As much as I respect Haidt's other work, his recent investigation into teen mental health is non-rigorous. None of his conclusions are supported.
[flagged]
The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere
121–130 of 514 posts
Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere
#122These always come up and there's always this internet-commenter tendency to be like "I KNEW IT: SMARTPHONES/INTERNET/LACK-OF-RELIGION/ABCDEFG ANYTHING OF THE LAST 20 YEARS I HATE", which is fine for a hypothesis and worth somebody saying once. But it's really just a hypothesis. Another hypothesis is that it's environmental. There's a lot of research showing depression and stress are correlated with inflammation. Ther…
I suppose there are different pollutants all the time, but the areas I'm familiar with (SF Bay and LA) have gotten much less polluted in the last few decades, at least by how they look and smell. I suspect our air and water is safer now than 20 years ago, and much safer than 40 years ago. Solitary entertainment has grown drastically more engaging in the last few decades, and it seems reasonable to think that it has c…
Humans might be fine with some form of pollution but not others, so "there's less trash and the factory isn't dumping glowing sludge into the bay" doesn't really rule out that there's some pollution that's less visible but problematic for a subset of people (or problematic when combined with other factors, e.g. veganism or listening to mumble rap).
Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
One key element (though not the only one) is Dobbs v. Jackson , subsequent legislation encouraged by it, and the highly visible effects that this has had on reproductive healthcare even where no actual elective abortion is involved . In terms of cultural expectations of progress and very visceral potential personal impact and perceived position in society, this is a radical reverse for that group (on the second point…
That doesn't fit the data though. Dobbs v Jackson was in 2022. The increase starts in around 2012. That's before Trump and the current wave of politicians who are behind Dobbs, etc. In 2012, Obama was President, the Paycheck Fairness Act was passed, Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, Pelosi had recently been the first woman to be speaker of the house, two women were added to the supreme court, etc.
That's just it: 2012 was the high point, from which the decline is measured. Focus turned to Hillary Clinton, and began the long train of abuse that led to her losing in 2016.
Much of that abuse was explicitly misogynist. Misogyny had been deprecated for a long time, but had a resurgence starting right around 2012.
Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere
#124Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
Notably, though, the charts start showing massive growth in depression around 2012, which was long before Dobbs. And there are some trends in the opposite direction - iirc hormonal birth control used to be much harder to get (telehealth has made the prescription requirement much less onerous), and anecdotally nowadays it seems a lot easier to get info on sterilization or methods for intentionally changing menstruatio…
> I’m not saying Dobbs doesn’t matter, only that I both 1) doubt it’s a central driver of the trend Yeah, I’m not saying it (or reproductive rights & health care more generally) is the central driver of the trend, I’m saying its one of the key reasons why if someone asked me, today, what group in American society would be most depressed, my intuitive response would be “white liberal teen girls” (particularly, its a k…
Interesting. I would much rather be a (white liberal) teen girl today than in ~2012, but I can see how insofar as Dobbs is only a manifestation of existing trends, I might be in the minority.
It's just hard to wrap my head around what this trend would be, or why teens started picking up on it in 2012. I am not conscious of any major modern debates around women's rights except abortion/birth control, and I see no particular link between the causes of Dobbs and that generic time period.
Also, possibly as proof that I'm not a great commenter on the issue, I thought only ~8% of women had abortions, but in looking it up while writing this comment apparently it's more like 25% (so abortion & related issues affect way more women/girls than I expected).
Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere
#126As much as I respect Haidt's other work, his recent investigation into teen mental health is non-rigorous. None of his conclusions are supported.
[flagged]
Huh. My impression is that a preponderance of HN agrees with his conclusion. Stories about it from a variety of sources (not just Haidt) routinely make the front page; ditto techno-negative stories in general.
But true or not, he hasn't come close to supporting his claims.
Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere
#127Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere
#128Seeing as how my daughter has gone through ten years of therapy due to depression I'll throw my hat in the ring and tell you what I think at least part of the problem is: Late stage, winner-takes-all & loser-gets-nothing, Capitalism. Those of us who are well-entrenched in our careers may not understand how vicious the world is for the entry-level and those aspiring to launch careers. The secondary schools preach and…
American society has always been ruthlessly capitalist, I don't think that explanation holds for why there is a recent increase in depression. People have gone through much tougher times and seemed to thrive once the bad times ended. I refuse to believe today is any tougher than what past generations went through.
I think what is going on isn't that complicated. The biggest problem is that internet and smartphones have reduced the meaningfulness and weight of local and in person interactions. When we hung out as kids and teenagers the people around you were all you had. They mattered much more to you because what else was there to do?
Also, we measure our social status in a relative manner and the comparison group is no longer the people in your town or high school. It's the whole country or world in some case.
You meet a new person and find out they are really good at an instrument. In the past that would garner a decent amount of respect. Now using your phone you can instantly pull up thousands of people who are better. Thirty years ago imagine the ego sustenance a person would get from being the best guitar player or artist at their high school.
Basically the social value of the younger generation to each other has decreased. How would that not cause widespread depression?
Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere
#129These always come up and there's always this internet-commenter tendency to be like "I KNEW IT: SMARTPHONES/INTERNET/LACK-OF-RELIGION/ABCDEFG ANYTHING OF THE LAST 20 YEARS I HATE", which is fine for a hypothesis and worth somebody saying once. But it's really just a hypothesis. Another hypothesis is that it's environmental. There's a lot of research showing depression and stress are correlated with inflammation. Ther…
I suppose there are different pollutants all the time, but the areas I'm familiar with (SF Bay and LA) have gotten much less polluted in the last few decades, at least by how they look and smell. I suspect our air and water is safer now than 20 years ago, and much safer than 40 years ago. Solitary entertainment has grown drastically more engaging in the last few decades, and it seems reasonable to think that it has c…
> I suppose there are different pollutants all the time, but the areas I'm familiar with (SF Bay and LA) have gotten much less polluted in the last few decades, at least by how they look and smell
I want to point out that pollution can be invisible. As a thought experiment - the amount of lead in your water it would take to permanently damage your brain would be invisible, untasteable, and miniscule. It's worth remembering how fragile we really are.
Is it water? Most water supplies only test for about 8-10 chemicals. Who knows? Is it the microplastics we eat?
As for why it would be worse now when our environment is getting better -- perhaps the damage is accumulating each generation (like sperm counts are going down each generation). There are a lot of cases where pregnant mother being exposed to something can have severe effects on the child, and sometimes even the grandchild (look up diethystylbestrol).
Anyways, this is just a hypothesis, but it seems to me it should be given as strong a starting consideration as anything else. I'm sure it's not too hard to take blood samples from a few thousand people to look for health correlations to these mood issues.