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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)

#631

Post by AlexandrB »

elzbardico wrote: post #162
alienicecream wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More likely the libertine social movements of the sixties leading to a breakdown of social standards and family life.

While it may be taboo to say so, I believe this is a strong factor. Most changes in life have tradeoffs, winners and losers. Divorce may be great for the general happiness of the adults involved, but despite all boomer rationalizations in the line "I can raise happy kids if I am not absolutely happy", it generally sucks for kids.

I grew up in a dysfunctional family, and while the breakup was tough, it was miles better than listening to my parents screaming their heads off at each other (after drinking) every night. Maybe the boomers thought divorce was good not because of their own happiness, but because many of them experienced the "stick together at all costs" culture of their parents and didn't want to put their kids through that.

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

#632

Post by [deleted] »

soylentcola wrote: post #601
CalRobert wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We just moved from three painfully lonely acres in the countryside to a small city and my kids seem much happier.

Seriously, we moved to the middle of nowhere when I was a kid and it sucked. Nobody to play with. Not much to do outside (it was mostly just fields). So of course I found things to get up to that often got me into trouble. Boredom and lack of mental stimulation are not great for anyone, but for kids who don't yet have the skills to deal with it, the results can be a lot worse.

[deleted]

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

#633

Post by beaeglebeached »

resoluteteeth wrote: post #575
throwup238 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that arc largely peaked in the 1980s and 1990s with stranger danger and the satanic panic nonsense. Helicopter parents and people calling social services on unattended kids was already a meme by the 90s.

> I think that arc largely peaked in the 1980s and 1990s with stranger danger and the satanic panic nonsense. Helicopter parents and people calling social services on unattended kids was already a meme by the 90s. It stopped being a meme because the expected level of parental supervision of children got much higher and it went from being perceived as a thing that only weird people to what is required of parents in mo…

Yet if you attend to a child as anything but a stereotypical mom look you'll have the police called and men with guns roll up and scare your child and detain them because it's "suspicious" as happened to me as a racially mixed dad-family at the park with my kid. Accused of kidnapping and held for a good hour.

You literally cannot win.

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

#634

Post by WalterBright »

Ashken wrote: post #563
WalterBright wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider all the labor regulations since. All the complexity of the taxes. The design of cars today is completely driven by regulations - for example, the tendency for cars to all look alike comes from regulation of every aspect of them. Regulation has driven a lot of industry out of America, as it made it too expensive to operate here. In what area has government been reduced?

Education, for sure. In tech, while there are some regulations, I definitely believe that more need to be established, especially regarding the topic of the article. Tech is a bit too loose right now, with the exception of the health industry.

> Education, for sure.

Are you sure? Hasn't government K-12 spending per student increased far faster than inflation? And how about all that federal money for student loans?

Keep in mind that money always comes with strings attached.

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

#635

Post by bentley »

noelherrick wrote: post #603
echelon wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids need more time away from other kids. They're spending too much time in the insane asylum with the other inmates. This leads to bullying, gossiping, comparing themselves against one another. Social media made it worse. Kids at home on the farm, reading books, exploring nature - that was healthy. Now they're addicted to algorithmic peer pressure before their brains can even adjust to filtering it out.

Humans, including kids, are inherently social creatures, and are happiest when communing with their fellow creatures (including pets, but mostly other humans). Kids are most happy when they and their friends are playing together, and my personal belief is that they are happiest when helping other people together (so much of my childhood play was around pretending being a hero, sacrificing and risking my life for the…

> Humans, including kids, are inherently social creatures, and are happiest when communing with their fellow creatures

That may be generally true, but it doesn’t imply that time alone is always bad, nor that all time “being social” is good. It’s certainly plausible that the explosion of access to social media has been a net negative and that spending some of that time alone would be better.

Thinking back, the time I spent having sneaked to the school library during lunch break definitely felt healthier than the times I got caught by a teacher and sent back to “socially commune” with my tormentors, er, classmates.

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

#636

Post by chasd00 »

tokai wrote: post #328

People pretend like this is a new startling development. But we are not even close to the youth suicides numbers of the 1880s. Luckily now we are talking about how we feel and try to get better, compared to the rest of human history. To me there is obviously no new epidemic, but just finally an acknowledgement of issues that has always been present.

> ..To me there is obviously no new epidemic..

another thing to look at is mental health medicine that has came on market around 2010 or so. If 50 different pills all started getting marketed to everyone for anything remotely not flowers and sunshine then that could be a contributing factor too.

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

#637

Post by philip1209 »

zelon88 wrote: post #541
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 expectat…

Work is still a social activity for most people, and it takes much of their time.

It's hard to talk about suburbanization without talking about work, too. Suburbs were created so people could have an isolated home, but still go IRL to work. With remote work, they're left with an isolated home and isolated work.

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

#638

Post by andrewla »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #626
andrewla wrote: post #605

The instinct is to treat this as an apocalyptic change of some sort in society. Here's an alternate framing. The DSM-5 was released in 2013.

The DSM is primarily used in the US, whereas the article is claiming that there is an international epidemic of teen mental health problems.

The ICD-11 has a not-coincidental release schedule aligned with the DSM-5.

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

#639

Post by chasd00 »

renewiltord wrote: post #13

I suppose the interesting question is what parents of non-sick teens are doing differently from parents of sick teens. Is it a property that some teens are inherently more resilient or is it a property that some teens have a different home environment? There's many post-hoc explanations possible but the really interesting question to me is how some aren't sick. Is it just like PTSD where most people who encounter com…

I think the individual makes a lot of difference. Most people can go to a casino and have fun and be fine, most people can go to a bar and hav fun and be fine. Some people can't do either without destroying their life.

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

#640

Post by philip1209 »

bequanna wrote: post #543
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.

Suburbs are a relatively recent invention, powered by cars and racism [1].So, I don't think you can say "this is how it's always been."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoning_in_the_United_States

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