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The teen mental illness epidemic is international (2023)

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Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international (2023)

#271

Post by Joking_Phantom »

mike_hearn wrote: post #242

This is a super interesting thread, but (un)fortunately Haidt's claims about a teen mental health epidemic have been pretty convincingly debunked. https://reason.com/2023/03/29/the-statistically-flawed-evide... Aaron Brown checked a sample of the papers Haidt relies on to build his case and found that they couldn't support his claims. They're of the sort of quality we've come to expect from the field, dominated by ti…

This fits what I've read. Data driven decision making is the way to go, but good data is hard to come by in these fields. We have no baseline for many parts of physical health, let alone mental health. Every time a pop culture scientist tries to justify their world perspective without taking the source of data seriously, it does the field as a whole serious harm.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international (2023)

#272

Post by jampekka »

hypertele-Xii wrote: post #255
gherkinnn wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is "the modern western world"? The Finns, Italians, and Californians by and large have a very different idea of "community".

Reporting from Finland, there is no community other than church.

From Finland too. I have friends, colleagues, family members, shared hobbies, activism groups, sports teams and neighbors.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international (2023)

#273

Post by goodpoint »

leksak wrote: post #249
elzbardico wrote: post #39

People blame social media, but they never ask why social media is like that. I think that the cultural changes that lead to that have been running for far more time than people give credit for, and that social media is just the proverbial canary on the mine that made things explicit. Those changes are multi-generational changes, and more probably there are a multitude of factors behind it. Family structure, economy f…

What would reagonomics and the Vietnam War have to do with teen mental health in say northern Europe?

Everything.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international (2023)

#274

Post by DoreenMichele »

Joking_Phantom wrote: post #271
mike_hearn wrote: post #242

This is a super interesting thread, but (un)fortunately Haidt's claims about a teen mental health epidemic have been pretty convincingly debunked. https://reason.com/2023/03/29/the-statistically-flawed-evide... Aaron Brown checked a sample of the papers Haidt relies on to build his case and found that they couldn't support his claims. They're of the sort of quality we've come to expect from the field, dominated by ti…

This fits what I've read. Data driven decision making is the way to go, but good data is hard to come by in these fields. We have no baseline for many parts of physical health, let alone mental health. Every time a pop culture scientist tries to justify their world perspective without taking the source of data seriously, it does the field as a whole serious harm.

Human behavior is notoriously hard to quantify with hard data you can trust that is pertinent, lacks confounding factors etc.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international (2023)

#275

Post by wisty »

anon373839 wrote: post #138
AnarchismIsCool wrote: post #95

I think all the social media stuff is missing the mark. It's 100% bad but it's just trash filling the hole society is making. Looking top down at the problem, humans need self actualization or propose to be happy. Originally we evolved to live in medium sized social groups that worked together to ensure their survival, we took care of each other and that was what drove our purpose, or rather why that need evolved, it…

> I think all the social media stuff is missing the mark. I think phones may well be responsible. Before smartphones, people regularly experienced true downtime - unstructured moments with nothing to do except be in your surroundings, feel your own boredom, experience your thoughts. Now, the moment our attention isn’t occupied by something external, we reach for our phones to have something to fill the silence. I bel…

I'm going to say there's at least four factors, all related to bad parenting, not that bad parenting is the only cause.

The phone as a babysitter is a big one, but also parents on phones / social media.

There's also an atomisation of society (fewer extended family and friends, and institutions like church groups). And parents work longer hours.

Kids go home and suck on a digital pacifier so their parents can do the same, and those parents haven't got anything else to do. What chance does the kid have?

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international (2023)

#276

Post by mrweasel »

mbgerring wrote: post #100
elzbardico wrote: post #39

People blame social media, but they never ask why social media is like that. I think that the cultural changes that lead to that have been running for far more time than people give credit for, and that social media is just the proverbial canary on the mine that made things explicit. Those changes are multi-generational changes, and more probably there are a multitude of factors behind it. Family structure, economy f…

Social media is like that because it was deliberately designed to be addictive and we have a decade of documentation to back that up.

That is something I've been think about, what if social media wasn't designed to be addictive? There shouldn't be anything inherently wrong in keeping in contact with your high school buddies on Facebook, so what if all the doom scrolling, likes, and corporate profiles where removed from Facebook? Would it be safer?

I think there's are huge risk that we are about to realize that either social media cannot be made safe, at all, or that it has been made dangerous in order to make a profit. Either way is terrifying and should lead to a larger skepticism of new technology. The horrible reality of social media, and the ad funded Internet is what has fueled my reluctance to accept crypto currency and AI into my life, as much as it is within my control to do so.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international (2023)

#277

Post by photonthug »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #262
dr_dshiv wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Running clubs and associations and churches and any nonprofit oriented community organization is hard work. Throw more parties. That’s one solution. It’s not easy either, but it isn’t pure hedonism. It’s creating real social bonds. And it takes real work!! Underappreciated.

Throw more parties Ok. So what do poor people do? Or folks living in spaces too small for such things?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place

Not that building these is or was ever that easy for the impoverished, but hey, before civil society became more secular, folks still managed to throw together churches even without the Vatican. Not that I think we need more churches, but makerspaces are a very good idea, and should ideally serve a larger segment of their host community beyond just hardware and software nerds.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international (2023)

#278

Post by cf1241290841 »

vjk800 wrote: post #256
bratbag wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depression is not a rational response though, is it? It's an irrational response that persists even when there is no reason to be unhappy. That's why I give little credence to ideas like those in your link. I don't consider the worldview of depressed people to be valuable to my own life experience.

> It's an irrational response that persists even when there is no reason to be unhappy. What if there is? Generally, we are not very good at judging what makes us happy. Happiness research points to things that many of us are indeed missing in life: physical activity, social connectedness, interacting with nature. The reason for unhappiness might also be internal; bad diet, lack of exercise, etc. throws your body's h…

Which you can change. I was talking more about the overall circumstances you cant change.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international (2023)

#280

Post by fasterik »

smeagull wrote: post #103
nradov wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mentioned the "effect of ever faster economic growth across the world". But economic growth hasn't become consistently faster .

Continued growth is alarming on its own.

Hard disagree. Economic growth is what raises people's standard of living. We're not going to eliminate poverty without continued growth. That doesn't mean it doesn't also cause problems, but those problems are solvable.
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