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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

#21

Post by williamcotton »

justsocrateasin wrote: post #12

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, i…

I think if you do a moving average that the trend would adhere more to 2012 being the inflection point. I'm basing that on just noticing that in US Teens, Suicides (Ages 10-14) chart the there was a decent amount of fluctuation in the leading years.

As for why these trends exist, one of the interesting things is that these are present in all of the anglosphere. Can we think of another explanation? What else has changed on a global scale in the last couple of decades?

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#22

Post by frozenport »

drivebyhooting wrote: post #18
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!

Rather misanthropy?

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#23

Post by banannaise »

All the things he cites are lagging indicators. Self-harm and suicide typically follow long, long battles with mental health issues; they're not the first thing that happens, or even close. Diagnoses are also typically far from immediate; having depression and being diagnosed with depression are two very different things. (And without increased awareness, many people never get care and are never diagnosed.)

As such, the inflection point, if there is one, is likely much earlier than 2012.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#24

Post by QuercusMax »

frozenport wrote: post #22
drivebyhooting wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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!

Rather misanthropy?

Misandry - from andro, meaning man (male)

Misanthropy - from anthropos, meaning human

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#25

Post by banannaise »

Okay, data is great, but the conclusions at the end have almost nothing to do with the data. They're a bunch of unsupported assumptions about what we've changed that must have caused all of this. It includes two separate links to his article about how we're ruining the children by coddling them with woke bullshit. Here's the tagline: "In the name of emotional well-being, college students are increasingly demanding protection from words and ideas they don’t like. Here’s why that’s disastrous for education—and mental health."

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#26

Post by goodpoint »

arp242 wrote: post #2

Another possible explanation is that we are simply diagnosing these kind of mental health issues better – due to decrease in stigmatization and/or more attention to it – but that our treatment is worse than doing nothing, and is leading to higher rates of self-harm and suicide. I have no idea if that's the case – and if it is a factor at all it probably doesn't account for all of it – but it seems something worth exp…

> I benefited more from the occasional swift kick in the backside and being told to "man up"

Practically you are saying that pedagogy and psychology are wrong and harmful on a fundamental level.

Either you are in denial or a whole field of science is wrong.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#27

Post by nimbius »

Perhaps related: the Affordable Care Act was passed by US President Obama in 2010. the US prior to 2010 had also experienced nearly seventy school shootings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_th...

Since Mr. Haidt reports from the US statistics of the CDC:

1. could it be reasonable then to suggest the prevalence of mental illness in teens is evidence of more cogent detection systems coming online?

2. Could it also be reasonable to consider this detection to be in response to the epidemic of mass shootings in schools?

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#28

Post by ch4s3 »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #20

So 2 years after Instagram was created, and a few years after touchscreen cell phones became commodity devices.

I don't recall anyone I knew using Instagram very much in 2012, people still used facebook a lot back then and Instagram felt really niche. It hit 110 million users in 2013, which is around when I recall people I knew starting to use it, but rally it blew up in 2014.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#30

Post by cholantesh »

banannaise wrote: post #25

Okay, data is great, but the conclusions at the end have almost nothing to do with the data. They're a bunch of unsupported assumptions about what we've changed that must have caused all of this. It includes two separate links to his article about how we're ruining the children by coddling them with woke bullshit. Here's the tagline: "In the name of emotional well-being, college students are increasingly demanding pr…

Haidt has been flogging that particular horse since about 2012; maybe there's a correlation there.
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