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The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

jonathanhaidt.substack.com

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Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#11

Post by d_sem »

Having exited my teen years just before the smartphones became ubiquitous in the US, I got the opportunity to watch externally how social media and other similar systems effected the day-to-day of my younger siblings through their teen years. It was not positive. Maybe someone younger can attest to my observations:

- more localized isolation as kids spent a higher % of their attention in internet communities - less cultural cohesion due to hyper diversity in memes resulting in fewer shared experiences. - a shift in perceived life value/success based on internet influencers and incentive to emulate their lifestyles. - always online presence increasing the stakes making embarrassing or uncool mistakes permanent and detrimental to one's image.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#12

Post by justsocrateasin »

I agree with the authors premise and argument but the data visualizations are not well done, and I'm confused about the conclusions he draws from them.

For starters, it's unclear why he draws a line at 2012, when in many of the graphs the slope gets steeper at 2010 instead, and in fact that's where the percentage increase calculations start from as well. That vertical line at 2012 is misleading and confusing.

Also, in the US Teens, Suicides (Ages 10-14), the uptick clearly started in 2007. I don't disagree that social media is bad and I've seen firsthand people who become mentally ill because of the standards and expectations supplied by a constant stream of highlight rules that make you question your own worth. But I think that the data provided here is not strong enough to come to that conclusion.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#13

Post by notch898a »

xwolfi wrote: post #8
arp242 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean changes in treatment, but rather that some people previously went undiagnosed and "just got over it" on their own. As I said, in my own case treatment didn't help and actually made matters worse as I saw myself more as a victim who "couldn't help myself". n=1 of course. And many people of course do benefit from treatment. As I mentioned: even if this turns out to be factor – and I'm not sure it even is –…

Not sure of the value of this tidbit but I heard that in the US, blacks suicided a lot less than whites (quick google seems to say rate of black suicide is a third of white) and it could be because they grow up explaining their issues with external factors, while the whites have no convenient escapes, and even are told they are privileged due to their skin color... so self blame. Really flimsy, I am not an expert but…

I would offer the really flimsy statement most blacks in US are descendants of slaves, who were bred for generations to be optimized for unskilled labor that was given very little mental and health support which meant anyone slightly suicidal just killed themselves off. Slavery is pretty stressful. Society tends to want to ignore the fact the colonists and early Americans literally bred slaves under stressful conditions for centuries and that tends to have ... effects on the genetic pool particularly in remarkably stressful environments where risk factors can cause rapid attrition from reproductive population.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#14

Post by [deleted] »

d_sem wrote: post #11

Having exited my teen years just before the smartphones became ubiquitous in the US, I got the opportunity to watch externally how social media and other similar systems effected the day-to-day of my younger siblings through their teen years. It was not positive. Maybe someone younger can attest to my observations: - more localized isolation as kids spent a higher % of their attention in internet communities - less c…

[deleted]

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#15

Post by justsocrateasin »

arp242 wrote: post #5
brodouevencode wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The increase in suicide rates for both genders (but especially females) are astounding. I really don't believe that any changes in treatment have been so radical as to cause this to manifest the way it has.

I don't mean changes in treatment, but rather that some people previously went undiagnosed and "just got over it" on their own. As I said, in my own case treatment didn't help and actually made matters worse as I saw myself more as a victim who "couldn't help myself". n=1 of course. And many people of course do benefit from treatment. As I mentioned: even if this turns out to be factor – and I'm not sure it even is –…

n of 2, this has been my experience as well. I was almost killed in a shooting in 2021, and in 2022 I started seeing a therapist. Going into therapy made me relate to my trauma more, think about my trauma more often, and self identify as a "traumatized individual". I don't think any of that helped. The only thing that really helped was daily meditation/mindfulness, which does the opposite - it teaches you that the thoughts and experiences you have are fleeting and rather than hold on to them you can let them go.

That being said, I don't think this is a strong enough phenomenon that it explains the rather large trends upwards in self harm/mental health. I think a good control is the graph that shows Schizophrenia - a 67% uptick shows that the diagnosis rates are probably a lot higher than the early 2000s, since I doubt that schizophrenia is really becoming more common due to social media.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#16

Post by goodpoint »

willcipriano wrote: post #6
brodouevencode wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The increase in suicide rates for both genders (but especially females) are astounding. I really don't believe that any changes in treatment have been so radical as to cause this to manifest the way it has.

Tell someone with an issue with their physical condition that it is because of diet and lack of exercise and many would change habits, tell them it's due to a incurable but perhaps treatable cancer and some will chose suicide. Tell kids that they are unhappy due to choices made in day to day life and they might change those choices, tell them it's due to a incurable but maybe treatable issue with their brain and some…

Not at all, it's exactly the opposite. People feel understood and very relieved when they are diagnosed mental illness. Accepting and managing some condition give people hope.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#17

Post by anigbrowl »

This is a good piece, with the author consciously examining their own biases and assumptions. I do think underdiagnosis is an issue; when I sought mental health treatment in an earlier period, there was a veritable line of people telling me I couldn't be mentally ill because my clothes were clean and my sentences coherent.

I think the author errs in not projecting his data far back enough into the past and looking for correlations with previous rises or falls. I agree that social media is probably a main driver; the ability to receive mass communication at scale is not something the brain evolved for, and there's a lot of maladaptive online behavior that doesn't show in these statistics but is nonetheless problematic. I'm honestly appalled by the pervasive tendency to rely on repetition of cliches in favor of original communication, for example.

But I think there are other factors in play, like the 24-7 news cycle and deep political polarizations, both of which have a huge impact on adult behavior and create an unhealthy psychological environment in which kids have to operate.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#18

Post by drivebyhooting »

zug_zug wrote: post #9

This article is great because it looks at the self-harm and suicide data, which is pretty compelling. Obviously everybody's willingness to talk about their issues has gone up, but perhaps something else is happening too. It's already scientifically concluded that sperm counts and testosterone is down (for better or worse) [just google scholar it for journal articles], and one correlate of low testosterone is worse mo…

> sperm counts and testosterone is down (for better or worse)

Sorry to nitpick but why did you qualify it “for better or worse”? It struck me as misandry. The implication being that masculine traits are bad and perhaps low sperm and testosterone is a good thing!

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