change the world when they are not capable of seeing the humanity of people in their everyday lives should be concerning. That way lies the Red Guard, brown shirts, and intolerant mass movements.
There are certain neurological developments that if somehow skipped never quite recover. I worry we are seeing the same thing here and it does not bode well.
I've observed the same phenomenon in another venue: the gym. It's become Zombieland the last decade. I don't own a phone but everyone else there brings theirs with them onto the gym floor. They whip out their phones immediately after every set of reps. Many also wear ear buds. There is little to no conversation. The gym was recently purchased by a British company and has informed us that we will soon need a special app on our phones in order to gain access to the gym. I don't know what I''ll do then. Given that everyone, even the staff at the front door, is always absorbed by their phones, maybe I can just walk in unnoticed.
Give it a go! Hey, you could have some fun with that. You could invent a term that doesn't exist and act in all confidence as though it does. Maybe "Yeah, i've already "torped/zinked/berked/avarted it". If they say "what", look at them like you can't believe they aren't up to date on the latest aspect of the app. Or you could look for a non-zombie alternative. Sorry, I'm possibly being very silly and likely need to put the kettle on for a cup of tea ☕️
The lockdowns (I distinguish that from "COVID" as a set of diseases per se) were a big inflection point. They were an exercise in a mentality that had been cultivated for a while, which is related to what you describe. I would further observe that the resulting capitulation (and exodus in smaller part) has perhaps forever changed places like SF.
Lockdown is term I should have used. It's not just younger people who are avoiding eye contact, but it has spread to older people. Whether that's a reaction from so many failed eye connections or being unresponsive , but the change is definitely noticeable , and with so many transient young people in SF perhaps inevitable. What what once a common courtesy is rapidly disappearing.
As opposed to some of my other flippant remarks concerning entanglement of photons and zombies in waiting (please forgive me), I will add to this that really it goes beyond eye contact. One of the great mysteries of life is whether it is more pleasurable to receive or give a smile. I have been conducted field trials of this quandary for decades now and am confident that I have much work ahead of me before I can confidently declare that one way or another smiling is good. Although my preliminary results strongly suggest that eye contact often leads to a smile and that is the optimal outcome.
Don’t you know that a casual glance from a stranger can be fatal? The entanglement of the photons passing between you can literally tear your eyeballs out. It’s not pretty. If you’re not looking at a safety screen (‘cos that’s what phones really are), you should make sure never to look at anything other than your shoes and perhaps a step ahead. It’s a dangerous world out there. Be careful!
You forgot one of the basics which is to pay in cash whenever you can rather than paying by phone, card or whatever. Every time you pay digitally, the bank and/or the platform scrapes a bit of the cash off. While it may only be few cents per transaction, there's one hell of a lot of transactions and it adds up to billions in profits for the cash-rich banks/platforms we love to hate.
This why it irks me whenever I see someone pay for a cup of coffee with a phone/card and why i gtet angry whenever I see someone paying a small amount digitally. Why not simply pay cash and stop the bank getting a slice that only goes towards rich bankers' bonuses? Why not do the same for any small transaction.
The banks want all transactions, however small, to move online so they get a slice of every transaction and extract more wealth from the pot that ordinary people have. They're hoovering up wealth!
Spend cash not card. Its one of the most radical and transformative things you can do! (Its also worth remembering that is more social. Keeps wealth and value in the community/locally. Also, think about how you interact with the shopkeeper in the two types of tranaction. When you spend cash you look at the person who's taking it from you and you have the chance of a smile and a conversation. When you tap a card or phone, you look at the phone. AT best its a-social - at worst its antisocial.
I would add, pay cash for everything, but have a credit card only to make reservations (gotta be in the world, but not of it). If you can't pay cash for it, don't buy it or go on that trip till you do.
To paraphrase Dickens, "Expenses $19.99, income $20.00, happiness. Expenses $20.01, income $20.00, misery."
You are voluntarily paying an extra tax and enabling economic surveillance when you use a credit card. Using a debit card for larger purchases is safer than carrying a lot of cash, but get it from a credit union and get your cash from a no fee ATM or human teller whenever possible
There's something I've done occasionally all of my life. 'Close quiet observation'. Just sit and listen. How many birds? The different sounds of different airplanes. Find a vantage point and really scan all you can see. Deeply. Slowly. Watch for little movements..the wind, the changing light.
You get the idea. It's wonderfully relaxing and "connects" you completely to your world.
Go to your local library and walk up and down the stacks and look for a good book.
If you can’t find one go to the biography section and look for a person you admire or want to know more about. There are biographies on an amazing number of people.
Take a few books out at a time. If you take out a book but don’t like it then there will be another one on hand to try out.
Sadly, I almost never see young people at my county library.
That’s not good because if you do not regularly read books, you will not write or think as well as you could. By not reading books you are only limiting your own potential.
If you’re reading a book you’re not online. If you get distracted trying to read at home, just read at the library.
Not to counteract the general points you and Ted made, but it’s well worth learning how to use your library's online catalog and search functions. If you’re on a multi-branch system, you should be able to have a specific book or whatever from another branch delivered to your local library. You will also, depending on your library system, be able to access a wide range of magazines and periodicals online that you will not find in your local supermarket. But, yeah! Get reading longform and stop watching stupid videos of people spouting off just ‘cos they can.
You've given some great advice. I volunteer at an animal sanctuary on a farm for this reason. Another volunteer there is an LA area college professor who teaches screenwriting. She told me her students are really suffering from hopelessness. She sees it in their body language. But they tell her their experiences and worries, as well. Her students have the added worry over the state of movie industry in Hollywood, where they've dreamed of working. AI is not helping their fears, on top of all the other Hollywood and beyond problems.
We both believe we need to get back to organic connection, creating and innovating with human energy... whatever that means. I began to think of my theater experiences and how thrilling it is to create in that atmosphere... Live, sparking with an energy no virtual AI generated production could ever match.
What a powerful decision for that young man not to "google" his answer, ask Siri, or Claude, or ChatGPT but rather to reach out to an elder, a mentor, a man of values a few steps ahead in the journey. I love that he reached out in this way and I love your response Ted. Thank you. As a side note about nature, my husband and I live in an industrial city in a developing nation. We have "claimed back" a strip about 60cm wide of land in front of our apartment building and have planted a garden which is now also becoming a vertical garden up and along our two storey building. I built a fountain/bird bath out of a broken umbrella, some pvc pipe and a lot of cement. We now have daily visits from hundreds of bees, multiple butterflies, lizards, dragon flies, a range of birds (currently singing outside right now) including hummingbirds. The joy this brings my husband and I daily is priceless.
"What a powerful decision for that young man not to "google" his answer, ask Siri, or Claude, or ChatGPT but rather to reach out to an elder, a mentor, a man of values a few steps ahead in the journey."
He is doing what McLuhan did for previous generations, with specific attention to the consequences of the digitization of media:
A post literate society will result in (re)tribalization. And this is not the kind of 'bubble talk' you know from elsewhere. In a way he has us on the way back to pre Platonic times, i.e. ging back to orality instead of analysis / reason that came with reading.
Digital orality: The flip of text into texting
By Andrey Mir on August 1, 2025 • ( 0 )
Media are the hardware of society, and culture is its software. Society follows the patterns set by media. If oral speech was the medium of orality and written speech was the medium of literacy, digital speech is the medium of a new state of mind and culture—digital orality. Excerpts from The Digital Reversal. Thread-saga of Media Evolution.
This is very good advice, and since you are in the music biz and write so well about it, I urge you and everyone reading to envision this advice as it applies to music making.
The artists will not win to the Spotifys of the world. We just won’t. It’s not a fair fight and we aren’t organized like they are. But what we can do is IGNORE them. And by ignoring them, I mean take the dollar signs out of one’s music “career” more or less entirely. Make the music about creativity and sharing with others and enjoying a meaningful music community for oneself. And to realize that THAT is really what “success” looks like in the music game. Musicians need to stop thinking about money. We had a nice run of about a century in the age of The Record. Now let’s get back to just making music for each other like we’ve done for millennia before that.
Yes! My 14 year old son just shelved Spotify and is now using my old discman to play my dusty collection of CDs. He says he wants to listen to the albums as the musicians intended them to be heard. There just might be something happening…
One thing I've learned in my 80 years is that satisfaction is in the process rather than the money. The process itself is the pay-off. If it gives satisfaction to others as well as yourself, so much the better.
I think it's hard to do this when you have no vehicle, money, lost connections/friendships due to work or families, and especially after COVID, isolation becomes normalized, even if it drives one crazy at times. AI has left us no choices, no jobs, and at 43, I'm too tired and stubborn to quit what I love.
Can you use any kind of sound muffling ear protection?
I hope you've seen a neurologist. i've used Sumatriptan nasal spray 20mg for many years. It works a lot better for me than the tablets. There are probably newer treatments available.
That's a good article... Heavy .. I like the list of things that an app won't get you... I'm a single older dad, my daughter is nearly 20 and I think about this stuff a lot just intuitively... Back at that age one day my mom came to me uncharacteristically weeping and told me she was sorry about the state of the world... The chaos and Nam and Watergate, all that... I awkwardly tired to console here, todo bien mamá... As I recall I wanted to go out with my buds and look for girls or whatever, to rock out, to be young and the world for me was as it was, I hadn't deep dove into history or whatever... It's good to let the kids be young and sort of carefree...i told mom not to worry for me and that she wasn't to blame for the state of the world...But the offshore fog banks loomed and have loomed and will loom... Good article, got me thinking
I've been working to help save democracy for a number of years now. I run into very few Gen Z people who are doing the same thing. I've asked some why that is; usually I don't even get an answer. I follow a couple young musicians who are cheerful, working hard, and making other people happier with their music and by being positive. They help me have a place of peace to go to.
I thought i was going to have nothing to naysay on this one.. all good advice(even if its a little rich), its the kind of shit people should be saying to each other.
Then i got to the comments and... its like all the real reasons we are here are on display. Then again, this is substack; part of the problem, *not* the solution.
I dont buy any of the shit i read on the internet, even if it agrees with my way of thinking. This is a pretend world(with very real world consequences, to be sure), and people say things for different reasons than you might say them in the real world. Do not consume the feed fodder without plenty of salt, one grain at a time.
I did have this bone to pick, "But the richest and most powerful people in the world are doing the most to destroy their future." Is that so? I see with my eyes what the people are actually *doing*. I see the choices they make, and have been making since tech came into our lives. Blame the bosses all you want, that wont create change. Change happens right where your feet are.
Sure, except when they put the blame on "them", as if they themselves didnt *choose* to dump their lives into their phones.
See, its really cool to talk about how phones and social media are ruining our lives, how we all need to get back to living, etc. But then its oh i *need* this, and if *they* hadnt done that, and everybody just keeps on scrolling. The only thing different here on substack is now people can turn a buck creating content to be consumed. But its still a suck hole designed to keep us glued to the screen.Thats why i dont buy the shit i read here, it was created for a purpose, namely to be consumed on this app.
So we'll see if any change is actually in the offing, or if this is just trending on social media atm.
But i do think the younger generation is far more likely to do what they say. They seem less enamored with tech, possibly bc theyve observed what its done to those that are supposed to be the guiding influence in their lives.
Well, sure. Parents and schools enable the habit as they supply and encourage the addictive technology, then throw up hands in horror at what technology has "done." If the master isn't careful, the servant takes over. Technology, including opinion platforms such as this one, can be useful as tools rather than masters.
So they say, but thus far theyve all become masters. Doing the same thing and expecting different results is absurd.
I dont think they can be useful tools. Theyre *designed* to be masters. The whole never ending scroll, algorithm selected content, even the content intself all has one overarching goal, and that goal is *not* to make our lives better.
People think theyre going to change the underlying nature of this shit. Thats hogwash. What they are really saying is theyre unwilling or unable to give up their precious feeds.
So, theyre left with talking about change, but not actually ever changing. Kinda like the whole metal straws thing. It *felt* like they were doing something to help, and the feeling alone was good enough.
“The people” use whatever the richest and most powerful present to them as fun, worthwhile, the best way to get ahead or drown your misery. This is not new as you well know (I suspect). You mention tech coming into our lives. That’s approximately a 1,000,000 - yes, million - year old process now. Pre sapiens! Fire-hardened sticks have been dated back that far and, if you want to be really radical about, the use of technology predates homo since birds build nests and chimpanzees will use implements at hand to reach desirables. So, this latest round of excitement is really nothing new except that we have a lot more fear about the future. Because all this technology is coming upon us as we have, perhaps, more foresight about downsides and because it seems that it assaults one of what we so mistakenly consider to be core attributes of humanity. In addition, those of us who read and have a basic understanding of physics and biological systems know the damn ecosystem is creaking and groaning because of all that varied technology “we, the people” have enthusiastically embraced over the centuries. It’s not just this digital wave that’s the problem.
Having employed youngsters (well almost everyone is to me) the two key things that are different and may well be helpful to a younger generations outlook are (a) to get away from the tech that seems to capture your social and other time (b) put yourself in situations where face to face social is the thing.
Communication skills are imho the #1 skill gap amongst the younger generations. (Sending an email / dM etc is not that).
It's sad to hear the hopelessness in this young man's voice, and your advice offers a solid starting point. My husband Peco and I are presenting a keynote speech this weekend at the Doomer Optimism Gathering and are addressing exactly this question. When we return, we'll share our presentation "How to unmachine your life, the universe & everything", which offers practical insights into living a life of meaning and connection. Stay tuned...
We are definitely more isolated and don’t see each other in person like before Covid, but I’m seeing and noticing in the last year how much people thrive when they do activités together in person, it might be playing a board game together, singing in a choir, hiking, or I’m even seeing meetups to read together in a local coffee shop!
I hope we all start waking up and realizing that our baseline is being human and not sitting in front of screen all the time.
There seems to be a slow awakening taking place at the moment. I've certainly noticed it within my circle of family and friends. We're social animals and we can sense something is wrong when we're isolated.
I would start with a very basic one, acknowledge people when you pass them. I live in a 36 unit apartment building in SF where a two bedroom apt is now going for about $5,600 a month and will soon be $6,000 with the influx of AI fortune seekers. The turnover of young people in their 20's early 30's is almost constant, and I assume they all work in tech of some sort as they're the only ones who can afford that. My wife and I are retired and in a rent controlled apt. When walking past anyone there is seldom any acknowledgement at all. They just walk by like we're not there , and if you say "hi" many react like you have just accosted them. It's not just us as other tenants have remarked on the same thing. It's not every new tenant , but enough that it's really noticeable.
The same change is taking place walking on the sidewalk in the neighborhood, where once people would smile or nod their head, but now there is seldom any eye contact and often clear none is desired. Similar behavior is displayed when buying coffee or food to go, though more often they are having food delivered rather than going out. I have friends who are still working and have noticed many young people they have hired have problems just making eye contact, and are seriously lacking in social skills to interact with others.
It's as though they have missed a fundamental development stage which was replaced by interacting on their phones, mostly through text, rather than face to face or at least talking to someone. COVID is not the blame as this was already showing up long before Covid came around. They almost need a remedial class in how to relate to people. The suggestions about getting involved in groups is great , but start by SEEING people in your everyday activities. The kids are not alright.
One thought, I grew up in a generation where "service" mattered. A smile, a greeting, chit-chat in a desire to be welcoming. That level of service delivery was modelled every where you went from a cafe, supermarket, gas station etc. For many of us "service roles" were our first forms of employment, often in addition to studying. We learnt that was how you engage with human beings above and beyond whatever product (coffee, groceries, fuel etc) was bring purchased. Now????? A screen to order from. An app and QR code instead of a waiter and menu. Service roles are no longer viewed as "customer facing" roles. A customer who wants to order at the counter instead of at the screen is often seen as an inconvenience. An aberration. A nuicance. What on earth is the message we are giving our young people? Well, I think we are seeing the fruits of that all too clearly. And, we can choose differently and I love when we do 😊
I'm seeing it on both ends , server and customer, and it's called "the gen Z stare". It's like two automatons interacting with each other , or more accurately , not interacting.
There have always been complaints about young people , but this is something deeper about what it means to be a human being and interacting with other human beings. To believe they want to change the world when they are not capable of seeing the humanity of people in their everyday lives should be concerning. That way lies the Red Guard, brown shirts, and intolerant mass movements.
There are certain neurological developments that if somehow skipped never quite recover. I worry we are seeing the same thing here and it does not bode well.
I've observed the same phenomenon in another venue: the gym. It's become Zombieland the last decade. I don't own a phone but everyone else there brings theirs with them onto the gym floor. They whip out their phones immediately after every set of reps. Many also wear ear buds. There is little to no conversation. The gym was recently purchased by a British company and has informed us that we will soon need a special app on our phones in order to gain access to the gym. I don't know what I''ll do then. Given that everyone, even the staff at the front door, is always absorbed by their phones, maybe I can just walk in unnoticed.
It's because the music in these gyms is dreadful. I have to have either better music or a podcast going to down out garbage music.
Give it a go! Hey, you could have some fun with that. You could invent a term that doesn't exist and act in all confidence as though it does. Maybe "Yeah, i've already "torped/zinked/berked/avarted it". If they say "what", look at them like you can't believe they aren't up to date on the latest aspect of the app. Or you could look for a non-zombie alternative. Sorry, I'm possibly being very silly and likely need to put the kettle on for a cup of tea ☕️
The lockdowns (I distinguish that from "COVID" as a set of diseases per se) were a big inflection point. They were an exercise in a mentality that had been cultivated for a while, which is related to what you describe. I would further observe that the resulting capitulation (and exodus in smaller part) has perhaps forever changed places like SF.
Lockdown is term I should have used. It's not just younger people who are avoiding eye contact, but it has spread to older people. Whether that's a reaction from so many failed eye connections or being unresponsive , but the change is definitely noticeable , and with so many transient young people in SF perhaps inevitable. What what once a common courtesy is rapidly disappearing.
Those older people are just zombies in waiting. I know this from personal experience. But I do like to show my fangs and perhaps drool a little blood.
As opposed to some of my other flippant remarks concerning entanglement of photons and zombies in waiting (please forgive me), I will add to this that really it goes beyond eye contact. One of the great mysteries of life is whether it is more pleasurable to receive or give a smile. I have been conducted field trials of this quandary for decades now and am confident that I have much work ahead of me before I can confidently declare that one way or another smiling is good. Although my preliminary results strongly suggest that eye contact often leads to a smile and that is the optimal outcome.
Unless there’s eye contact they’ll never see the smile
💯- this is great advice
Don’t you know that a casual glance from a stranger can be fatal? The entanglement of the photons passing between you can literally tear your eyeballs out. It’s not pretty. If you’re not looking at a safety screen (‘cos that’s what phones really are), you should make sure never to look at anything other than your shoes and perhaps a step ahead. It’s a dangerous world out there. Be careful!
You forgot one of the basics which is to pay in cash whenever you can rather than paying by phone, card or whatever. Every time you pay digitally, the bank and/or the platform scrapes a bit of the cash off. While it may only be few cents per transaction, there's one hell of a lot of transactions and it adds up to billions in profits for the cash-rich banks/platforms we love to hate.
This why it irks me whenever I see someone pay for a cup of coffee with a phone/card and why i gtet angry whenever I see someone paying a small amount digitally. Why not simply pay cash and stop the bank getting a slice that only goes towards rich bankers' bonuses? Why not do the same for any small transaction.
The banks want all transactions, however small, to move online so they get a slice of every transaction and extract more wealth from the pot that ordinary people have. They're hoovering up wealth!
Spend cash not card. Its one of the most radical and transformative things you can do! (Its also worth remembering that is more social. Keeps wealth and value in the community/locally. Also, think about how you interact with the shopkeeper in the two types of tranaction. When you spend cash you look at the person who's taking it from you and you have the chance of a smile and a conversation. When you tap a card or phone, you look at the phone. AT best its a-social - at worst its antisocial.
So, Gen Z, spend cash and help save humanity!
I like this!
I would add, pay cash for everything, but have a credit card only to make reservations (gotta be in the world, but not of it). If you can't pay cash for it, don't buy it or go on that trip till you do.
To paraphrase Dickens, "Expenses $19.99, income $20.00, happiness. Expenses $20.01, income $20.00, misery."
Yes. That's why the PTB want to eliminate cash. It gives us too much power.
You are voluntarily paying an extra tax and enabling economic surveillance when you use a credit card. Using a debit card for larger purchases is safer than carrying a lot of cash, but get it from a credit union and get your cash from a no fee ATM or human teller whenever possible
I think the surveillance is a bigger thing than the fees, but the latter enable the former. Our trails are monetized.
Sounds good, but you still pay to get your cash. Either an ATM fee, or an in-person service fee because you came inside and spoke to a teller.
I disagree. 92% of cash is already in digits. Switch to bitcoin.
There's something I've done occasionally all of my life. 'Close quiet observation'. Just sit and listen. How many birds? The different sounds of different airplanes. Find a vantage point and really scan all you can see. Deeply. Slowly. Watch for little movements..the wind, the changing light.
You get the idea. It's wonderfully relaxing and "connects" you completely to your world.
Go to your local library and walk up and down the stacks and look for a good book.
If you can’t find one go to the biography section and look for a person you admire or want to know more about. There are biographies on an amazing number of people.
Take a few books out at a time. If you take out a book but don’t like it then there will be another one on hand to try out.
Sadly, I almost never see young people at my county library.
That’s not good because if you do not regularly read books, you will not write or think as well as you could. By not reading books you are only limiting your own potential.
If you’re reading a book you’re not online. If you get distracted trying to read at home, just read at the library.
Not to counteract the general points you and Ted made, but it’s well worth learning how to use your library's online catalog and search functions. If you’re on a multi-branch system, you should be able to have a specific book or whatever from another branch delivered to your local library. You will also, depending on your library system, be able to access a wide range of magazines and periodicals online that you will not find in your local supermarket. But, yeah! Get reading longform and stop watching stupid videos of people spouting off just ‘cos they can.
You've given some great advice. I volunteer at an animal sanctuary on a farm for this reason. Another volunteer there is an LA area college professor who teaches screenwriting. She told me her students are really suffering from hopelessness. She sees it in their body language. But they tell her their experiences and worries, as well. Her students have the added worry over the state of movie industry in Hollywood, where they've dreamed of working. AI is not helping their fears, on top of all the other Hollywood and beyond problems.
We both believe we need to get back to organic connection, creating and innovating with human energy... whatever that means. I began to think of my theater experiences and how thrilling it is to create in that atmosphere... Live, sparking with an energy no virtual AI generated production could ever match.
Last nights wins for democrats are a DEFINITE sign for hope for Gen z—hang in there.
But additional note on AI—it’s a lot of hype that was forced on us to justify huge investments. It’s proven to be SLOP and the bubble will break.
Break soon, I pray. But that might just take the economy with it when it does pop.
Lol
What a powerful decision for that young man not to "google" his answer, ask Siri, or Claude, or ChatGPT but rather to reach out to an elder, a mentor, a man of values a few steps ahead in the journey. I love that he reached out in this way and I love your response Ted. Thank you. As a side note about nature, my husband and I live in an industrial city in a developing nation. We have "claimed back" a strip about 60cm wide of land in front of our apartment building and have planted a garden which is now also becoming a vertical garden up and along our two storey building. I built a fountain/bird bath out of a broken umbrella, some pvc pipe and a lot of cement. We now have daily visits from hundreds of bees, multiple butterflies, lizards, dragon flies, a range of birds (currently singing outside right now) including hummingbirds. The joy this brings my husband and I daily is priceless.
\\(*-*)// That is indeed a great observation!!
"What a powerful decision for that young man not to "google" his answer, ask Siri, or Claude, or ChatGPT but rather to reach out to an elder, a mentor, a man of values a few steps ahead in the journey."
Brava!
Online communities can bring great blessings, like this beautiful, hopeful post.
'How can Gen Zers (like myself) engage more intentionally with the world around us?'
Bloody hell, just do what your grandparents did:
Read.
Books*
I,m in a small, multigenerational book group, and it is time well spent.
You may want to look into Andrey Mir. https://andrey4mir.substack.com/
He is doing what McLuhan did for previous generations, with specific attention to the consequences of the digitization of media:
A post literate society will result in (re)tribalization. And this is not the kind of 'bubble talk' you know from elsewhere. In a way he has us on the way back to pre Platonic times, i.e. ging back to orality instead of analysis / reason that came with reading.
Digital orality: The flip of text into texting
By Andrey Mir on August 1, 2025 • ( 0 )
Media are the hardware of society, and culture is its software. Society follows the patterns set by media. If oral speech was the medium of orality and written speech was the medium of literacy, digital speech is the medium of a new state of mind and culture—digital orality. Excerpts from The Digital Reversal. Thread-saga of Media Evolution.
https://human-as-media.com/2025/08/01/digital-orality-the-flip-of-text-into-texting/
Thank you! McLuhan changed the way I thought about the world - and you are right that he needs a reinvention to the realities of our new world.
This is very good advice, and since you are in the music biz and write so well about it, I urge you and everyone reading to envision this advice as it applies to music making.
The artists will not win to the Spotifys of the world. We just won’t. It’s not a fair fight and we aren’t organized like they are. But what we can do is IGNORE them. And by ignoring them, I mean take the dollar signs out of one’s music “career” more or less entirely. Make the music about creativity and sharing with others and enjoying a meaningful music community for oneself. And to realize that THAT is really what “success” looks like in the music game. Musicians need to stop thinking about money. We had a nice run of about a century in the age of The Record. Now let’s get back to just making music for each other like we’ve done for millennia before that.
Yes! My 14 year old son just shelved Spotify and is now using my old discman to play my dusty collection of CDs. He says he wants to listen to the albums as the musicians intended them to be heard. There just might be something happening…
One thing I've learned in my 80 years is that satisfaction is in the process rather than the money. The process itself is the pay-off. If it gives satisfaction to others as well as yourself, so much the better.
Or switch to pure v4v music.
I think it's hard to do this when you have no vehicle, money, lost connections/friendships due to work or families, and especially after COVID, isolation becomes normalized, even if it drives one crazy at times. AI has left us no choices, no jobs, and at 43, I'm too tired and stubborn to quit what I love.
I felt this sense of hopelessness not so long ago. Media fasts helped and joining a writing group at my local library helped break the sense of isolation. I wouldn't worry about AI - it's pretty useless without human guidance and oversight. It can't even run something as simple as vending machine: https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/28/anthropics-claude-ai-became-a-terrible-business-owner-in-experiment-that-got-weird/
I've lost plenty of clients over "drum machines" and now AI
I hope you will explain. Why would you quit what you love? Do you mean it no longer affords you a living?
Health. Affordability. Etc.
I'm sorry you're having trouble. I hope you can manage to stick with what you love.
Can you use any kind of sound muffling ear protection?
I hope you've seen a neurologist. i've used Sumatriptan nasal spray 20mg for many years. It works a lot better for me than the tablets. There are probably newer treatments available.
Thank you. I get days of horrible migraines even after playing 3 minutes of drums. My options are flying away.
There is also nerve decompression surgery.
https://www.webmd.com/migraines-headaches/migraine-nerve-release-surgery#:~:text=Other%20than%20short%2Dterm%20side,t%20fully%20disappear%20after%20surgery.
That's a good article... Heavy .. I like the list of things that an app won't get you... I'm a single older dad, my daughter is nearly 20 and I think about this stuff a lot just intuitively... Back at that age one day my mom came to me uncharacteristically weeping and told me she was sorry about the state of the world... The chaos and Nam and Watergate, all that... I awkwardly tired to console here, todo bien mamá... As I recall I wanted to go out with my buds and look for girls or whatever, to rock out, to be young and the world for me was as it was, I hadn't deep dove into history or whatever... It's good to let the kids be young and sort of carefree...i told mom not to worry for me and that she wasn't to blame for the state of the world...But the offshore fog banks loomed and have loomed and will loom... Good article, got me thinking
I've been working to help save democracy for a number of years now. I run into very few Gen Z people who are doing the same thing. I've asked some why that is; usually I don't even get an answer. I follow a couple young musicians who are cheerful, working hard, and making other people happier with their music and by being positive. They help me have a place of peace to go to.
How are you doing this? What does democracy mean to you?
I thought i was going to have nothing to naysay on this one.. all good advice(even if its a little rich), its the kind of shit people should be saying to each other.
Then i got to the comments and... its like all the real reasons we are here are on display. Then again, this is substack; part of the problem, *not* the solution.
I dont buy any of the shit i read on the internet, even if it agrees with my way of thinking. This is a pretend world(with very real world consequences, to be sure), and people say things for different reasons than you might say them in the real world. Do not consume the feed fodder without plenty of salt, one grain at a time.
I did have this bone to pick, "But the richest and most powerful people in the world are doing the most to destroy their future." Is that so? I see with my eyes what the people are actually *doing*. I see the choices they make, and have been making since tech came into our lives. Blame the bosses all you want, that wont create change. Change happens right where your feet are.
But hey, its good to feel good, right?
"Change happens right where your feet are."
Isn't that the point everyone has been making?
Sure, except when they put the blame on "them", as if they themselves didnt *choose* to dump their lives into their phones.
See, its really cool to talk about how phones and social media are ruining our lives, how we all need to get back to living, etc. But then its oh i *need* this, and if *they* hadnt done that, and everybody just keeps on scrolling. The only thing different here on substack is now people can turn a buck creating content to be consumed. But its still a suck hole designed to keep us glued to the screen.Thats why i dont buy the shit i read here, it was created for a purpose, namely to be consumed on this app.
So we'll see if any change is actually in the offing, or if this is just trending on social media atm.
But i do think the younger generation is far more likely to do what they say. They seem less enamored with tech, possibly bc theyve observed what its done to those that are supposed to be the guiding influence in their lives.
Well, sure. Parents and schools enable the habit as they supply and encourage the addictive technology, then throw up hands in horror at what technology has "done." If the master isn't careful, the servant takes over. Technology, including opinion platforms such as this one, can be useful as tools rather than masters.
So they say, but thus far theyve all become masters. Doing the same thing and expecting different results is absurd.
I dont think they can be useful tools. Theyre *designed* to be masters. The whole never ending scroll, algorithm selected content, even the content intself all has one overarching goal, and that goal is *not* to make our lives better.
People think theyre going to change the underlying nature of this shit. Thats hogwash. What they are really saying is theyre unwilling or unable to give up their precious feeds.
So, theyre left with talking about change, but not actually ever changing. Kinda like the whole metal straws thing. It *felt* like they were doing something to help, and the feeling alone was good enough.
“The people” use whatever the richest and most powerful present to them as fun, worthwhile, the best way to get ahead or drown your misery. This is not new as you well know (I suspect). You mention tech coming into our lives. That’s approximately a 1,000,000 - yes, million - year old process now. Pre sapiens! Fire-hardened sticks have been dated back that far and, if you want to be really radical about, the use of technology predates homo since birds build nests and chimpanzees will use implements at hand to reach desirables. So, this latest round of excitement is really nothing new except that we have a lot more fear about the future. Because all this technology is coming upon us as we have, perhaps, more foresight about downsides and because it seems that it assaults one of what we so mistakenly consider to be core attributes of humanity. In addition, those of us who read and have a basic understanding of physics and biological systems know the damn ecosystem is creaking and groaning because of all that varied technology “we, the people” have enthusiastically embraced over the centuries. It’s not just this digital wave that’s the problem.
Just beautiful, Ted.
Having employed youngsters (well almost everyone is to me) the two key things that are different and may well be helpful to a younger generations outlook are (a) to get away from the tech that seems to capture your social and other time (b) put yourself in situations where face to face social is the thing.
Communication skills are imho the #1 skill gap amongst the younger generations. (Sending an email / dM etc is not that).