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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

#131

Post by AlexandrB »

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!

I think you're reading too much into that statement. The connection between masculine traits and t/sperm count is not 1:1. I think the obsession over testosterone levels and the implicit association between t levels and masculinity is far more damaging to men than the low t itself. See also: https://youtu.be/C8dfiDeJeDU?t=729

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#133

Post by hosh »

oneoff786 wrote: post #67
hosh wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not. But people also need some kind of shared meaning and a sense of belonging as well.

And how did memes make that harder

Memes don't necessarily make it harder. However, memes can be used to simultaneously include and exclude -- as references to something the "tribe" gets, but others outside the tribe do not. Inside jokes are an example of such references.

When you make hyperspecialized memes, and you have many of them, you're basically fragmenting a larger pool of shared meaning into many smaller ones.

Diversity, and of itself, is not inherently a virtue -- although lots of people would like it to be. Rather, diversity in the ecological sense, leads to more resiliency. There's still have to be some kind of unifying aspect (such as, unifying on humanity as a whole, or better yet, the whole earth as a whole) within which there is diversity. There's a sense of belonging to something greater than you while simultaneously participating and relating from the uniqueness of an individual.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#135

Post by lazyasciiart »

1234letshaveatw wrote: post #121
ok_dad wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 nu…

right, teen kids are so worried about healthcare costs! Gimmie a break, your comment has nothing to do with the article, it's low effort and a better fit for reddit

Teen kids are worried about having enough to eat. https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/83971/...

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#136

Post by tasspeed »

waboremo wrote: post #127
nluken wrote: 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).…

It's also important to note that social media doesn't operate in isolation. We can blame social media all we want, but when we keep preferring candidates in the hiring process who have presentable social media, it's just amplified for teens. Now they have to keep up a grand social media presence, good grades, stay in physical shape, manage their changing family dynamics, get and hold a job, and their own internal sys…

I only avoided suicide because of social media. I had no way to hang out with friends because my parents were always too busy working to take me places so I talked with my online friends to numb the pain.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#137

Post by 1234letshaveatw »

tasspeed wrote: post #123
1234letshaveatw wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

right, teen kids are so worried about healthcare costs! Gimmie a break, your comment has nothing to do with the article, it's low effort and a better fit for reddit

you're ignorant or extremely privileged if you think kids dont worry. have you ever had a parent be ill and your family has no money for their treatment?

OK, you got me. A lack of socialized everything that started in 2012 is the cause of the teen mental illness epidemic. Get out and vote everyone!!!

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#139

Post by FrankyHollywood »

6_6_6 wrote: post #76

good times (pax americana) create weak people (fat, depressed, entilted, egomaniacs, etc) we need a 'war' to prune the tree of life yet again human is not above the nature winter is comming

I much agree (not with literary having a war of course...)

Burnout rates are higher than ever, many people use painkillers daily, 10% of today's children are diagnosed with adhd and are often drugged [1]. Like drugs are a solution to everything. In the old days kids spend a lot of time outdoors, nowadays average screen time is around 7.5 hours [2]. That must have a tremendous impact on body and mind.

Drug drugs drugs, to quiet the kids, to solve your headaches, to feel better, to lose weight.

Like common sense has left us.

Self-help books sky rocket in number of sales, everyone has a coach and/or therapist. I would argue if everyone needs a therapist, people just forgot how to live. A lot can be done by start living more offline again and use your body. [3]

Let's have more common sense! (and no war please :)

[1] https://www.self.com/story/adhd-diagnosis-rates-children-inc...

[2] https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/exercise-is-an-...

[3] https://headphonesaddict.com/teen-kids-screen-time-statistic...

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#140

Post by munificent »

One of the core dilemmas of raising the next generation:

1. We base much of our own sense of self-worth on difficulties we have overcome and our ability to take care of others.

2. We fairly extend that same metric to others and judge others by the difficulties they've overcome and what they do for others.

3. Therefore, the better we are at living up to our own values and improving the lives of the next generation, the less we respect them for it.

If kids had it as hard as us, it would indicate a failure on our part to provide for them. If they don't have it as hard us, we see them as soft.

(The current generation has tackled this dilemma both by destroying the climate and functioning economic and institutional systems they had the luxury of growing up under thus making it worse for the next generation, and still calling them weak for, unsurprisingly, wanting to tune out of the horror show that is the world by staring at their phone.)

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