Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

theconversation.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 456 posts

Re: With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

#151

Post by WWLink »

limaoscarjuliet wrote: post #129
deckard1 wrote: post #12

They did a study using Facebook. But I'm more curious about Instagram. "Look at all these rich beautiful people with millions of followers sailing around the world on their yachts." Ten minutes on Instagram is enough to fill any sane person with existential dread and bring about severe depression.

For my son (17 y.o.) it is online games and phone use in general. He has - I hope - mild depression, which - I believe - is caused by his online habits. His mom and I thought taking his PC away from him would fix it. But then he falls into school-sleep cycle, that looks like full-blown depression. Yes, his grades are affected and in not a good way. What works for now is to participate in his life with him. As of now…

lol, parental involvement is a good thing! You're doing a great job at the parenting.

Re: With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

#152

Post by watwut »

Spooky23 wrote: post #130
watwut wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teenagers I do know personally talk about being worried about jobs, housing, debt and general economical problems. I never start those discussions, they do.

That sounds like a branch of the problem being discussed here. If you’re 16 and worried about housing options, something is wrong imo.

I strongly disagree. If you are 16 and it seems like you won't be able to get living and there is stigma attached to living with parents, worrying about it is sign that you think about world around you. That is healthy.

16 years old are not necessary movie dumbos. It is time when people form opinions and think a lot. The result does not have to be hapiness, if indeed expectations on you and your possibilities don't match.

Re: With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

#153

Post by throwaway2801 »

lumberjack wrote: post #62

Too quick to blame, "the screen". Is it really just the existence of social media that caused this, or is it maybe a change of culture that emerged with the spread of the Internet and social media? For example, today a child from a religious community might encounter atheism at 12 or 13 whereas previously they would encounter it when they went off to college. Maybe that child happens to be suffering from depression a…

> having discovered atheism at such a tender age, they are left hopeless and desolate. (emphasis mine)

What??

As if atheists were monsters.

As an atheist (more agnostic actually - I cannot be sure no gods exist), your answer feels interesting but also surprising, very saddening and actually chocking.

Let's not make atheists look like evil people who make children depressed. This is not OK.

I never needed to have any "faith" to be happy. Solving my problems actually seems to be the solution to my happiness, not to believe or have faith in anything. On the other side, a big part of many religions seems to involve thinking about death and guilt. This can seem depressing and desolating from the point of view of an atheist. Can you imagine an atheist child being exposed to such a desolating way of seeing life? What happens when this child learns that there have been wars about such things as religions when the claim is that they are about tolerence? The child have rights to feel outright disoriented (guess what: I have been such a child).

Fortunately, one people I know is very positive in their life (the most by far) and also happens to be a believer, and most people (including believers) I know are fine people and against wars, so I understand that believers do not have to approach religions like this.

Anyway, though your example is insightful and enlightening, you could have made your point with a way better example. Or your point was the wrong one.

Re: With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

#154

Post by rdiddly »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #16
lisper wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be an unconvincing piece, but it still seems like a very plausible hypothesis to me.

I've got a plausible (to me) hypothesis of my own - namely, that the "kids these days are getting worse and worse" is something people have been thoughtlessly regurgitating for as long as we have historical written records, and that new customs or technologies are easiest to blame. Today it's Facebook, previously it was TV, earlier still it was walkmans and metal bands. Hell, if I'm to believe random quotes from the…

Walkmans and metal bands came after TV. In fact so did miniskirts and the Beatles, each of which were also decried as the end of civilization in their turn.

Nonetheless, just because people have been saying "the world's going down the shitter" for a long time, doesn't mean it's not.

Re: With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

#155

Post by blattimwind »

Findeton wrote: post #103
trendia wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we should easily see it. Note, I'm not saying there is an effect, but it's not quite so easy to say we should have found it if it exists. First, there is a delay between radiation exposure and cancer risk (up to ten years). Second, if all population centers experience the same increase in radiation exposure, then it is very difficult to use radiation as an independent variable to measure its impact on cancer. For i…

Non-ionizing radiation, like the one from cell towers or your smartphone (or radio signals, or TV, or even from power lines) does not cause cancer. It just can't cause cancer, as it can't even rip off a single electron from an atom (definition of non-ionizing).

That's technically not correct, since RF-induced tissue heating can absolutely cause all sorts of cell damage. As far as I know there have been some indicators that cancer can be caused by RF tissue heating.

However, the field strength generated by everyday devices are regulated to levels that are thought not to generate a relevant heating effect in typical use.

Additionally, looking at your phone means it is an appreciable distance away from the brain, unlike using a phone as a phone.

Re: With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

#156

Post by cwar »

rdiddly wrote: post #123
bkohlmann wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how many 13-17 year old teenagers were or are concerned with their ability to purchase a home.

It still affects them - what if their parents (or parent, single) can't afford to move them into a decent school district, for example?

The article says this is not limited to an economic class

Re: With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

#157

Post by jimmaswell »

deckard1 wrote: post #12

They did a study using Facebook. But I'm more curious about Instagram. "Look at all these rich beautiful people with millions of followers sailing around the world on their yachts." Ten minutes on Instagram is enough to fill any sane person with existential dread and bring about severe depression.

This is ridiculous. Depressed and filled with existential dread over seeing pictures of rich people on yachts, really? Do you feel that way every time you pass by a large house or see an expensive car on the road too?

Re: With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

#158

Post by lsc »

whatshisface wrote: post #148
lsc wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you really do look down on your old friends and acquaintances like that (so that you see their posts as all about being poorer and less articulate than you), then you're probably the one making posts that depress them. Sometimes, yes, and that is the cause of some negative self-reflection on my part, but I think that there's another factor at work... I think that especially the "racist memes with spelling mistak…

> I went to a school where scholastic aptitude was something you hid, if you were smart. That's a very common experience I'm actually surprised to hear that it's ever any other way. To go a bit historical materialist on you, I think that if you took the kids at your old school and made them ten times better at thinking and ten times worse at everything else, their values would re-adjust so that they felt valuable aga…

>People balance their values between the need to have a target to work towards and the desire to not feel terrible all the time

Yes. This is something I do consciously... but also poorly. It would not surprise me at all if most people do something like that, consciously or not.

Post reply on HN