Wellbeing levels fell with the pandemic but improved under lockdown, data shows • Hacker News Board

Re: Wellbeing levels fell with the pandemic but improved under lockdown, data shows

#21

Post by qubex » Wed, Aug 12, 2020, 4:00 PM UTC

bluntfang wrote: post #15

eric_b wrote: post #9

Lockdowns are terrible for human mental health. We're not meant to live that way. I mean, we put people in prison as punishment because it sucks. I don't care what these people read in to the data - lockdowns are hurting everyone's mental health and making people act strangely. We know a lot about COVID now - who's most vulnerable, how likely people are to die, etc. What staggers me is that huge groups of people are…

>We're not meant to live that way. I mean, to abstract this a little bit...were we meant to spend 8+ hours a day, 5 days a week, making money for other people simply because they already had money? Were we meant to live in densely populated cities in apartment buildings that house 10s to 100s of families on a city block? Were we meant to spend most of our time with our young children and teach them about the world in…

> this begs the question: how were we meant to live?

In the savanna in social groups of about fifty or less related individuals leading a hunger-gatherer lifestyle.

I doubt the OP is going to argue that we all head back to that state, though, so I’m going politely disregard their absolutist and ex cattedra remarks.

Re: Wellbeing levels fell with the pandemic but improved under lockdown, data shows

#22

Post by qubex » Wed, Aug 12, 2020, 4:01 PM UTC

msla wrote: post #10

eric_b wrote: post #9

Lockdowns are terrible for human mental health. We're not meant to live that way. I mean, we put people in prison as punishment because it sucks. I don't care what these people read in to the data - lockdowns are hurting everyone's mental health and making people act strangely. We know a lot about COVID now - who's most vulnerable, how likely people are to die, etc. What staggers me is that huge groups of people are…

> I don't care what these people read in to the data - lockdowns are hurting everyone's mental health and making people act strangely. "I'm right and you can't convince me otherwise" is the cause of a lot of suffering in the world.

Since we can’t change their mind why are we even listening to this unilateral broadcasting of unsubstantiated and disproven-by-data comments?

Re: Wellbeing levels fell with the pandemic but improved under lockdown, data shows

#23

Post by UncleOxidant » Wed, Aug 12, 2020, 4:04 PM UTC

bluntfang wrote: post #15

eric_b wrote: post #9

Lockdowns are terrible for human mental health. We're not meant to live that way. I mean, we put people in prison as punishment because it sucks. I don't care what these people read in to the data - lockdowns are hurting everyone's mental health and making people act strangely. We know a lot about COVID now - who's most vulnerable, how likely people are to die, etc. What staggers me is that huge groups of people are…

>We're not meant to live that way. I mean, to abstract this a little bit...were we meant to spend 8+ hours a day, 5 days a week, making money for other people simply because they already had money? Were we meant to live in densely populated cities in apartment buildings that house 10s to 100s of families on a city block? Were we meant to spend most of our time with our young children and teach them about the world in…

Yeah, it was more like eric_b saying he wasn't meant to live that way. Many of the rest of us enjoyed the slower pace, the chance to connect with family, the chance to enjoy simple pleasures like baking bread and planting a garden. I looked at the "lockdown" (which wasn't really a lockdown - see Wuhan for a real lockdown) period as a sort of sabbath for the world.

I suppose a lot of the difference in how you view that period of "lockdown" could have to do with your living situation. If you're single living in an apartment without a yard then, yes, I could see that it could be pretty awful. If you live with family and pets in a house with a yard it was pretty nice and I suspect a lot of us in that situation will look back on that period positively as time goes by - as in we'll actually become nostalgic about it.

Re: Wellbeing levels fell with the pandemic but improved under lockdown, data shows

#24

Post by chaostheory » Wed, Aug 12, 2020, 4:04 PM UTC

eric_b wrote: post #9

Lockdowns are terrible for human mental health. We're not meant to live that way. I mean, we put people in prison as punishment because it sucks. I don't care what these people read in to the data - lockdowns are hurting everyone's mental health and making people act strangely. We know a lot about COVID now - who's most vulnerable, how likely people are to die, etc. What staggers me is that huge groups of people are…

Yeah, let's throw out all the data just because it disagrees with our personal beliefs

Re: Wellbeing levels fell with the pandemic but improved under lockdown, data shows

#25

Post by refurb » Wed, Aug 12, 2020, 4:07 PM UTC

qubex wrote: post #18

eric_b wrote: post #9

Lockdowns are terrible for human mental health. We're not meant to live that way. I mean, we put people in prison as punishment because it sucks. I don't care what these people read in to the data - lockdowns are hurting everyone's mental health and making people act strangely. We know a lot about COVID now - who's most vulnerable, how likely people are to die, etc. What staggers me is that huge groups of people are…

> lockdowns are terrible for human mental health That’s exactly what this study is disproving. At the very least, this data is showing something that is well-known in behavioural circles: that once the threshold of a radical change is overcome, people begin to habituate to it and regress towards the mean. > we put people in prison as punishment Lockdown with family in one’s dwelling isn’t prison. Imprisonments is abo…

The data looks like crap? They used search terms (!) and then had to estimate some data because they didn’t start collecting until after Covid hit.

Unfortunately, overall life satisfaction questions were only introduced into the mood tracker in April 2020. So, to consider how the pandemic and lockdown affected people’s general wellbeing, we had to attribute scores to respondents for the period prior to April based on their mood data (we calculated the scores using a statistical technique called regression).

Re: Wellbeing levels fell with the pandemic but improved under lockdown, data shows

#26

Post by mc32 » Wed, Aug 12, 2020, 4:12 PM UTC

eric_b wrote: post #9

Lockdowns are terrible for human mental health. We're not meant to live that way. I mean, we put people in prison as punishment because it sucks. I don't care what these people read in to the data - lockdowns are hurting everyone's mental health and making people act strangely. We know a lot about COVID now - who's most vulnerable, how likely people are to die, etc. What staggers me is that huge groups of people are…

I agree that lockdowns & SIPs are terrible. It’s why people dislike being grounded at home or like you said serving a sentence at home, etc.

Of course there are things we have to weigh, physical health threat vs mental health pressures and national security, etc.

But you are absolutely right that the media want to paint narratives. I’ve come to the conclusion it’s not so much collusion but rather it’s their nature to do that. So both on the left or right we get narratives. They feel obliged to herd people one way or another. It’s like they’re on a mission to getting people to not think for themselves. That’s the main objective.

Re: Wellbeing levels fell with the pandemic but improved under lockdown, data shows

#27

Post by JoshuaDavid » Wed, Aug 12, 2020, 4:15 PM UTC

qubex wrote: post #18

eric_b wrote: post #9

Lockdowns are terrible for human mental health. We're not meant to live that way. I mean, we put people in prison as punishment because it sucks. I don't care what these people read in to the data - lockdowns are hurting everyone's mental health and making people act strangely. We know a lot about COVID now - who's most vulnerable, how likely people are to die, etc. What staggers me is that huge groups of people are…

> lockdowns are terrible for human mental health That’s exactly what this study is disproving. At the very least, this data is showing something that is well-known in behavioural circles: that once the threshold of a radical change is overcome, people begin to habituate to it and regress towards the mean. > we put people in prison as punishment Lockdown with family in one’s dwelling isn’t prison. Imprisonments is abo…

> Lockdown with family in one’s dwelling isn’t prison

There's literally a punishment called "house arrest".

Re: Wellbeing levels fell with the pandemic but improved under lockdown, data shows

#28

Post by jimmaswell » Wed, Aug 12, 2020, 4:16 PM UTC

qubex wrote: post #18

eric_b wrote: post #9

Lockdowns are terrible for human mental health. We're not meant to live that way. I mean, we put people in prison as punishment because it sucks. I don't care what these people read in to the data - lockdowns are hurting everyone's mental health and making people act strangely. We know a lot about COVID now - who's most vulnerable, how likely people are to die, etc. What staggers me is that huge groups of people are…

> lockdowns are terrible for human mental health That’s exactly what this study is disproving. At the very least, this data is showing something that is well-known in behavioural circles: that once the threshold of a radical change is overcome, people begin to habituate to it and regress towards the mean. > we put people in prison as punishment Lockdown with family in one’s dwelling isn’t prison. Imprisonments is abo…

The rebound didn't go all the way back up to how it was before.

Re: Wellbeing levels fell with the pandemic but improved under lockdown, data shows

#29

Post by cirgue » Wed, Aug 12, 2020, 4:17 PM UTC

eric_b wrote: post #9

Lockdowns are terrible for human mental health. We're not meant to live that way. I mean, we put people in prison as punishment because it sucks. I don't care what these people read in to the data - lockdowns are hurting everyone's mental health and making people act strangely. We know a lot about COVID now - who's most vulnerable, how likely people are to die, etc. What staggers me is that huge groups of people are…

I am 100% ok grunting through a lockdown if it shortens the duration of this awful fucking pandemic. The current soft restrictions with no clear endgame is 1000 times more shitty than having to hole up in your apartment knowing that it will end all the other restrictions sooner.

Re: Wellbeing levels fell with the pandemic but improved under lockdown, data shows

#30

Post by qubex » Wed, Aug 12, 2020, 4:18 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #25

qubex wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> lockdowns are terrible for human mental health That’s exactly what this study is disproving. At the very least, this data is showing something that is well-known in behavioural circles: that once the threshold of a radical change is overcome, people begin to habituate to it and regress towards the mean. > we put people in prison as punishment Lockdown with family in one’s dwelling isn’t prison. Imprisonments is abo…

The data looks like crap? They used search terms (!) and then had to estimate some data because they didn’t start collecting until after Covid hit. Unfortunately, overall life satisfaction questions were only introduced into the mood tracker in April 2020. So, to consider how the pandemic and lockdown affected people’s general wellbeing, we had to attribute scores to respondents for the period prior to April based on…

The data may look like crap (to you) but it’s better than absolutist remarks and anecdotal allusions... and as this thread so aptly shows, there’s been a range of reactions, some even favourable.