Technological Progress and the Global Sex Recession by J. Kotkin
The author’s attitude towards celibacy is a bit negative, which I do not like. This guy seems to worship the Nuclear Family, something a lot of secular and Christian conservatives are guilty of.
It’s not just technology that possibly leads to celibacy – Christian teachings in the United States is also, or can be, a celibacy factory., and that was true long before the rise of social media.
He thinks less sex is “grim.” Oh please.
Marriage isn’t a guarantee of sex, either. I have many examples on my blog of (Link): sexless marriages.
(Link): Technological Progress and the Global Sex Recession
We may live amidst what seems a libidinous culture, but oddly also an increasingly sexless time.
Of course, the drop in early teen sex – and even more so, teen pregnancies – represents positive developments, but when lack of social interaction leads to celibacy in the twenties, thirties and beyond, the implications are less than wholesome.
The Atlantic recently described a “sex recession” in the United States and most western countries, with fewer people dating and even those in relationships getting intimate less often than in the past, while fewer enjoy regular bonds of any kind.
Even ogling seems out of fashion, as the decline of Hooters suggests.
The family may have been stressed by the “sexual revolution,” but the “sex recession” could ultimately erode the very existence of familialism in our time.
The most extreme cases of libidinous decline are in Asia. In 2005, a third of Japanese single people ages 18 to 34 were virgins; by 2015 this expanded to 43 percent.
A quarter of men over 50 never marry. This “sex recession” even impacts places like Hong Kong’s famous Wan Chai “red light” district, now being reinvented as an upscale hipster area as the sex trade plummets.
China’s current generation of men are so socially disconnected that the Communist Party, and some private firms, now teach them how to date; similar attempts have been made, with apparently little effect, in Singapore.
The role of technology
The tech-savvy children of modernity clearly have problems relating to the opposite sex, a phenomenon traced in part due to their immersion on social media and access to internet porn.
As social media becomes increasingly pervasive, and algorithms more sophisticated, more people appear to be exchanging human contact for that of a machine.
According to Amazon, half of the conversations with the company’s smart-home device Alexa are of non-utilitarian nature – groans about life, jokes, existential questions.
The Institute for Creative Technologies suggests that people are less scared about self-disclosure when they believe they’re interacting with a virtual person, rather than a real one. “By 2022, it’s possible that your personal device will know more about your emotional state than your own family,” suggests Annette Zimmermann, research vice-president at the consulting company Gartner.
Not surprisingly, a survey of American millennials found 65 percent don’t feel comfortable engaging with someone face-to-face, and 80 percent prefer conversing digitally. Similar patterns have been found in Australia where time glued to screens has raised a generation “incapable of small talk, critical thinking and problem-solving.”
Read more of that (Link): here
Related Posts:
(Link): Please Stop Shaming Me for Being Single by J. Vadnal
(Link): Family as “The” Backbone of Society? – It’s Not In The Bible
(Link): Creepy: ‘Barna: [Christian] Women Value Family Over Faith’
(Link): Living Myths About Virginity (via The Atlantic)
(Link): ABC Won’t Let Us Forget That the New Bachelor Is A Virgin. Is That A Problem?
(Link): On ‘Late’-In-Life Virginity Loss (from The Atlantic)
(Link): Why Some People Become 30 Year Old Virgins (Article / Study)
(Link): Virginity Lost, Experience Gained (article with information from study about virginity)
(Link): When Adult Virginity and Adult Celibacy Are Viewed As Inconvenient or As Impediments
(Link): Tinder Murder: Boxer Killed and Dismembered Date Because She Lied About Being A Virgin
(Link): An Open Letter to Male Virgins by A. Broadway
(Link): People Were Asked to Guess A Virgin From A Group Of Strangers. The Results Were Unexpected
(Link): CDC Report: Virgin Teens Much Healthier Than Their Sexually Active Peers (2016 Report)
(Link): An Example of Mocking Adult Virginity Via Twitter (Virginity Used As Insult)
(Link): The Many Reasons That People Are Having Less Sex (2017 article via BBC News)
(Link): Why Aren’t Millennials Having Sex Anymore? via Relevant Magazine
(Link): More Than 40 Per Cent of Japan’s Adult Singles are Virgins, Says Study
(Link): Young, Attractive, and Totally Not Into Having Sex by K McGowan
