Lesuire time now more valuable

[madd0ct0r]

No concise quote since on phone..basic argument is that there's an increase in the number of young men not working which corresponds to the increase in lesuire time spent playing video games.

The suggestion is that playing the games is considered a better use of that time than working at X dollars an hours, with X being above crap wage but currently below middle class proffesional age. Flip side of automation is people getting out early.

http://review.chicagobooth.edu/economic ... radio-star

[Esquire]

Correlation is not causation.

Yes, it's a trite, overused phrase, but it's absolutely important to remember when talking to economists, especially about multifactorial social developments. The author's argument - to summarize, video games are destroying our nation's youth - is so obviously, hilariously insufficient that I'd be shocked he was an economics professor at an organization as respectable as the University of Chicago if I thought economics was a real science. Anytime an economist tries to predict the future, remember that they can't get the price of gas right for next month.

Poorly educated young people are not 'choosing' to live in their parents' basements and play video games instead of getting married, buying a house, having a stable job, those things are no longer possible without (much more education, phenomenal luck, working 60-hour weeks, pick any two). The goalposts have been shifted much further down somebody's personal timeline and/or much further up the socioeconomic ladder.

[Broomstick]

The problem with "young men not working" is a strong correlation between non-working young men and social unrest. Even if they're kept occupied by video games which reduce their unrest, a non-working young man is NOT seen as prime mating material by young women. You will wind up with young men who are impoverished and not getting any sex.

This is usually not a good thing for society.

Those video games had better be really fucking good and entrancing....

[TheFeniX]

I have a 12-year-old son at home, and we ration video games for him. He is allowed a couple of hours of video-game time on the weekend, when homework is done. However, if it were up to him, I have no doubt he would play video games 23-and-a-half hours per day. He told me so. If we didn’t ration video games, I am not sure he would ever eat. I am positive he wouldn’t shower.

Comparing a 12-year-old to the current labor force is relevant because you are unable to control you 12-year-old without a stick, rather than teaching him the value of learning something?

For lower-skilled workers, with low market wages, it is now more attractive to take leisure. However, for higher-skilled workers, even though the value of leisure has increased, our wages are still high enough that we continue to work.

Gee, you mean killing yourself for peanuts isn't a desirable thing? And that working for a better wage and (most likely) job satisfaction makes people want to work?

He seems to be in shock these people aren't learning more things and will enter the workforce when they have to with little knowledge, ignoring that school is expensive, no one gives a shit about what you learned on the Internet, and you can't develop work experience if you can't get a job.

Sure, there's more than a few working age people who have "checked out" and are content to just sit on their ass, but there's also a much larger group that has no real options in the workforce. And this is on video games (but I CAN'T PROVE IT YET!) because "My kid won't shower unless I make him."

[Kingmaker]

This isn't a scholarly article on the impact of video games on labor vs leisure preference. It's an adaption of a Booth School professor's graduation address.

Nor is the core thrust of it that 'these damn kids are too busy playing vidja games to work in the salt mines like they're supposed to.' It's almost literally the opposite:

Ten to 20 years down the road, you will be leaders within the business community. As such, you will also be leaders within your relevant civic communities. And for many of you, your wealth—through your bribes, or “lobbying” as we tend to call it—will give you a tremendous amount of influence over policy makers. And when you exert that influence, you will tend to view the world through the lens of your circumstances and your experiences.

When you do so, I want you to remember that you are rare relative to the typical American. Only a little over 30 percent of people your age ever get a bachelor’s degree. Less than 10 percent get a master’s degree or more. Very few of those get it from prestigious institutions such as the University of Chicago. As we have talked about, your labor-market experiences on average will be dramatically different from those of the bulk of the American population. Technology and other economic forces have affected others differently from you. Keeping that in mind will allow you to have a broader perspective on the world that you are trying to influence, and hopefully it will improve your decision making.

[Esquire]

Um... no, it's not.

Is it possible that technology has changed the value of leisure? I think the answer is a definite yes

How do we know technology is causing the decline in employment for these young men? As of now, I don’t know for sure. But there are suggestive signs in the data that these young, low-skilled men are making some choice to stay home.

To summarize, technology for lower-skilled workers has both reduced labor demand and potentially reduced their labor supply by increasing their reservation wage.

At some level, I have made it appear that the declining employment rate for younger, lower-skilled workers is in part the result of this group enjoying their leisure time more. I think that may be true in the short run.

The author goes on to talk about negative knock-on effects (increased depression, suicides, etc.) but never revokes his etiology. The bit you quoted is something along the lines of 'businesspeople of tomorrow, remember that not everybody is as smart and hardworking as you,' which, while true, is simultaneously extremely simplistic and extremely condescending.

[Stormin]

If the un/under employment was being caused by people just not wanting to work while there were jobs open then companies would be acting more like there was competition for people so wages would not be stuck at the bottom and job quality would be increasing. It's pretty obvious that of course a higher educated person would have a better chance of having a job, any job because they can dip downwards in quality/pay.

This article just seems to be the equivalent of some guy giving a verbal handjob to the people in his own sphere.

[Simon_Jester]

The fact that young proto-businessmen are listening to these kind of speeches may go a long way to explain the nature of the problem. If you pick up, in your early twenties, propaganda to the effect that lower-class workers really are lazy, poor, and shiftless...

It's going to affect your political stances and the way you treat your workers throughout your career.