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No, Teen Suicide Isn’t Rising Because Life Got Objectively Worse

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Re: No, Teen Suicide Isn’t Rising Because Life Got Objectively Worse

#71

Post by JohnFen »

vondur wrote: post #40
JohnFen wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some things are better, sure. But an awful lot of things are worse. I do think that on the whole, things have gotten worse. Not for me personally so much as for my children and their peers. > There were no federal student loans. True -- but by the same token, it was possible to "work your way through college". This is largely impossible now.

> True -- but by the same token, it was possible to "work your way through college". This is largely impossible now. It can be done, if you are willing to do Community College and then head to a state university to finish up. We asked our friend's daughter, who was choosing which college to attend about going to a local state university. She replied, "what do I tell my friends?" as in it was beneath her. Which was fu…

That depends on where you are, I think. Community colleges are certainly less expensive, but they are very expensive nonetheless. And state colleges are often not much cheaper than others.

The cost of education across the board has risen to an insane level, well above the rate of inflation.

Re: No, Teen Suicide Isn’t Rising Because Life Got Objectively Worse

#72

Post by green_man_lives »

falcolas wrote: post #68
green_man_lives wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I was being cynical I'd say that this is just an article designed to get clicks by confirming people's biases. To anyone who disagrees with me, ask yourself. What is the most important thing in your life? I can with certainty say that it doesn't have a "price" associated with it. If you can comprehend that then you can accept the premise that life can get worse as material conditions improve, especially when the m…

> What is the most important thing in your life? Security - food, transportation, housing. All have huge price tags associated with them. My wife being able to follow her passion - taking care of her family. Which means I have to make enough to account for her lost income for all the above.

It sounds like the things you listed are prerequisites to having a family. Something people have been able to do for hundreds of thousands of years without transportation or high-paying tech jobs. That's the point I was making.

Our material gains are only true quality of life improvements when they increase the access to things that are "meaningful" like relationships. GDP increase could mean you are capable of producing one extra Jurassic Park sequel each year, while people's ability to start a family stagnates.

Re: No, Teen Suicide Isn’t Rising Because Life Got Objectively Worse

#73

Post by Aunche »

slg wrote: post #27
rayiner wrote: post #5

> [Lorenz] went on to suggest that the young people of the 1950s enjoyed objectively superior material prospects than young people do today This is why I think culture is more important than policy. Lorenz’s point is obviously non-sensical. She mentions the “safety net.” But Medicaid didn’t exist in the 1950s. There were no federal student loans. There were no food stamps. Almost nobody went to college. Etc. But it’s…

> There were no federal student loans. This is a hilarious one to include on your list because it shows you are missing the forest for the trees. Federal student loans didn't exist because they didn't need to exist as college was cheaper, living a middle class life didn't require college, and low paying jobs still paid a high enough percentage of living costs to allow people to pay their way through college by workin…

Colleges may have been cheaper 50 years ago, but it was also roughly half as common to go to college. It was especially uncommon for women and POC to enroll. Overall, the government is subsidizing colleges more, but the subsidy is spread thinner. In-state tuition without assistance tends to be $6000-12,000, which isn't much in the grand scheme of things.

As a slight tangent, student loans and grants tend to be the least efficient form of subsidy for higher education because they incentivize colleges to increase tuitions to make them more resort-like.

Re: No, Teen Suicide Isn’t Rising Because Life Got Objectively Worse

#74

Post by drewcoo »

tomjen3 wrote: post #33
woolion wrote: post #17

The logic here is absolutely astounding. People _killing themselves_ is not an indicator that life is worse? What is it an indicator of, Mr Levitz? Are they unable to tolerate so much happiness? Are these people dumb? Defective? Arguing that life is objectively better because you are going to make a better salary than in the fifties is plain gaslighting, but I don't believe there are a lot of people who will still fa…

It could be an indicator that people are less able to cope, and there is some really good causal evidence that social media causes anxiety in young girls.

> it could be an indicator that people are less able to cope

That would mean life is worse. And we can measure how much worse in suicide rate deltas.

Re: No, Teen Suicide Isn’t Rising Because Life Got Objectively Worse

#75

Post by notch898a »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #69
Dalewyn wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me put it this way then: Individualism and a community are not mutually exclusive.

When taking care of a neighbor is none of your business, what you have with them is not community.

What you have with them is not the community you envision.

Re: No, Teen Suicide Isn’t Rising Because Life Got Objectively Worse

#76

Post by kube-system »

gretch wrote: post #13
LatteLazy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or post the 2008 crash where everything governments did for young people was slashed...

+1 to this How many teens had to watch their parent come home and announce that they got laid off from their job and that this year there wasn't going to be a yearly family trip?

Yearly vacations are a fairly modern thing. My older relatives have stories about not being able to afford food, either due to the depression, or rationing during the war. Car ownership in the US broke 50% mid-century. The majority of my silent-generation relatives never, in their entire lives, traveled more than 100 miles from their birthplace.

Poverty and unemployment continue to exist in other places around the globe, often in places with very low suicide rates.

Re: No, Teen Suicide Isn’t Rising Because Life Got Objectively Worse

#77

Post by anonymouskimmer »

jimbokun wrote: post #56
woolion wrote: post #17

The logic here is absolutely astounding. People _killing themselves_ is not an indicator that life is worse? What is it an indicator of, Mr Levitz? Are they unable to tolerate so much happiness? Are these people dumb? Defective? Arguing that life is objectively better because you are going to make a better salary than in the fifties is plain gaslighting, but I don't believe there are a lot of people who will still fa…

Do you disagree with this statement? > Whatever caused young people in the U.S. to develop higher rates of mental illness over the past two decades, it was not an objective collapse in living standards, employment prospects, or opportunities for material security. What numbers or objective data can you put forward to refute it? Imagine a short story where a man gets a diagnosis of an incurable, terminal disease certa…

I disagree with the statement. It privileges economic factors over social factors, environmental factors, sexual factors. If it's easier today to inaccurately broadcast doom, then that is an indication that life got objectively worse in one respect.

There are plenty of distopian SF societies that are wonderful from an economic basis, but horrific from another basis (Brave New World is the most famous, but by far not the only example).

I think the biggest issue here is the normal headline/article disagreement.

Edit to add:

As for "objective data":

Social: The collapse of friendships and group activities. https://www.americansurveycenter.org/research/the-state-of-a...

Environmental: Things have improved in some respects compared to the smog and burning rivers of the 60s. But in other respects we now have historic droughts, historic wildfires, increasing frequency of cyclones, sea-level increases, decreases in green spaces, climate change, and still a variety of pollution events (which get more airplay than in previous years).

Sexual: Incel communities. Breakups by text and ghosting. Finding partners online balanced out by not having the support of shared communities with sexual partners.

Re: No, Teen Suicide Isn’t Rising Because Life Got Objectively Worse

#78

Post by drewcoo »

rayiner wrote: post #5

> [Lorenz] went on to suggest that the young people of the 1950s enjoyed objectively superior material prospects than young people do today This is why I think culture is more important than policy. Lorenz’s point is obviously non-sensical. She mentions the “safety net.” But Medicaid didn’t exist in the 1950s. There were no federal student loans. There were no food stamps. Almost nobody went to college. Etc. But it’s…

> So what has changed since the 1950s? Culture.

Culture always changes. That's expected.

What wasn't expected is the near-total collapse of the middle class and the redistribution of wealth to the rich. That's more of a punch in the gut than the most baroquely decorated food made in a jello mold (50s culture).

Re: No, Teen Suicide Isn’t Rising Because Life Got Objectively Worse

#79

Post by falcolas »

green_man_lives wrote: post #72
falcolas wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is the most important thing in your life? Security - food, transportation, housing. All have huge price tags associated with them. My wife being able to follow her passion - taking care of her family. Which means I have to make enough to account for her lost income for all the above.

It sounds like the things you listed are prerequisites to having a family. Something people have been able to do for hundreds of thousands of years without transportation or high-paying tech jobs. That's the point I was making. Our material gains are only true quality of life improvements when they increase the access to things that are "meaningful" like relationships. GDP increase could mean you are capable of produ…

Those weren't the goals asked for by the parent.

But to address this individually, yes, they are required for any kind of a family - single or married or with 55 children. And it's harder to do than it has been for the hundreds of thousands of years before now - it's not something you just "get" for working, for being part of a community, anymore.

In other words, being hale and working all of the sunlit hours week is no longer sufficient to provide for a family. Something relatively new in human history.

EDIT: $7.25 (US federal minimum wage) * 8 hours * 365 days/year puts you right at the poverty line for a 3 person household. A quality of life which may theoretically be better than that of a caveman, but hardly what I'd call "providing" for your family.

Re: No, Teen Suicide Isn’t Rising Because Life Got Objectively Worse

#80

Post by haswell »

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #77
jimbokun wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you disagree with this statement? > Whatever caused young people in the U.S. to develop higher rates of mental illness over the past two decades, it was not an objective collapse in living standards, employment prospects, or opportunities for material security. What numbers or objective data can you put forward to refute it? Imagine a short story where a man gets a diagnosis of an incurable, terminal disease certa…

I disagree with the statement. It privileges economic factors over social factors, environmental factors, sexual factors. If it's easier today to inaccurately broadcast doom, then that is an indication that life got objectively worse in one respect. There are plenty of distopian SF societies that are wonderful from an economic basis, but horrific from another basis ( Brave New World is the most famous, but by far not…

> If it's easier today to inaccurately broadcast doom, then that is an indication that life got objectively worse in one respect.

This is just conveniently redefining what most people mean when they talk about objective factors.

I tend to agree that this ability to broadcast doom is an explanatory factor and it makes life worse, but to claim this is an objective explanatory factor is problematic I think, at least without drawing a distinction between this factor and those traditionally considered "objective".

But setting aside arguments about semantics, I think the deep seated stigmas around mental health that have only recently started to fade are a huge factor in the language we use to describe these issues, and I would argue seem to influence many people's perception of the importance of "subjective" factors (i.e. they deprioritize these factors or think they are not as "real" as objective factors).

People tend to think of issues that impact mental health as somehow less objective, because mental health is itself subjective. While it's objectively true that if I do not have enough money to buy food and don't find some other way to acquire it, I will die, it is not objectively true that two people experiencing the same social media environment will be impacted by it the same way, and yet this is an experience that can also lead to death.

But even if we accept that subjective factors are the primary issue, we can still trace those back to objective causes, it's just that we cannot use the same mental models of understanding "objective quality of life". We could find that social media is objectively the cause of degraded mental health (and studies are confirming this), but the impact itself is still subjective, unlike traditional economic indicators.

In other words, subjective experience could be just as critical to understand and explore as objective factors, and that subjectivity does not in any way reduce the importance or validity of such exploration.

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