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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)

#811

Post by Quekid5 »

CraigJPerry wrote: post #184
Quekid5 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The newspaper at least... stops once you've read it -- so that's what an hour (or whatever) gone of your day. That's a major difference, at least.

Today you consider a phone to be infinitely distracting because you haven’t experienced yet the next engrossing medium, we put our phones in our pockets occasionally today but perhaps tomorrow we just won’t take our iQuest3 thingys off our faces between sunrise and bedtime. Someone will be well placed to make your argument - well at least you put your phone away at some point! The socially challenging bit is the diff…

That's true up to a point, but digital media really is different from analog media which cannot be updated dynamically. That's the difference, I think.

(And, yes, more and more people are putting away the phone because they realize how intrusive it is in terms of time spent doomscrolling, etc.)

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

#812

Post by grecy »

merek wrote: post #48
grecy wrote: post #35

Do teens have much to look forward to? Climate change is already causing severe weather events, which are very likely to ramp quickly. Careers are a thing of the past, and it seems like no matter how hard you work you'll never "get ahead" and will be lucky not to spend your life living paycheck to paycheck. Life expectancy has gone down, markedly. Debt is up. New wars.

> Life expectancy has gone down, markedly. Do you have a source for this? I'm curious in which country and by how much.

Checkout the graph

https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-lif...

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

#813

Post by vkou »

jprete wrote: post #408
lispm wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how about Netflix and co.?

Netflix's product isn't as good as social media is for getting past our defenses. Also, TV shows must be made for the masses so the propaganda is frequently obvious and the content is less addictive.

Maybe it's not as good as social media at getting past your defenses (Congratulations! You think you are good at dealing with propaganda!)

But we're talking about societal problems, not your particular case. You've no shortage of neighbours whose brain turns off the moment the boob tube turns on to some talking head screaming about something or other.

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

#814

Post by throwaway092323 »

asylteltine wrote: post #670
throwaway092323 wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why put "feeling unsafe" in scare quotes? There's a lot to feel unsafe about right now.

Because it’s a ridiculous notion. National crime is at an all time low and gets lower every year. You haven’t been safer more than you are today. Mental safety is feel good progressive nonsense. If you can’t handle reality, you are eventually going to snap.

Crime isn't the only thing that impacts people's health.

- Difficulty getting insurance to see the doctor impacts peoples' safety and sense of safety. - Fear of gaps in insurance coverage keeps people in toxic jobs where they feel unsafe. - Many people can't get prescription medicines they need, impacting health. - Homelessness is increasing - Polarized political speech, including hate speech, causes legitimate anxiety, contributing to poor psychological health.

None of the above things were as big of a problem 20 years ago. Using "crime" as a measure of unsafety only makes sense if you have access to healthcare, a stable job, and don't face discrimination.

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

#815

Post by magic_hamster »

api wrote: post #430
2devnull wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

s/social media/books/g

Social media is nothing like books. It's also nothing like eBooks, Wikipedia, regular discussion forums, telephones, etc. Modern social media has some completely novel characteristics that are responsible for its damaging effects on mental health. - It's optimized to "maximize engagement," which is code for making it addictive. When anyone says engagement in our industry it's usually a euphemism for addiction. - It d…

This is barely scraping the surface. Social media might not be the only thing causing harm to society, but it is still a raging dumpster fire which can be seen from space.

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

#816

Post by asylteltine »

throwaway092323 wrote: post #814
asylteltine wrote: post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it’s a ridiculous notion. National crime is at an all time low and gets lower every year. You haven’t been safer more than you are today. Mental safety is feel good progressive nonsense. If you can’t handle reality, you are eventually going to snap.

Crime isn't the only thing that impacts people's health. - Difficulty getting insurance to see the doctor impacts peoples' safety and sense of safety. - Fear of gaps in insurance coverage keeps people in toxic jobs where they feel unsafe. - Many people can't get prescription medicines they need, impacting health. - Homelessness is increasing - Polarized political speech, including hate speech, causes legitimate anxie…

Do anything of those things affect you personally though? Do most people get affected by that? People make things worse in their heads. Life is fine.

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

#817

Post by mschuster91 »

tomp wrote: post #796
mschuster91 wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course you can’t ignore the rise of social media since 2010, but what about the level of control, structure, and surveillance that most young people have been subjected to over the same arc of time? Add on top the permacrises/polycrisis time we're in. My generation, we entered the workforce right during the 2008ff financial crisis. The Europeans got further fucked by the Euro crisis 2010, which crippled our care…

> Right in the midst of that, the US elected the 45th and we all know how that one went. If there’s one thing we’ve learned in the past 7 years (through Trump, Brexit and Covid) it’s that propaganda works . See how you listed concrete issues for most of your complaints, but nothing specific for Trump? Just “we all know”. But if you actually think about his presidency, and ignore the fear mongering and propaganda, not…

> See how you listed concrete issues for most of your complaints, but nothing specific for Trump? Just “we all know”.

Because I don't wish to get too political here, not for stuff I'd assume to indeed be general knowledge:

- the fight of Conservatives and the far-right against LGBT rights and abortion rights (I'll admit the SC decision Dobbs v. Jackson happened later, during Biden's term, but Trump and McConnell set the stage for this with their SC judge picks). LGBT youth already face a significantly higher risk of suicide, no need to make that intentionally worse.

- Trump incited a coup with thousands marching on and invading the US Capitol as a result, and nearly getting a high amount of Senators killed or kidnapped (there's enough evidence to suggest it's mostly the actions of Eugene Goodman that led to this not happening [1]).

- related to this, there has been a marked, massive and sustained increase in political violence during his term, mostly from the far-right [2], as well as a general polarization of US society.

- Trump leading the US out of the Paris Agreement on climate change, the most pressing issue for our generation

- Trump's abysmal handling of Covid and himself spreading fake news (hydroxychloroquine, Chinese lab conspiracy myth), leading to 1.1 million deaths [7], a complete breakdown of trust in something as basic and vital as vaccines [3] or masks or public health in general. Anthony Fauci had to deal with people threatening his life for years [4][5].

- Trump, the self-proclaimed "king of debt" who promised to reduce the debt prior to taking office, instead massively increased the US national debt [6]. I'll give a tiny pass due to Covid effects, but that's about it - better handling of the pandemic could have saved a lot of that money.

- Trump fanning the flames on the Israel-Palestine conflict by relocating the US embassy to Jerusalem. No matter one's stance on that conflict, it's undeniable that this move had a net negative effect. (Also note that Trump proposed a "deal" to solve that conflict that never happened in the end)

- Trump mocked media, women, disabled people, veterans, minorities relentlessly throughout his campaign, his term and after it. The resulting disgraceful decline of political conversation quality will have lasting effects (Overton effect), not to mention it was behavior completely unworthy of the President of the US.

- In his final days in office, Trump pushed the "Big Steal" lie so hard that it completely eroded trust in democracy itself among wide parts of the population [8]. To this day, he has not admitted he has legally lost the 2020 election (compared to Al Gore in the way sketchier 2000 elections). For me, this is the biggest most negative effect on the future - how much are free and fair elections actually worth if significant parts of the population do not believe that the elections were free and fair?

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/i-m-very-fortu...

[2] https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/the-rise-of-poli...

[3] https://apnews.com/article/health-immunizations-children-mea...

[4] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/05/dr-fauci-says-his-daughters-...

[5] https://fortune.com/2023/09/25/anthony-fauci-security-detail...

[6] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/01/14/trump-leg...

[7] https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/

[8] https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meetthepressblog/almo...

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

#818

Post by Broken_Hippo »

popcalc wrote: post #499
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Churches aren't for everyone. I'm bisexual, and they mostly don't exist for me. Furthermore, I shouldn't have to pretend to believe in some invisible god just to have community.

For some people community is a furry discord server.

Which is fine. I always found it easier to find online communities than IRL ones. Heck, I met my partner online. But these aren't something most folks include.

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

#819

Post by throwaway092323 »

asylteltine wrote: post #816
throwaway092323 wrote: post #814

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crime isn't the only thing that impacts people's health. - Difficulty getting insurance to see the doctor impacts peoples' safety and sense of safety. - Fear of gaps in insurance coverage keeps people in toxic jobs where they feel unsafe. - Many people can't get prescription medicines they need, impacting health. - Homelessness is increasing - Polarized political speech, including hate speech, causes legitimate anxie…

Do anything of those things affect you personally though? Do most people get affected by that? People make things worse in their heads. Life is fine.

People can't just choose to stop feeling unsafe. Chronic stress causes brain damage and reduces tolerance to further stress. This is a fact. Calling people in this situation irrational accomplishes nothing.

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

#820

Post by 303uru »

alienicecream wrote: post #102
303uru wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So quick to blame social media, even the article just waves it's hand and makes the assumption. Why not declining social mobility? Why not climate change anxiety? Why not late stage capitalism? Nah, it's always easy to blame Tik Tok as if the chosen release isn't indicative of something much greater going on.

Yeah that's what the kids are thinking about, late-stage capitalism and declining social mobility.

I'd challenge you to enter a school. I volunteer and run two clubs and they very much are talking about these things.
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