Why Every Young Man Should Join a Garage Band

"I have written before that while women are gloriously surging in academic, social, and career achievement, many young men are flailing. Pop culture pieces as well as academic dissertations are replete with accounts of male aimlessness and resultant disaffection and disengagement. They point out that the growing achievement gap and resultant maturational/responsibility gap between men and women are making young men progressively less and desirable to modern young women."

"Without such drivers, many younger women are now opting out of relationships with their often less worldly, less formed, less promising male counterparts. Many young men seem to have retreated into the digital worlds of gaming, social media, and influencing. Young men are therefore entering young adulthood often isolated from inter- gender social interaction, out-of-house experiences, workplace socialization, and romantic engagements."

"Young men seem progressively rudderless in today's society with profoundly negative effects. Scholastic athletics provides much growth potential but for only for a select few. Joining a band offers neurological, developmental, psychological, and socialization benefits. But How Can One Escape the Digital Black Hole? While contributing factors are plentiful, solutions are complex, and likely costly. But what if more young men engaged in activities that routinely featured intense interaction, necessary collaboration, shared goals, realizable outcomes, palpable growth, organic and practiced skill developmen"

Young men are increasingly rudderless, disengaged, and isolated, producing loneliness, frustration, depression, misogyny, and anti-social behaviors. Historical economic and cultural drivers that previously funneled young men into stable companionship and employment have faded, widening an achievement and maturational gap between men and women and reducing male desirability. Many young men retreat into gaming, social media, and influencing, missing inter-gender socialization, workplace experience, and romantic engagement. Scholastic athletics offer growth for only a few. Band participation and similar collaborative, skill-based activities provide neurological, developmental, psychological, and socialization benefits through intense interaction, teamwork, shared goals, measurable outcomes, and practiced skill development. Solutions will require investment and systemic change.

Read at Psychology Today