Have Young Americans Forgotten How to Live?

Americans are becoming risk-averse, and Gen-Z can no longer dance

We saw the line to Studio 151 and knew we were going to pay to skip it. It was a hot, rainy Saturday night in Manhattan’s East Village and getting to be around one in the morning. We paid the bouncer. He stamped our wrists and let us in.

But the dance floor was a strange scene.

The DJ was doing a fine job with the music, and, walking in, we expected to fight through a dance floor of drunk and horny Village Freaks to find a spot to order an overpriced tip-included drink at the bar. Instead, awkward vibrations met us. Many men and women avoided each other like the plague as they huddled together in their own same-sex circles, moving their knees off-beat to the sound of the music.

A flash from near the bar caught my attention. I looked over to see a man sitting on a barstool with a girl, straddling him, making out. In front of them, their friends were taking flash pictures of the two.

I wondered: Have we become prisoners of the panopticon?

Gen Z, the data show, date less, have less sex, and drink less than when past generations were our age. Simply put, we are, by and large, a boring generation.

Many factors might explain this: The pandemic, dating apps, social media, poor mental health, the rising costs of living, and an increasing awareness of the health risks of drugs and alcohol. But beyond the risky activities that are often associated with having a good time, there’s another strange trend among Gen Z: Many of us won’t dance.

In recent years, artists like Tyler, the Creator and Kaytranada have called out fans for standing still at their concerts.

Tyler, the Creator said last summer:

I asked some friends why they don’t dance in public and some said because of the fear of being filmed. I thought damn, a natural form of expression and a certain connection they have with music is now a ghost. It made me wonder how much of our human spirit got killed because of the fear of being a meme, all for having a good time.

Were they, too, prisoners of the panopticon?

In the 18th century, the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham designed a theoretical prison that aimed to reform prisoners with minimal operating costs. His circular design featured a central guard tower surrounded by all the prison cells, with the guards concealed behind blinds while the cells remained open.

Bentham reasoned that, since his design allowed the guards to see the prisoners but not vice versa, prisoners would have no way of knowing when they were being monitored. They would become model prisoners, self-regulating their behavior under the assumption that they were always being watched.

Bentham’s panopticon wasn’t built in his lifetime, but fast forward a couple of hundred years to the 20th century, when French philosopher Michel Foucault adopted the idea to describe something else. Foucault shifted the idea of the panopticon from a physical prison to a metaphorical one to describe how modern power works. In simple terms, Foucault viewed the panopticon as a representation of how modern institutions – schools, hospitals, offices – use continued, subtle surveillance to internalize authority and cause people to regulate their own behavior.

Illustration of the panopticon

Foucault died, ironically, in 1984, long before the age of digital surveillance. Yet the idea of the panopticon may be more relevant than ever.

In 2013, researchers at Newcastle University found that they could reduce bicycle thefts by simply placing pictures of staring eyes above bike racks. The researchers had studied crime rates on campus for two years and found that bike thefts dropped by 62% around racks that had posters of watchful eyes and a short anti-theft message.

The paper’s lead author, Professor Daniel Nettle, said of the experiment:

We don’t know exactly what is happening here but this just adds to the growing evidence that images of eyes can have a big impact on behaviour. We think that the presence of eye images can encourage co-operative behaviour. One strong possibility is that the images of eyes work by making people feel watched. We care what other people think about us, and as a result we behave better when we feel we are being observed.

It was the panopticon. Bike thieves weren’t really being monitored, but the threat of observation alone caused them to change their behavior. And it begged the question: What if you could have eye posters everywhere?

Editor’s Note

What do you think: Are we prisoners of our own panopticon? Let us know your thoughts here or leave a comment below.

And if you’re catching up after the long weekend, you can find our latest articles below:

• Reflections on America’s 250th: What Makes Us Great

• Hope Inside America’s Most Depressing Town

• Why People Keep Choosing America

• What Does “Optimization Culture” Accomplish?

• Breaking Down SCOTUS’ Big 2 Rulings

Happy Monday, and we’ll see you tomorrow.
—Max and Max