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The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere

jonathanhaidt.substack.com

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Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere

#141

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

dw_arthur wrote: post #128
taylodl wrote: post #74

Seeing 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 ha…

> People have gone through much tougher times and seemed to thrive once the bad times ended.

If I were a teenager I'd wonder when the bad times were going to end. In most previous "bad times" we've had an exit condition - usually beat the bad guys. What is it now? What are we fighting against to rally in commonality with others? Also, we didn't sample mental illness previously, so we don't really know how teenagers weathered the great depression. Thriving once the bad times ends doesn't indicate how they were doing during the bad times either.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere

#142

Post by zamnos »

evanmoran wrote: post #113
stuaxo wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We grew up with the threat of nuclear destruction, as well as global warming, in the 1980s.

We did, but we didn't have endless short videos to scroll through.

Yeah, instead we had our teachers reassure us that if we saw a nuclear explosion that we should hid under our desks and that would protect us. We ran drills practicing this, as if it were expected to happen any moment now.

I agree with you that it's worse these days. Now, the kids practice active shooter drills. It turns out the USSR never did launch the missiles, but kids shooting up their school is so common it barely makes the news anymore.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere

#144

Post by travisjungroth »

YellOh wrote: post #82
travisjungroth wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huge expectations around women “having it all” clashing into economic uncertainty and the revocation of rights.

I'm not trying to be annoying, but I genuinely don't understand what you mean by huge expectations of "having it all" for women (at least insofar as it relates to any trend starting ~2012, when the large growth in depression and self-harm among teen girls seems to have started). The only "revocation of rights" I can think of would be Dobbs - which also does not fit the trend (see my response to the other comment). If…

It does fit the trend. These issues are stacking. You can fool yourself into dismissing it if you split it into pieces. In 2012 you can write it off as fear mongering the media. In 2018 you can write it off as “how does this affect your day to day life?”. In 2022 you can say that Dobbs “doesn’t fit the trend” since it started in 2012.

I’m not saying this is the whole story, but it’s possibly part.

“Having it all” is a blessing and curse. The choice to do more, the burden to do more. Now you need a career, family, insta following. And it’s quite likely you’re going to have a hard time finding that perfect husband since men 18-30 as a demographic are doing horribly. What would normally be the backbone of a society is just not functioning well right now.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere

#145

Post by [deleted] »

sircastor wrote: post #70

I recall seeing commentary recently from mental health specialists that noted that young people are increasingly facing a sense of existential dread over climate change - that there's nothing they can do to stop it, and will feel the impact more heavily than previous generations. I wouldn't discount social media and related issues out of hand, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's a contributing factor. I understand…

[deleted]

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere

#146

Post by taylodl »

dw_arthur wrote: post #128
taylodl wrote: post #74

Seeing 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 ha…

The internet has simply exposed the BS of the ruling class. Their lies are plain for all to see. In the past it was much easier for them to use smoke and mirrors to hide what they were really up to.

Also kids today respect the abilities of their peers, just like they always have. After all, mass media is over 100 years old.

How do I know? I work with kids outside of work time, and I have kids of my own.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere

#147

Post by johnfn »

darth_avocado wrote: post #61
zug_zug wrote: post #34

These 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…

Another hypothesis is: *waves at general state of things since the mid 2000s*

You'd have to show that the "general state of things since the mid 2000s" has gotten appreciably worse than the time period prior to 2012. Rewind a decade and we had 9/11 and the Iraq war, so it doesn't seem immediately obvious that things got significantly worse.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere

#148

Post by ouid »

Aunche wrote: post #139
ouid wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coming to the conclusion that there is nothing you can do serves no evolutionary purpose either. You should continue looking for an out as long as any possibility remains, no matter how remote.

What gave you the impression that I think nothing can be done? You can drive less, eat less meat, vote for certain politicians etc. What's a waste of mental energy is worrying that everyone else is going to do the same thing. This is often counterproductive to the problem it's trying to solve, like Greta Thunberg inspiring millions of kids to skip school in the name of "raising awareness."

What do you think mental energy is for? If none of those things seems like solutions to the existential threat, which, let's be honest, they don't. Then the problem is not yet solved.

In any robust system, components are responsible for more than just their own personal contribution to failure. There needs to be a certain amount of redundancy.

Convincing other people to care more about climate change, and to be more willing to force society into common sacrifices for aggregate benefit takes a lot of footwork. It is not mental illness to participate in this process.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere

#149

Post by PuppyTailWags »

extasia wrote: post #118
grammers wrote: post #80

The article has a point, but there's no proof for cause & effect. A completely different explanation could be that our societies are so advanced by now that we can finally listen to mental illnesses and take them seriously - while in the past people just had to 'function', no matter what.

That wouldn't explain such a drastic rise in one demographic (teenagers)

It might, since "teenager" is about a decade, and the opening paragraph cites... about a decade ago.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere

#150

Post by bentt »

I would like to see this conversation turn from "Did phones cause these problems" to "Here's exactly how phones caused these problems". There are many ways to use technology, some better than others. We need literacy in these areas for both parents and children, and things are moving so fast, it's the companies that are getting to write the rules, not the culture. It's time for the culture to push back but we need to know how, specifically, the harm is being caused.
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