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Depression has tripled in the last 15 years. Arthur Brooks about the cause

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Re: Depression has tripled in the last 15 years. Arthur Brooks about the cause

#21

Post by pinkmuffinere »

blueflow wrote: post #14

60 years ago you might have ended up in a psychiatric hospital without getting effective treatment, mental health issues were stigmatized and the incentive to seek out help was low. People used to just live a miserable life with their issues. Nowadays knowledge about mental health issues is widespread in the population, somewhat normalized and leading to people seeking help. I consider it realistic that depression di…

I 100% believe there is such an effect, and that it’s confounding the measurement of population level changes. But I want to point out that the existence of such an effect is not really evidence _against_ the changes, it’s just another confounder. Your wording is very accurate — you “consider it realistic that depression did not increase”, ie it is possible that depression didn’t increase. But whether depression actually did increase or actually didn’t, is not possible to determine from these numbers directly. Without controlling for confounders and doing some fun statistics, we largely just have opinions

Re: Depression has tripled in the last 15 years. Arthur Brooks about the cause

#22

Post by win311fwg »

EA-3167 wrote: post #3
bluefirebrand wrote: post #2

I don't know. I think it's too convenient to blame this solely on devices and internet and such. I'm certain that they are a symptom, but I am unconvinced that they are a sole cause for this Edit: Obviously not a psychologist, but just from what I observe: People have had way higher expectations from life than ever before in the past, and life has not really been meeting those expectations. A lot of people I know sim…

Arguably the ability of people to see how the wealthiest people are living is going to create exactly that sense. What is Instagram if not a giant machine to generate the exact feeling? After all it “inspires” people to emulate what they see, which usually involves spending whatever they have on their appearance and lifestyle.

> Arguably the ability of people to see how the wealthiest people are living is going to create exactly that sense.

What are they seeing? I admittedly have yet to meet a billionaire (that I know of), but I've seen plenty of deca- and centimillionaires out in the wild. They were just doing mundane things like eating at McDonald's or sitting in the stands watching their children/grandchildren play sports. They were just regular people living regular, every day lives. If I didn't already know who they were before seeing them I'd have never guessed they were so wealthy. My sense after seeing that was that the wealthy are just as boring as I am.

Re: Depression has tripled in the last 15 years. Arthur Brooks about the cause

#23

Post by EA-3167 »

win311fwg wrote: post #22
EA-3167 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably the ability of people to see how the wealthiest people are living is going to create exactly that sense. What is Instagram if not a giant machine to generate the exact feeling? After all it “inspires” people to emulate what they see, which usually involves spending whatever they have on their appearance and lifestyle.

> Arguably the ability of people to see how the wealthiest people are living is going to create exactly that sense. What are they seeing? I admittedly have yet to meet a billionaire (that I know of), but I've seen plenty of deca- and centimillionaires out in the wild. They were just doing mundane things like eating at McDonald's or sitting in the stands watching their children/grandchildren play sports. They were jus…

I addressed this is an earlier reply, but I'll add that almost by definition if your and their lives are intersecting it's going to be at the level of YOUR life. You're never going to be showing up for a private $20k per plate fundraiser, the Met Gala, various retreats and vacations, or their private residences. You DEFINITELY won't see their healthcare experiences, the options you have to travel or not work, the chances to simply not worry about the ups and downs of the world at large. Knowing that it's in your power to take care of any family member or friend regardless of the magnitude of the financial challenge.

So yes, when you see them, it's because that segment of their life and yours share a common point, but not a common trajectory.

Re: Depression has tripled in the last 15 years. Arthur Brooks about the cause

#24

Post by Aurornis »

win311fwg wrote: post #22
EA-3167 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably the ability of people to see how the wealthiest people are living is going to create exactly that sense. What is Instagram if not a giant machine to generate the exact feeling? After all it “inspires” people to emulate what they see, which usually involves spending whatever they have on their appearance and lifestyle.

> Arguably the ability of people to see how the wealthiest people are living is going to create exactly that sense. What are they seeing? I admittedly have yet to meet a billionaire (that I know of), but I've seen plenty of deca- and centimillionaires out in the wild. They were just doing mundane things like eating at McDonald's or sitting in the stands watching their children/grandchildren play sports. They were jus…

I've known people with net worth in the $100m range and even someone in the three commas range.

They are indeed just people doing their thing with their families. All of them dressed normally and drove upper middle class cars most of the time, leaving the expensive cars at home. Some had expensive hobbies, all traveled a lot.

None of them appeared anything like the ultra-wealthy stereotypes that people develop from watching Shark Tank and Succession while scrolling through Instagram photos of influencers posing on private jets. Most of them were pretty nice people who were actually active in improving their communities, mostly around schools.

Pretty boring, really.

Re: Depression has tripled in the last 15 years. Arthur Brooks about the cause

#25

Post by Noaidi »

As someone living with a lifelong serious melted illness, I say this guy can F off.

Strictly blaming depression on sociological factors is demeaning to those people with mood disorders. What about diet? What about nutrition? What about EMF’s? What about Covid infections?

This blow hard with his three points, always three points by the way, is minimizing depression, and all people with mental illness.

Re: Depression has tripled in the last 15 years. Arthur Brooks about the cause

#26

Post by theF00l »

deepsun wrote: post #16
LoganDark wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a thing people do when they feel a lack of control over other aspects of their life. It's a coping mechanism. Frequently comorbid with depression. Also it's quite rude of you to dismiss an entire generation with this belittling rhetoric. Mental health is a really, really big deal.

Watch any movie, typically the protagonist is good looking and antagonist is ugly. That's the whole answer. In Game of Thrones director had a chance to make the dwarf (protagonist ) really ugly, like in the books, but they chose a good looking actor. Same for Harry Potter, Hermione was supposed to be meh.

I think the previous generation of Hollywood films was not so egregious on this. There were a lot of normal looking famous actors: Bill Murray, Jack Nicholson, Robert De Niro etc. Often playing good guys.

Now most actors in popular media are good looking to an uncanny level. Antagonist are beautiful too (in GoT as well).

It's not surprising if this negatively affects the psyche of the everyday person.

Re: Depression has tripled in the last 15 years. Arthur Brooks about the cause

#27

Post by card_zero »

hackernud3s wrote: post #20
ks2048 wrote: post #15

To put it more succinctly: the world is changing too quickly for our biology to adapt.

This is what adaptation looks like actually, some organisms not surviving to reproduce.

We have to be genetically adapted to survive food deliveries and TikTok?

Re: Depression has tripled in the last 15 years. Arthur Brooks about the cause

#28

Post by bluefirebrand »

EA-3167 wrote: post #17
bluefirebrand wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's true too I was honestly just talking about "people used to afford a house and family with two vacations per year on a single income, now people can't even afford a house on two incomes" which seems to be a common refrain nowadays I know a lot of my friends and peers believe they have worse standard of living than their parents did at the same age, and the data does seem to agree with them. Existence of sm…

While true a lot of subtlety is hidden in those seemingly simple comparisons. For example has the median/average home size grown since then? If so by how much? How about amenities that are expected in a modern home? In the 1950's and 1960's what did a vacation look like for a single-income family with kids back then? What does it look like now? If you look at the data what you see is that people have more, want more,…

> For example has the median/average home size grown since then

Sure. Let's compare to the 90s.

According to Google, New detached homes are 10-20% larger in square feet today than they were in the 90s.

Also according to Google, new detached homes are 3.3x more expensive, inflation adjusted, than the 90s. Of course mortgage interest rates play a part here too, but that's a really bad starting point

And that's just for starters.

There are also places in the USA where the minimum wage has not increased since the 90s, and there may actually still be people trying to get by on a wage of 5.50 an hour.

I know all of this is oversimplifying things to an extent. Economics is hard. But it's not that hard...

Re: Depression has tripled in the last 15 years. Arthur Brooks about the cause

#29

Post by win311fwg »

EA-3167 wrote: post #23
win311fwg wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Arguably the ability of people to see how the wealthiest people are living is going to create exactly that sense. What are they seeing? I admittedly have yet to meet a billionaire (that I know of), but I've seen plenty of deca- and centimillionaires out in the wild. They were just doing mundane things like eating at McDonald's or sitting in the stands watching their children/grandchildren play sports. They were jus…

I addressed this is an earlier reply, but I'll add that almost by definition if your and their lives are intersecting it's going to be at the level of YOUR life. You're never going to be showing up for a private $20k per plate fundraiser, the Met Gala, various retreats and vacations, or their private residences. You DEFINITELY won't see their healthcare experiences, the options you have to travel or not work, the cha…

You're right that we won't see everything, but the discussion taking place here was specifically said to be about what we do get to see and the sense that brings. And what I've seen and the sense that gave is that being wealthy is nothing special. I mean, I'd take it over life on skid row, but I'm not sure I'd care to trade it for my modest life. There is no obvious step up, as fun as looking at substantially larger numbers might be. Like you say, the things I don't get to see could change that calculus, but since the original comment being replied to explicitly defined the conversation to be about what we do see, that's moot. No need to change the subject.

Re: Depression has tripled in the last 15 years. Arthur Brooks about the cause

#30

Post by EA-3167 »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #28
EA-3167 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While true a lot of subtlety is hidden in those seemingly simple comparisons. For example has the median/average home size grown since then? If so by how much? How about amenities that are expected in a modern home? In the 1950's and 1960's what did a vacation look like for a single-income family with kids back then? What does it look like now? If you look at the data what you see is that people have more, want more,…

> For example has the median/average home size grown since then Sure. Let's compare to the 90s. According to Google, New detached homes are 10-20% larger in square feet today than they were in the 90s. Also according to Google, new detached homes are 3.3x more expensive, inflation adjusted, than the 90s. Of course mortgage interest rates play a part here too, but that's a really bad starting point And that's just for…

I was around in the 1980's and people weren't buying a home and a yearly family vacation on a single income, that era was long gone. If you're talking about those "Good Old Days" then you're talking about the postwar economy that was decisively long gone by '80s.
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