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A mental health crisis in science

nature.com

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Re: A mental health crisis in science

#21

Post by mistrial9 »

PaulHoule wrote: post #19
oaiey wrote: post #13

What I found interesting of this article is that most of it is also applicable to a many tech sector jobs. High pressure to deliver something (because we squeeze the last of people), hire-and-fire practices everywhere, politics and toxic environments (because that is what people do and what is the current social perspective on what is okay). Developers, like scientists, are very outcome driven (number of lines, numbe…

Tech job hunts are easy in good times. (e.g. leave one employer, take a day off, interview at another employer the day after that, start working the week after) Academic jobs are nothing like that.

notice that "leading" tech companies fixed this, with artificial hazing behavior in interviews, and changing the norms of hiring from two interviews to more than six, as widely reported.

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#22

Post by refurb »

cornercasechase wrote: post #20
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve worked with groups of juniors and college students every year for a while now. I agree that something is going on, but I don’t think there is a single explanation. Social media is a big part of it, but from what I’ve seen it’s not in the way people usually describe it. The most unhappy people I see aren’t the ones talking to their friends on Instagram and Facebook during their lunch break. To be honest, those pe…

I think being angry is a natural and healthy response to the current economic reality. The juniors you’re working with have it right. If the CEO is going to make 100X as much as me, I’m going to do my best to work 100X less than they do. Hopefully we’ve reached a timeline where we no longer acquiesce to rampant inequality.

If the CEO is going to make 100X as much as me, I’m going to do my best to work 100X less than they do.

You realized CEO's make that much money after a long career where they were busting their asses as juniors.

You basically made the same argument the grandparent is criticizing.

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#23

Post by PaulHoule »

Lutger wrote: post #15
mensetmanusman wrote: post #2

Have been in research 20 years, and cultures vary dramatically by group. Scientists also seem to be more anxiety prone than the general population. Also, it doesn't help if you take your work too seriously.

I'm sorry to say it and you probably mean well, but your response sounds like the very kind of victim blaming that perpetuates and reinforces the abusive culture the article is talking about. Instead of the victims or the culture, I'd rather look at the systemic issues that scientific institutions struggle with: debt, lack of social mobility, being underpaid and overworked, etc.

I would point out this

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2022/08/31/22-tenu...

as one of the elephants in the room. It's particularly a problem for DEI because someone who diagnoses their problem as "I am a woman", "I am black", ... is missing the major factor that the people who seem to fit in just fine in academia just fine are working in the family business. That is, at best you can erase "black stigma" but the privilege you are looking for is not a "white privilege" shared by all whites but rather a much more specific privilege, and if we just got them to where the average white person is they'd still feel lost at sea.

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#24

Post by fullshark »

marktangotango wrote: post #10
grt_thr wrote: post #9

When I was a post grad I could make less than I would at McDonalds for work I was volontold to do. I did the smart thing and quit. When you select for people who don't do the smart thing and want to be exploited in exchange for prestige they get exploited.

Whenever these things come up, I'm always grateful toward my past self who opted out of academia and pursued industry. The entire system of placing your fate in the hands of disinterested, self motivated, senior faculty and researchers seemed very risky to me at the time. Plus the money has been nice. But I do feel like I missed out on some intellectual growth. YMMV.

In grad school I learned a bunch of stuff and pushed forward a research topic that was outdated at the time but I just had no idea. Once I got into industry it was obvious and I had to catch up. The degree ended up providing nothing more than a signal for job interviews.

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#25

Post by jrochkind1 »

_fat_santa wrote: post #3

It seems like this is a symptom of a larger problem, rates of anxiety and depression have been going up in recent years in pretty much every facet. I always hear that social media is to blame, but I wonder if that is really the case? I feel like something else is going on, maybe it's just a totality of smaller issues rather than one big problem.

In a recent Ezra Klein show interview [1] with social scientist Jean Twenge on the documented rise in teenage depression, Twenge found it correlated with a rise in social media use, but also found that increasing social media use was correlated with fewer hours of in-person social interaction among teens than previous.

While Twenge wanted to talk about both things (and I'm somewhat suspicious of the certainty of her conclusions), I found it pretty thought-provoking to focus on the drop in in-person social interaction as the driver. Social media use can quite likely lead to lower in-person socialization (I do think it's likely causation, and in that direction). And there may be other social factors doing such too. Covid obviously. (note that rise in teen depression trend started well before covid though). Over-protectiveness (for teens) or general fear of risk of "the world"/focus on risk reduction. (They talked about this a bit).

To me it seems pretty clear (just my intuition/perception, not from actual social science) that our society is having a crisis of lack of meaningful relationships/community and lack of feeling of purpose in one's life, and this is leading to depression and anxiety. (As well as possible political disaster). What exactly is causing that lack of meaninful relationships and purpose, and what can be done, is harder. I think the internet is a (large) part of it, but so are other parts of the social/political/economic system.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/19/opinion/ezra-klein-podcas...

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#26

Post by cornercasechase »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #4
_fat_santa wrote: post #3

It seems like this is a symptom of a larger problem, rates of anxiety and depression have been going up in recent years in pretty much every facet. I always hear that social media is to blame, but I wonder if that is really the case? I feel like something else is going on, maybe it's just a totality of smaller issues rather than one big problem.

Social media does sound like a decent theory though. To your point, the issues plaguing the US ( and indeed the world ) have not changed that much over the past four decades. What did change is relative access to information, which exacerbated and maybe even hastened some trends. The small factors were always there, but were not as commonly seen for a variety of reasons ( social stigma, exposure to media, 'toughen up…

> To your point, the issues plaguing the US ( and indeed the world ) have not changed that much over the past four decades.

Wealth inequality has an increased a lot in the last four decades. I’d start there when looking for a source for mental health issues.

https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-...

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#27

Post by cornercasechase »

refurb wrote: post #22
cornercasechase wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think being angry is a natural and healthy response to the current economic reality. The juniors you’re working with have it right. If the CEO is going to make 100X as much as me, I’m going to do my best to work 100X less than they do. Hopefully we’ve reached a timeline where we no longer acquiesce to rampant inequality.

If the CEO is going to make 100X as much as me, I’m going to do my best to work 100X less than they do. You realized CEO's make that much money after a long career where they were busting their asses as juniors. You basically made the same argument the grandparent is criticizing.

I realize that the CEO was born into a family where they were handed their position. You don’t get to the top by “working hard” that’s a sucker’s game. You need to be born to the right family, grease the right palms and be in the right place at the right time. Being a complete sociopath doesn’t hurt either.

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#29

Post by trabant00 »

The world is as good as it's ever has been in human history. Minorities, females, lgbtq members, etc, have more rights, are more protected and represented than ever. Extreme poverty is down, life expectancy is up. Human rights for any group are enforced as never before. But mental health issues are still going up at alarming rates. So it must be something else.

I have various hypothesis as to what other causes may be but they're not worth very much. The problem is too complex for one head to understand it. It's like trying to determine the cluster health from one server. IT CAN NOT BE DONE. I don't care what your credentials are, if you're not a god you can't do it.

I am willing to present this hypothesis in public: presenting the world in an idealized and false light, pretending that it should a safe space for everybody in which conflicts of interest and identities should not bother anybody is not helping. Generations are growing up expecting the world to embrace them, their identity, their ideas. This is causing fragility.

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#30

Post by tptacek »

oaiey wrote: post #13

What I found interesting of this article is that most of it is also applicable to a many tech sector jobs. High pressure to deliver something (because we squeeze the last of people), hire-and-fire practices everywhere, politics and toxic environments (because that is what people do and what is the current social perspective on what is okay). Developers, like scientists, are very outcome driven (number of lines, numbe…

Having now two lab scientists living under my roof, there is nothing even in the stories I've heard of the video game industry that compares to how toxic research culture is. It is next-level, as if being vexatious was a goal on its own --- which, given the culture generation after generation of PIs have come up through, might at this point actually be the case: students and employees are threatened, berated, harassed, and coerced into ludicrous hours as part of a dues-paying process.
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