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A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

washingtonpost.com

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Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#261

As an American it's not surprising at all. Six figures of student loan debt, job insecurity, healthcare insecurity, rampant poverty / homelessness, the most despicable president to disgrace the white house (who didn't even win the popular vote), stay-at-home orders because the U.S. couldn't manage the crisis, lack of community (doesn't help that 99% of the country is sprawl), rampant obesity, and general lack of hope…

I can't say I share the same feelings as you, but it certainly would be great to see young Americans be more excited about the future and I think some big investment in infrastructure could be a way to make that happen. There are many people worse off in other Countries that are happy because they are seeing vast improvements year over year and their own value goes up proportionately to how much effort gets put in. W…

> Anecdotally, the largest problem I think we have is that there are vast amounts of people who feel like victims and just about everyone feels like they are under attack or have been violated.

its easy to feel that way when the news media from fox (especially) to cnn is pumping that stuff out daily as they almost seemingly yell at you from the screen...

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#262
post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, OkCupid did a study awhile back which they unfortunately took down. You can still find archived versions of it.

Is this the one? https://www.gwern.net/docs/psychology/okcupid/yourlooksandyo...

That's the one.

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#263

As an American it's not surprising at all. Six figures of student loan debt, job insecurity, healthcare insecurity, rampant poverty / homelessness, the most despicable president to disgrace the white house (who didn't even win the popular vote), stay-at-home orders because the U.S. couldn't manage the crisis, lack of community (doesn't help that 99% of the country is sprawl), rampant obesity, and general lack of hope…

As a non-American, why do you care about who is in the white house so much? How does it affect your life concretely?

Try watching less talking heads/browsing Twitter less, maybe, and you'll feel better?

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#264
post #3

>“What’s worrying is the effect this situation is clearly having on young adults.” I wonder if this is a perverse side effect of normalcy bias [0]? For me, a person in middle age, I can look back at my life and see a lifetime of fairly stable history with only a few traumatic events (9/11, 2008 crash). If you're 22, the current circumstances make up a much larger portion of your life. >The toll has also hit the poor…

9/11 happened to me in grade school. Iraq war happened thereafter. Then the financial crash. Then the subprime crash. And now covid. My life is shaped MORE by crises than by stability - not just the current one, but ALL of them.

That is interesting, but if you shift ten years back from there, the kids from that time went through:

* Operation Desert Storm

* The early 1990s post-war recession, and its jobless recovery

* The Asian and Russian recessions (and the LTCM collapse) and knock-on effects

Go back 10 years from that and you have:

* Early 1980s recession

* Black Monday

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A young person is building their life, lockdown is preventing them from doing that. I find this comment utterly mind boggling. The US's stay at home orders were issued when? Mid to end of March? That makes it what? About 1 month? Are we supposed to believe that "young people" suddenly get into a tail spin because they have to endure a whole month of not finding a partner, get to know each other, make life plans, an…

It doesn't just put family building on ice, it puts almost everything on ice. Everyone who hasn't already built a life they are reasonable happy with will be feeling horrible right now, and most young people are in that stage. I'm already above that age so Corona doesn't affect me much, but I know that if I were younger I'd hate it.

Well said. And decisions are going to be made almost exclusively by people who do already have homes and families they are happy with.

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#266
post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a cool future universe where we can introspect the brain like we do with code the need for statistics based diagnostic criteria might disappear but it's what we've got. Meeting the criteria is a good sign that you should talk to someone about it and figure out if that's the best explanation for what's happening. It's not a checklist and then "you've got the GAD."

> In a cool future universe where we can introspect the brain like we do... We can do that. It's called fMRI. > It's not a checklist and then "you've got the GAD." Yes it is. That's literally exactly what is it.

> We can do that. It's called fMRI.

It's clearly not sufficient or not ready yet otherwise it would be used as such.

> Yes it is. That's literally exactly what is it.

That's not a fair assessment.

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#267
I'd like to see anxiety and depression rates associated with age and social media usage. In my personal experience, social media gave me a lot more negative feeling than positive. I know a lot of people handle it better than I do, but I'd still like to see.

I'm also curious if this is associated with more diagnoses because we've become more aware of these issues as a society, or if this can be associated with the internet and our modern "always on" lives. My guess is that the former is more of a reason, but I'd love to see some studies in this area.

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#268
post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yes. For the last four years I've been hearing about this orange cartoon character and what an awful impact he's had. There was something about Russia and the orange man, but that went away after about 3 years. Then the orange man was taking credit for some other guy's economic expansion. Now there's this virus thing, and I'm hearing the orange man is making a terrible job of it. According to my sources, the re…

It depends how much you trust your sources about the cartoon character.

Both sides believe the other is entirely a product of propaganda and group think. They are both correct.

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like the philosophy that drives the incel groups. If you were to ask women they would say the exact same thing as well. And internet dating is very heavily driven towards superficial things, whereas if you meet someone IRL you might be able to find things to connect on.

>And internet dating is very heavily driven towards superficial things No, internet dating is no different than real life, it just mirrors the nature of things and is very harsh. Some people might find things that certain people want superficial, but that's ascribing morality to a very biological and carnal need.

> No, internet dating is no different than real life, it just mirrors the nature of things and is very harsh.

It's a little different. People are typically more polite in person. Their behaviour online reflects what they would do if there were no consequences.

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do practitioners do in countries with universal healthcare?

You still need to actively persue the healthcare even if your country pays for it.

I will say the barriers are definitely lower though when i compare my home country Australia to my adopted country the USA. Sure you need to actively pursue healthcare in Australia but the barriers are just so much lower.

A great example is http://www.cancerscreening.gov.au/internet/screening/publish... You fill in the details and you're mailed a reply post paid bowel cancer screening kit.

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