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A mental health crisis in science

nature.com

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Re: A mental health crisis in science

#141

Post by pelasaco »

Chris2048 wrote: post #121
pelasaco wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment has everything to do with the article, but unfortunately, the "it has nothing to do with the article" is one of the issues with Science. To keep my argumentation on topic: Historically, scientists never had a so safe life like today. In the past, scientists used to put their life at stake. Galileo, Copernicus, Turin, Einstein..

Einstein?

"When Hitler came to power in January 1933, Einstein was in California and was almost immediately deprived of his posts in Berlin and his membership of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. His property was seized and his books were burned in public. Einstein never returned to Germany, and signed a letter to President Roosevelt alerting him to the fact that Germany might be developing an atomic weapon. He recommended that the US begin similar research."[1]

[1]: https://www.wired.com/2012/06/famous-persecuted-scientists/

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#142

Post by photochemsyn »

abhayhegde wrote: post #42

Academia places unrealistic goals on brilliant people and pays them so meagerly that they have to often find other sources of income. On top of this, some of the advisors are outright unbearable with their demands and work expectations, the world seems bleak for even a motivated researcher. Amidst the scarcity of grants, measly pay, extremely competitive environment, uncertainties tied with job market, failures in ex…

Some advice for grad students who want to preserve their mental health:

1) Have an entirely separate life outside of academia. Do not mix the two, maintain a strict separation, and keep all academic relationships strictly professional.

2) Don't think of your advisor as anything other than an employer. They're not a father figure or a mentor or anything like that. You're just cheap labor, and don't forget it.

3) Don't think of you university as a 'place of learning and research' - they've all been corporatized to the hilt, and are basically run on the same lines as any business entity, including the worst aspects of corporate HR.

4) If you do have mental health issues, absolutely never go to anyone like a university-affiliated therapist, etc. If you ever have a dispute with the university, they'll use any such interaction in an effort to discredit you.

5) Fraudulent manipulation of data is more common than not as is dishonest behavior by PIs, and if your data from your own research doesn't agree with their past work, they'll try to prevent it from getting published and otherwise sabotage your progress, so expect that.

6) Academic politics is among the nastiest that exists, and enemies of your PI will also happily sabotage your progress just to make your PI look bad. Even other grad students might try something like this, so trust noone (and see #1).

7) If you have any really brilliant ideas with commercial potential, don't say a word about it to anyone, don't write it down, because the university will claim that it owns all your IP and will demand a percentage of anything you do with it, so keep quiet until you've left the system.

You can learn a lot if you get into the right situation, however. Careful vetting of any prospective research group is important in that respect.

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#143

Post by teaearlgraycold »

vkou wrote: post #131
qazpot wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the part about "unrealistic goals" is applicable to a lot of spheres of life and exacerbated by the social media. Social media after all inflicts high expectations and pressure to convert your life into a performance on everyone irrespective of profession, culture, age, country. And ofcourse the Titans of social media - zuckerberg, chamath, tiktok and 1000s of engineers, PMs will not pay for the harm their en…

Blaming social media for this is shooting the messenger. You don't need Facebook or the Gram to be keenly aware that all your university buddies who went into tech are going on vacations to Maui and buying their second homes, while you're still grinding your life away for nothing in a university lab. In fact, all you need to do be aware of this is to show up to your friends' bi-weekly happy hour at the local.

I’m curious how that isn’t obvious to someone going into research.

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#144

Post by obscurette »

vkou wrote: post #131
qazpot wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the part about "unrealistic goals" is applicable to a lot of spheres of life and exacerbated by the social media. Social media after all inflicts high expectations and pressure to convert your life into a performance on everyone irrespective of profession, culture, age, country. And ofcourse the Titans of social media - zuckerberg, chamath, tiktok and 1000s of engineers, PMs will not pay for the harm their en…

Blaming social media for this is shooting the messenger. You don't need Facebook or the Gram to be keenly aware that all your university buddies who went into tech are going on vacations to Maui and buying their second homes, while you're still grinding your life away for nothing in a university lab. In fact, all you need to do be aware of this is to show up to your friends' bi-weekly happy hour at the local.

> Blaming social media for this is shooting the messenger.

No, it's not. Social media created a world wide bullying environment. Most of people all over the world are in trouble because they have to compete with unrealistic image of you or your profession created by social media. Whatever you are or do, you are never good enough. Education, medical field and science are especially vulnerable in this regard.

Tech sector isn't really exception, but insane amount of money people get in some parts of the world for compensation makes it more tolerable.

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#145

Post by pmichaud »

currymj wrote: post #52
dbcooper wrote: post #33

A part of this is that in academia there are often few positive career rewards. You're under pressure to publish frequently, in high impact factor journals, and that is to keep your job. You don't get pay rises or bonuses, or any other career improvements, and job security can be until your next contract, at best. If you don't make it to tenured professor, and have good grant funding, then you are staring down the ba…

This would help on some level, although it would definitely make the stress on applicants much higher. E.g. there’s increasingly an expectation that students should come into a PhD program with one or more publications already under their belt. For top programs ideally these should be first author (not yet an absolute requirement but it’s more important each year). So you better get a good research assistant job as a…

A different possibility is that we stop trying to find "the best" candidates (which, by the way we're measuring with metrics that have been Goodharted well beyond relevance). What if this (and maybe everything else) worked via a kind of lottery:

1. The institution in question evaluates candidates as either a fit or not a fit. 2. The candidates who fit are the pool from which the positions are filled at random.

Obviously it's gameable as stated, but I think if I spent a day or two designing a better mechanism with the same premise, we'd end up with great candidates but without the hyperoptimization trap.

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#148

Post by vkou »

teaearlgraycold wrote: post #143
vkou wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blaming social media for this is shooting the messenger. You don't need Facebook or the Gram to be keenly aware that all your university buddies who went into tech are going on vacations to Maui and buying their second homes, while you're still grinding your life away for nothing in a university lab. In fact, all you need to do be aware of this is to show up to your friends' bi-weekly happy hour at the local.

I’m curious how that isn’t obvious to someone going into research.

It is quite obvious, which is why the parent poster's ire is misplaced.

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#149

Post by jdlyga »

I grew up in a family of scientists and professors. It's really disheartening to see how much trouble it is to make a living nowadays. My grandfather was an entomology professor, and was able to support a wife, 3 kids, and a nice house though they were no means wealthy. If you can't support yourself or a family in 2023 working in academia, why would anyone pursue it as a career?

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#150

Post by doubled112 »

DrThunder wrote: post #136
_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.

It's being coddled in a sense. You have an entire generation that had very little required of them. Many of them never heard the word no and were just given what they wanted. Additionally, k12 schools told them that any slight or disagreement put towards them was bullying and unacceptable. No one should have to hear opinions they don't agree with. Imagine growing up that way and then being sent off on your own. Of co…

Related, but not completely this topic, and a sample size of two warning!

I have a couple of boys, 5 and 8. They have tablets and computers, and they love them. Some days we don't use them, some days they spend far too much time on them. Life goes on, we do what we can. I played an entire metric crap ton of video games at those ages, and I turned out okay, I think.

I keep hearing "screen time." That is the enemy. I'm not so sure it's just the screens. Of course it's not playing outside in a field, but you can't let them wander too far, somebody will call the cops.

A lot of the modern stuff (TV shows, movies, games) seems to overstimulate them way quicker compared to something like playing a day's worth of Super Mario World. Like it was designed to lure them in and enrage them or something.

I'm imagining social media is the same, but we're not there yet. I don't do a lot of social media myself, so hopefully they will see the example.

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