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marmar

(76,982 posts)
Fri Oct 2, 2015, 11:11 AM Oct 2015

Americans Don’t Party Like They Used To



Depressed finances, artisanal culture and the comfortable snare of social media may be leading millennials to throw and attend fewer house parties than previous generations of North Americans.

News of the decline is concerning because regular opportunities to interact free of the kinds of rules that govern other types of social environments, such as in business or education, are necessary for full social development, psychologists say.

“In college, there were way more house parties, but I’ve only been to a handful in my two years since,” Mitchell Friedman, a 24-year-old who lives in Brooklyn, told The New York Times. “My roommates and I never threw any parties, either.”

Madeleine Watson, 29, of Vancouver, British Columbia, said: “I’ve been to, maybe, three or four house parties in the last couple of years, and they’re always Halloween or New Year’s or a holiday event. And it’s always the same house and the same people throwing it.”

In their first couple of years in Brooklyn, Christine Vines, 27, and her roommate hosted maybe two house parties, Vines told the Times. “That was a trial,” she said. “We decided it was more effort than it was worth. I went to a handful a year, usually Halloween or New Year’s.” ................(more)

http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/americans_struggle_to_party_like_they_used_to_20151001




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Sanity Claws

(21,822 posts)
1. We don't have the disposable income we used to
Fri Oct 2, 2015, 11:28 AM
Oct 2015

Fewer social gatherings is also true among the older generations. At least that is my experience as a member of an older generation.

 

MindPilot

(12,693 posts)
2. It's become just too much work & too much liability
Fri Oct 2, 2015, 11:43 AM
Oct 2015

The prep work before, the clean up after. The concern that one of your guests my get popped for DUI on the way home, it is just not that much fun any more.

 

Bluenorthwest

(45,319 posts)
3. People have basically abdicated actual social contact in favor of internet chat and tweets
Fri Oct 2, 2015, 11:50 AM
Oct 2015

A party would overload their brains.

 

olddots

(10,237 posts)
4. the only parties my wife & I have gone to for the last 15 years
Fri Oct 2, 2015, 11:57 AM
Oct 2015

are rich people's showing off their money .

This is a very depressed and different world since the 2000 coup .

 

LiberalEsto

(22,845 posts)
5. They're saving up to help pay off their student loans, among other things
Fri Oct 2, 2015, 12:11 PM
Oct 2015

I'd hate to be a college student today.

PJMcK

(21,916 posts)
6. I do!
Fri Oct 2, 2015, 12:26 PM
Oct 2015

Come on over. We've got plenty to drink and you can smoke (anything, as far as I'm concerned). There are few things I enjoy more than entertaining my friends and acquaintances with a fine meal, a good variety of music and conversation and some good inebriants (if that's your thing).

It doesn't have to be expensive and often the guests will bring some goodies with them.

Johonny

(20,681 posts)
8. Oh my God, young people aren't having ravs, getting piss drunk, and waking up to find their friends
Fri Oct 2, 2015, 12:53 PM
Oct 2015

have choked on their own vomit in their sleep like we used to. I can't see how young people manage to have fun anymore.

About house parties... they weren't all that great.

treestar

(82,383 posts)
10. The music was always so loud
Fri Oct 2, 2015, 01:02 PM
Oct 2015

that the parties did not really create any social development. You can't talk to anyone. Or you have to yell.

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