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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

#101
post #79

While I don't doubt that social media can drive some of these mental health issues, I think most teenagers are simply stressed from the constant work that's necessary for the college admissions process. I'm 24, so I would have been a teenager in 2012, but I didn't have a smartphone until I was 16 or so. My high school experience consisted almost entirely of school, studying, and running (my primary extracurricular).…

Coincidentally 2012 is IIRC the year I bought (then a university student) my first smart phone. IIRC when doing my abroad term overseas the american students all had smartphones in like 2010, I think most where on plans that provided smartphones eventually.

So I would not be surprised if smartphones are part of the reason for a poor state of mental heath.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#102
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…

Why is more diagnosis better diagnosis? I hear this constantly, literally every time people point out we might be calling people mentally ill now that we wouldn't have called mentally ill 20 years ago people go "wow we must be diagnosing people better". To me better diagnosis would be reflected in things like the suicide rate dropping, drug abuse falling, general health metrics improving, and so on, not in simply increasing the amount of people we give labels and medicalise.

I am so incredibly unconvinced that labelling a bunch of people as mentally ill is "better" because the more we're diagnosed people as mentally ill, the more things like suicide have increased. Now obviously that can be due to an underlying increase in mental illness driving suicide, the thing is the diagnosis itself and the resulting differential treatment of society and your self-perception of yourself can be the cause of that mental illness. Making the diagnosis a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So far the increase in diagnosis over time has completely failed to actually improve peoples mental health. I am constantly perplexed at why nobody is worried about this. It seems how we diagnose people is totally unconnected from any empirical data on if a culture more willing to diagnose people is making people healthier on a population-wide level. To me it seems like most evidence points to the population-wide trend getting worse and the increase in diagnosis being a failure making people sicker, and I can't help but also notice many of those who advocate that the increase in diagnosis is a great thing have a conflict of interest and financially benefit from more people being labelled ill.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#103
post #79

While I don't doubt that social media can drive some of these mental health issues, I think most teenagers are simply stressed from the constant work that's necessary for the college admissions process. I'm 24, so I would have been a teenager in 2012, but I didn't have a smartphone until I was 16 or so. My high school experience consisted almost entirely of school, studying, and running (my primary extracurricular).…

40% of high school students don't go to college (of any type). Of those, only a tiny portion are focused on elite universities. Many are just going to Long Beach State, University of Redlands and other 4 year schools that you've never heard of. They have lax admissions. Among adult Americans, only a third have bachelors degrees. Certainly the high pressure scholastic environment of certain high schools is not common.

A good point that exposes some major bias behind my anecdote. With that said, if these expectations start at elite schools and slowly trickle down, would that not cause a rise in the aggregate across all teenagers over time?

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#104
post #79

While I don't doubt that social media can drive some of these mental health issues, I think most teenagers are simply stressed from the constant work that's necessary for the college admissions process. I'm 24, so I would have been a teenager in 2012, but I didn't have a smartphone until I was 16 or so. My high school experience consisted almost entirely of school, studying, and running (my primary extracurricular).…

I feel like this is because school, especially college, and particularly exams, is about as high-stakes as most people's lives ever get, so they look back at that time as peak-anxiety. Think about it: you're being evaluated and the result of that evaluation shapes the next step in the pipeline, and ultimately the trajectory of the rest of your life! Well, at least that's what the university officials, professors, your peers and parents all tell you. You pretty much have a series of "one chance" events that you must pass or you're done for. Failure of any step is permanent, and affects your average (seemingly) forever.

The whole path from elementary school through to college graduation feels like a career development game where the stakes are raised every year. Fail once off the path, and it's Walmart Greeter for you, forever! It's no wonder I still wake up in a cold sweat over it, 30 years on.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#105
Coincidentally (or not), the same year Facebook launched the Feed as the default UI and opened it up to advertisers.

I've been screaming this since the moment it was introduced, but I don't think people will ever realize it until years from now in retrospect, that the concept of the "Feed", an endless scrolling ad monetized horse trough of clickbait, was one of the single most destructive ideas in the history of human civilization.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#106
post #79

While I don't doubt that social media can drive some of these mental health issues, I think most teenagers are simply stressed from the constant work that's necessary for the college admissions process. I'm 24, so I would have been a teenager in 2012, but I didn't have a smartphone until I was 16 or so. My high school experience consisted almost entirely of school, studying, and running (my primary extracurricular).…

> If we want a healthier society, we need to take a step back and give teenagers a chance to actually live life.

We (American here) need to take a step back and let everyone enjoy life. That means providing healthcare, food, and shelter to every single person so that they can live their life and work in a non-anxiety-inducing way. Every therapist I've talked to in the past few years has told me that they think the number one thing that would reduce their workload is if people weren't so stressed about paying for the most basic things for their family. Most of the people they see would still have issues they need to deal with, but wouldn't be on the precipice of suicide and taking loads of pills. That's an anecdote, but to me it's clear that the "hustle culture" and lack of social support have combined in the USA to make things very hard for the average American. This applies to kids directly, too, because that hustle has to start pre-college!

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#107
post #51

Anecdotally, I was (as probably many here were) ahead of the curve in digital devices usage when I started hanging out in IRC and various web forums as a teenager in early 2000s. At some point I noticed that just using computers induced some amount of anxiety compared to "old tech"; whenever there was some period of time when I used my computer less (like christmas, vacations, etc.) and joined back to the "world of t…

> My theory is that just using digital devices for anything is somewhat stressful

I don’t know, talking to the government and figuring out stuff about your taxes or health coverage over the internet is soooo much less stressful than if I have to call, or worse, go there in person, wait an hour, and have to talk to someone who really doesn’t want to solve my problem.

I can now pay my property taxes online and know it’s done, instead of sending them a letter and hoping for the best, that’s such an improvement.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#108
post #79

While I don't doubt that social media can drive some of these mental health issues, I think most teenagers are simply stressed from the constant work that's necessary for the college admissions process. I'm 24, so I would have been a teenager in 2012, but I didn't have a smartphone until I was 16 or so. My high school experience consisted almost entirely of school, studying, and running (my primary extracurricular).…

[deleted]

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#110

A lot of the stats cited are ultimately subjective assessments of things like mental health. Calling more people "bipolar" or "depressed" or "anxious" can just as easily be a change in language as to what those words mean, as easily as they can reflect a change in the underlying language and how people express things. Notably the definition of most mental illnesses in the country Haidt is pulling his data from change…

> we are seeing things like declines in lifespans and increases in suicide, but I don't think mental illness is increasingly nearly as much as the stats would lead you to believe at face value.

This just seems like a flat out contradiction. How would suicides ‘skyrocket’ if mental illness is not increasing.

Agreed that 2012 may be irrelevant and we may not know the cause.

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