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

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

#421

Post by peoplewindow »

ben_w wrote: post #391
peoplewindow wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to point this out, but Germany's government collapsed last year essentially because there's no consensus there for Merkle's ultra-pro-EU ultra-pro-migrant policies. She's still struggling to form a coalition months later. This is by far the longest German government collapse in history. So if you think Germany is going to be radically different to the UK, I would suggest thinking again. Anti EU sentiment is ri…

There are several important things here: 1) All the main German federal parties support the EU. 2) The migration concerns are about asylum seekers rather than EU citizens, because (as I have discovered by trying) German bureaucracy is effective at keeping out speculative job seekers like me. 3) The UK government keeps passing surveillance laws which violate the UK implementation of the European declaration of human r…

What do you mean by "main"? The third largest party in Germany wants to leave the euro. That's why the government collapsed - their new electoral success. Is third largest party not "main"?

W.R.T. surveillance, yes that sucks, but spy agencies have never been accountable to the law in any country as far as I can tell. German BND is exactly the same:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Intelligence_Service_(...

To the extent that they're less effective than GCHQ this reflects maybe a smaller budget or less capable employees, rather than major difference in intent. BND certainly doesn't care about EU human rights law any more than other countries do.

With respect to (4), the EU has no agreement amongst its own leaders about the strategic goals for Brexit either. Merkle and Macron want to exploit it to massively deepen integration, but Merkle is now longer chancellor and there's no clear consensus in Germany for that. Netherlands, Finland, other countries don't want deeper integration. Eastern European countries are busy fighting the commission and want deep relations with the UK after leaving. But the EU can't stop attempting to cherry-pick: the very thing it criticizes the UK for. The only deal it's been able to propose is all the bits the EU wants and none of the things the UK wants, steadily increasing the chance of no deal at all. And that's about 10% of the mess.

The reason Brexit is proving difficult to handle smoothly is because the EU and its loyalists really struggle with the idea of compromise, and extremism always divides people - go watch Darkest Hour and see how even in the face of a far, far, far worse and clearer adversary than Michel Barnier the British government was still split down the middle between "go it alone and fight" vs "appease and hope for the best". No big surprise that the same "give them whatever they want" vs "walk away" tension can be seen now too. That's democratic governments for you.

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

#422

Post by dustinls »

matte_black wrote: post #286
malux85 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comp-Sci/Electrical Engineers - I've never seen any of them without a smartphone, or even heard them talk about their friends switching. Sounds like a good idea though :)

I would try switching to a flip phone but the problem is I want a cool modern flip phone not something that looks vintage.

No it has to look vintage, but has to also be modern and cool.

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

#423

Post by eli_gottlieb »

Razengan wrote: post #399
abusoufiyan wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Humans cannot be truly happy unless we keep ourselves seriously deluded or constantly distracted; with biosocial emotions, religion, duty, hope, ambition, goals, pleasure or whatever. Typical internet denizen idea of humanity. Religious people are not all deluding themselves into happiness. Quite a lot of them find religion to be a framework with comes with its own sources of existential dread. Emotions are a delusi…

Almost all of the things that drive us and govern our lives are based entirely on the approval of other humans or our biological needs; the approval of our parents, peer pressure, love, sex, academic grades, job, income, social/political/professional standing, or religion and the idea of deities, and even the worth/value of our contribution to society.. Would any of these matter at all to a different intelligent spec…

>Would any of these matter at all to a different intelligent species?

That's not how mattering works.

On the other hand, I just noticed your username, and you know, it totally fits. How did I not notice that the guy proclaiming the pointlessness of life is calling himself, "Rasengan"? Come on, please tell me this is all some jocular TTGL reference.

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

#424

Post by magic_beans »

lsc wrote: post #279
rorykoehler wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That's a very common experience I'm actually surprised to hear that it's ever any other way. That's a western thing. In the east being smart is cool.

>That's a western thing. In the east being smart is cool. I thought it was an exclusive school thing. The Americans I know who went to exclusive high schools seem to have had very different experiences. I even know several people (who went to a 'special' highschool for 'gifted' children) who claimed that they enjoyed high school more than college.

I went to an "elite" private high school. The handful of kids who chose to take a gap year or to gasp not go to college at all were looked upon with such scorn. But no one was more looked down-upon than the kids who only got into "safety schools."

That said -- being in an environment where your intellect was directly correlated to your social standing was pretty nourishing and really encouraged the best in (most) people.

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

#425

Post by webninja »

str33t_punk wrote: post #351
duskwuff wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found that Reddit improves dramatically as you move away from the huge default subreddits and into smaller, more focused subs -- for hobbies you're involved in, for instance. For that sort of thing it's not half bad.

Until you realize ALL subreddits are almost entirely gamed by marketers. Why do you think the reddit hive mind in small hobby subreddits conglomerates on a few devices / items? Reddit is literally the most shilled platform. Easy botting + the up vote down vote system

You’re absolutely right. For anyone who wants to test this, try searching for “State Farm” in Reddit and you’ll see the results almost never have anything to do with whether Statefarm actually pays claims, is fair priced, or a good value to the customer. The posts are all from their internal marketing department doing shit like posting a false AMA request for Jake from State Farm as some kind of low-quality joke to shy away from the points that actually matter.

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

#426

Post by where_do_i_live »

jm__87 wrote: post #420
Razengan wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why would technology make depression worse instead of better? I can only speak for myself, of course, and in my case, the ever increasing access to information and social contacts, actually eliminates the hope of finding any large-scale meaning in this world, ever-so-gradually, when you keep failing to see any point no matter what you learn and who you meet. Not exactly depression, maybe it falls under nihilism, bu…

So what if life objectively has no meaning? You can only experience it through your own subjective viewpoint, so why not find something that is subjectively meaningful to you?

And there lies the problem. That means your lack of existence is on par with anything else. So you can find something random meaningful to you or poof just end it early.

Usually this leads to drugs first and not outright suicide, but it is still nonetheless quite harmful to the individual.

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

#427

Post by dang »

rdm_blackhole wrote: post #185
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…

So religious people never get depressed? What a stupid argument! Believing that some (unproven and nonexistent) entity is going to solve all your problems is completely delusional.

This breaks the HN guidelines, especially the one that says "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize." Also the one against name-calling in arguments.

Religious flamewar is particularly not allowed here. Please don't post like this again.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#428

Post by dang »

vpribish wrote: post #65
yakitori wrote: post #61

Thank god for our daily "social media" is evil propaganda. I hope one day someone looks into who is pushing this and why. It would be very interesting. At this point, all the outrage and propaganda really comes off as manufactured and fake. Maybe it's a generational thing. When I was a child, it was south park, simpsons and gangsta rap that was ruining kids mental health. And video games were responsible for school s…

it's attention-seekers scaring crotchety, envious, gullible, olds just like it always, always, has been.

That's nasty. Please don't.

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

#429

Post by sheepmullet »

bambataa wrote: post #389
sheepmullet wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For many of them, they see education as a negative attribute Yes it's an unfortunate byproduct of the link between education and left wing ideology. We often joked that people who go away to college come back dumber than when they left. As an example when my daughter was in college she came to visit us and was talking about how I was contributing to the patriarchy and enabling the oppression of women and how women…

It must have been discomforting that your sweet girl had become a woman with thoughts and opinions differed to yours.

> had become a woman with thoughts and opinions differed to yours.

If your daughter came home from college a neo-nazi would you say the same?

What if lots of your neighbors sons and daughters were also coming home from college neo-nazis?

I'm not so sure you would agree that they had grown up and developed their own opinions.

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

#430

Post by vpribish »

dang wrote: post #428
vpribish wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's attention-seekers scaring crotchety, envious, gullible, olds just like it always, always, has been.

That's nasty. Please don't.

sorry, dang. it's a topic i feel strongly about. appreciate your feedback
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