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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)

#541

Post by zelon88 »

philip1209 wrote: post #527

I think this is going to hit in waves: 1. First teens, because they don't know better 2. Next new retirees, because they lose social connection from work and don't appreciate that social media + TV are unsuitable replacements. 3. Next, remote workers who moved from a city to a suburb, and become progressively more physically isolated unless they make a conscious effort to connect IRL outside the home with peers. #1 i…

You mention work several times. Work does not make people less depressed unless it is a) gainful or b) meaningful.

I think a lot of it is a result of people conflating productivity with worth, and worth with satisfaction.

You can be broke and completely satisfied with life, yourself, your situation. Likewise you can have great finances and still be anxious and restless and discontent. I believe comes down to expectations. Managing expectations is critical and not many people do it enough, if at all.

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

#542

Post by xyzelement »

philip1209 wrote: post #527

I think this is going to hit in waves: 1. First teens, because they don't know better 2. Next new retirees, because they lose social connection from work and don't appreciate that social media + TV are unsuitable replacements. 3. Next, remote workers who moved from a city to a suburb, and become progressively more physically isolated unless they make a conscious effort to connect IRL outside the home with peers. #1 i…

I am noticing an obvious exception to this among religious communities because those have an orientation around, well, community. These have built in in-person services, lifecycle events, studying, etc.

It’s interesting how in previous decades all of this stuff could seem superfluous since secular people were likewise getting together in the physical space. But today it seems almost like an inoculation against a dire social illness.

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

#543

Post by bequanna »

philip1209 wrote: post #527

I think this is going to hit in waves: 1. First teens, because they don't know better 2. Next new retirees, because they lose social connection from work and don't appreciate that social media + TV are unsuitable replacements. 3. Next, remote workers who moved from a city to a suburb, and become progressively more physically isolated unless they make a conscious effort to connect IRL outside the home with peers. #1 i…

#3: Isn't this what has happened anyway? Anecdotally, everyone I knew that was young, hip, and lived downtown moved to the surburbs once they reached a certain age.

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

#544

Post by pixl97 »

granshaw wrote: post #195
j4yav wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like there must be some generation coming that feels like being highly online is weird and embarassing, having grown up and seen the way their parents and other adults behave, and use the internet more as a utility rather than a place to try to primarily live. What makes this hard I think is how addictive it is for children, so by the time they might realize how embarassing it is they have already been addicte…

What makes it hard is the stigmatization of letting children roam free unsupervised, and the isolating nature of suburbs coupled with both parents being working parents. Kids can’t go anywhere and are stuck at home. None of their friends are within walking distance. What do you expect them to do?

No, I would say this is a totally different issue actually.

It doesn't matter where kids go these days because every single one of them has an internet connected cell phone at their side.

When they are with their friends, they are still with the internet. Their actions are moulded by it, as well they should be. If anything you do could be captured in video and posted online forever, you're going to change your behavior to reflect that reality.

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

#545

Post by rescbr »

croutonwagon wrote: post #509
JohnMakin wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being always online wasn’t quite so shitty til the last 10-15 years. Many people did it and were just fine for a long time. To me this feels like blaming food poisoning on the fact you have to eat food. Maybe the food is just bad. the current state of online is the food. it just really sucks.

I feel like the inflection point was about here: https://imgur.com/ALMObBv Not that I am blaming porn. I am not. But once the screens and bandwidth became large enough, UI's easy enough to navigate etc AND the devices themselves became quite commonplace, the always online mentality became one used much less for essential communication and business and transitioned more to a cultural way of life (porn is just an easy…

Infinite scrolling was also present in desktop.

I blame the pivot from the chronological feeds to algorithmically generated feeds based on engagement (or whatever other metric).

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

#546

Post by everdrive »

JohnMakin wrote: post #185
brazzy wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody except a very small minority of techno-nerds (and most of those not teenagers) was alawys online until about 15 years ago, the advent of the smartphone. It took easily another 5 years before a significant amount of teenagers had them, especially outside the richest countries. But of course it's not the technical capability that's the problem, it's the always-online culture , the network effects, the constant d…

Then why does this trend disproportionately affect girls? There is nothing particular special about “onlineness” that should affect them particularly worse than boys, but plenty of very real evidence that shows social media sites like IG are very harmful to girls (and meta knows it). There are plenty of millennials that have been terminally online since at least their early teens and weren’t showing this same trend.…

There are well-founded stereotypes regarding women's need for gossip. Men compete in other ways. It's women who are most addicted to social media, instagram, etc.

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

#547

Post by wait_a_minute »

pixl97 wrote: post #537
s1artibartfast wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is an issue of "can" in the "technically possible" vs "realistically possible". There are lots of people who have done exactly what you said, and others that never became terminally online, yet real-world re-adoption has been slow.

Technically possible: "We all stop eating too much and obesity drops" Realistically possible: "Obesity levels keep going up"

I think what you are both missing is that everyone reading this thread can, right now, schedule coffees and lunches and dinners for a month out and text people and get the ball rolling. We should not underestimate the impact of a few people making this effort, it will compound into great and positive results. I will be doing this myself since I recommended it. I expect to have at least five coffees or dinners scheduled for the next week by the end of the day. Let’s do it! Let’s get it done!

It has to start somewhere after all. <3

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

#548

Post by AlwaysRock »

wait_a_minute wrote: post #490
latentcall wrote: post #57

Not just social media, but always online mentality. Spending all your time online gives you a skewed perception of the world and I believe being online always is a major negative. Spending time outside is good for you. Socializing with real people in front of you is good also. Not sure if we can ever go back to that without some major catastrophe.

> Not sure if we can ever go back to that without some major catastrophe. We easily can. With the network effect, we can just encourage everyone we know that socializing with real people in real life is important and set up some coffees, lunches, dinners, walks, board games, etc, and then encourage those people to do the same with the people they know. Won't take very many hops to reach everyone this way and get back…

A lot of people want to spend more time with people irl but just dont know how/dont have access to like minded people irl.

Part of the allure of the internet is that if I want to talk about Mass Effect tabletop roll playing, there are plenty of other people to talk about that with. If I want to have a conversation about the same thing in person... Maybe there is someone in my city who might want to talk about that? But it is so much more work to make that happen than online.

I dont mind talking about sports/local stuff/mass media/small talk all that much but that is most of what I'm going to get from the folks I'm interacting with on a regular basis IRL.

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

#549

Post by nitwit005 »

usr1106 wrote: post #8

Few deny that a drinking age is necessary. We also need a smart phone age. It's quite obvious that many teens are addicted to their phones and the mostly useless content they consume there.

> Few deny that a drinking age is necessary.

Because of drunk driving. If that was not an issue, we certainly wouldn't have a drinking age of 21 in the US. Several states still allow your family to serve their children alcohol, which is closer to the example of letting your kid use the internet.

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

#550

Post by coffeebeqn »

illinx wrote: post #350

Does anyone know of any studies that look at rates of cigarette smoking, or activation of indoor smoking bans with respect to the data on mental illness? Most of the west banned indoor smoking around 2006-2008, roughly around when smartphone usage started to explode. AFAIK you can still smoke indoors in China--do they show the same trends? What about Nevada? Did any jurisdictions ban indoor smoking a few years before…

Depression is easier to treat than lung cancer
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