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

One in three young people say they felt happier during lockdown

cam.ac.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 130 posts

Re: One in three young people say they felt happier during lockdown

#31

Post by lemmsjid »

pembrook wrote: post #19

So 1 in 3 felt happier, 1 in 3 felt more depressed, and the remaining 1 in 3 felt no major change. Sounds pretty much like a normal (gaussian) distribution, or basically a non-story. Guessing if they measured satisfaction on a scale, the majority were clustered near the "no major change" camp, as with any gaussian curve. As we already know, it turns out humans can adapt to things. By phrasing the headline result as "…

The article contextualizes itself at the beginning. A large number of people believe the effect of the lockdowns on children was not a normal distribution but was skewed negative. So a normal distribution is news. This does not discount your argument that emphasizing the positive side of the distribution is clickbait, but if it is positioning itself as emphasizing that positive side to a population who thinks it is all negative, then I think it’s fine.

For me textbook clickbait is an article that does not substantiate the promise of the headline, or one that comically exaggerates the excitement of the information in the article. There are people who believe the lockdowns were wholly an atrocity on children, and this article substantiates a counterbalance without going all the way (after all, the headline itself tells you that 2/3 children were unaffected or negatively affected).

Re: One in three young people say they felt happier during lockdown

#32

Post by Closi »

actually_a_dog wrote: post #6
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #3

> In fact, an almost identical number of students fell into each of the three categories: their mental wellbeing had improved; there had been no change; or they had experienced a deterioration to their wellbeing. This feels like a red flag on the conclusions. How does this compare to a normal time period? I wouldn’t be surprised if the random ups and downs of growing up normally resulted in a distribution where 1/3 o…

> How does this compare to a normal time period? I wouldn’t be surprised if the random ups and downs of growing up normally resulted in a distribution where 1/3 of students claim they felt happier, 1/3 of students claimed they felt the same, and 1/3 of students felt worse than the prior year. This sounds to me like a distinction without a difference. In both cases, the net result would be approximately 0 effect on th…

> This sounds to me like a distinction without a difference. In both cases, the net result would be approximately 0 effect on the overall mental health of the population being studied.

I believe OP is saying that the underlying assumption here is that students do not get happier during their time during university without lockdown.

If for instance 2/3 students left university happier than when they started pre-lockdown/covid, this would need to be accounted for in any study to make it meaningful.

Re: One in three young people say they felt happier during lockdown

#34

Post by civilized »

pembrook wrote: post #19

So 1 in 3 felt happier, 1 in 3 felt more depressed, and the remaining 1 in 3 felt no major change. Sounds pretty much like a normal (gaussian) distribution, or basically a non-story. Guessing if they measured satisfaction on a scale, the majority were clustered near the "no major change" camp, as with any gaussian curve. As we already know, it turns out humans can adapt to things. By phrasing the headline result as "…

Come on. Would you really have predicted, before a massive two-year pandemic, that it would have a mean-zero random impact on people's well-being? Let's keep ourselves honest here.

Re: One in three young people say they felt happier during lockdown

#35

Post by _fat_santa »

Looking back, lockdowns sucked in the moment. But when I look at it in aggregate, my life improved dramatically. A big part of that was prior to the pandemic I would hit the clubs and bars every weekend. With bars and clubs closed I was forced to do other things, like go outside to nature.

After a while the clubs re-opened but I realized I was no longer drawn to go to. My life on the weekends started to revolve around going outdoors rather than getting smashed. Eventually I made the biggest change and moved to Colorado to persue more outdoors.

If the pandemic never happened I would probably still be living in the city going to bars and clubs. So while there are many negative things about the past two years, for me it ended in a net positive.

Re: One in three young people say they felt happier during lockdown

#38

Post by bavell »

lemmsjid wrote: post #31
pembrook wrote: post #19

So 1 in 3 felt happier, 1 in 3 felt more depressed, and the remaining 1 in 3 felt no major change. Sounds pretty much like a normal (gaussian) distribution, or basically a non-story. Guessing if they measured satisfaction on a scale, the majority were clustered near the "no major change" camp, as with any gaussian curve. As we already know, it turns out humans can adapt to things. By phrasing the headline result as "…

The article contextualizes itself at the beginning. A large number of people believe the effect of the lockdowns on children was not a normal distribution but was skewed negative. So a normal distribution is news. This does not discount your argument that emphasizing the positive side of the distribution is clickbait, but if it is positioning itself as emphasizing that positive side to a population who thinks it is a…

> The highest proportions of students who reported improved mental wellbeing were among those who were in school every day (39%) and most days (35%), while the highest proportion of students who reported worse wellbeing were those who attended just once or twice (39%).

Seems that it absolutely skews negative for the kids who had to deal with more lockdowns, i.e. not going to school with their peers.

> So a normal distribution is news.

I don't see anywhere in the article where they claim it's a normal distribution? OP was just speculating IIUC.

Re: One in three young people say they felt happier during lockdown

#39

Post by blah_humbug »

Let's repeat that survey, across all age groups, and for the current month. I'm especially curious what the eponymous "granny" has to say about it. I'm also very curious to hear what parents have to say about their kids being herded to a screens-only life at absurdly young ages. I know this was already happening, but it has been vastly accelerated. I can only hope this means we will get to the natural maxima and swing back the other way sooner.
Post reply on HN