Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

theconversation.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 456 posts

Re: With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

#31

Post by wutbrodo »

MIKarlsen wrote: post #25
deckard1 wrote: post #12

They did a study using Facebook. But I'm more curious about Instagram. "Look at all these rich beautiful people with millions of followers sailing around the world on their yachts." Ten minutes on Instagram is enough to fill any sane person with existential dread and bring about severe depression.

Not as much as LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a fairytale-land for adults, and it's bizzare (to me) that anyone wants to participate. It's not even humblebragging anymore. It's "Look what I made, and what I achieved" packed into casual "Oh this thing? Yeah it's just my perfect life"-packages...

Why would anyone browse LinkedIn? This is actually a serious question. I'm pretty good about keeping mine updated, but the only viewers I'm planning on are recruiters, who would be getting the same information regardless.

Re: With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

#32

Post by pmoriarty »

davito88 wrote: post #20
randomdrake wrote: post #11

Study: Increases in Depressive Symptoms, Suicide-Related Outcomes, and Suicide Rates Among U.S. Adolescents After 2010 and Links to Increased New Media Screen Time Citation: Jean M. Twenge, Thomas E. Joiner, Megan L. Rogers, Gabrielle N. Martin. Clinical Psychological Science Vol 6, Issue 1, pp. 3 - 17. November 14, 2017. Link: https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702617723376 DOI: 10.1177/2167702617723376 Abstract: In two na…

correlation does not imply causation

What does imply causation?

Re: With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

#33

Post by wutbrodo »

purple-again wrote: post #4

Except from 2010 - 2015 many teens did feel a crushing sense of economic dread as they dealt with the realities of student loans, an out of reach housing market, devalued college degrees, the gig economy, promises of no retirement, etc. The article just skims over it with a quick this is why economics couldn’t have been the reason.

> the realities of student loans, an out of reach housing market, devalued college degrees, the gig economy, promises of no retirement, etc.

Have you ever met a teenager? Almost literally zero percent of them think (or need to think) about this stuff, with the possible exception of some of the very oldest teenagers (ie, people in their first or second year of college who are starting to think about the details of the start of their careers).

Re: With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

#34

Post by dorfsmay »

cwar wrote: post #22
purple-again wrote: post #4

Except from 2010 - 2015 many teens did feel a crushing sense of economic dread as they dealt with the realities of student loans, an out of reach housing market, devalued college degrees, the gig economy, promises of no retirement, etc. The article just skims over it with a quick this is why economics couldn’t have been the reason.

I don't think many teens (13-18) are doing much deep thinking about those things. I was a teenager about a bit more about than a decade before this time period, so maybe things were just so great then I didn't consider these things. But it seems like a stretch to me that a middle school or high school student is depressed because they are worried about retirement. Things like that were far too abstract to be contribu…

Currently a father of teens... That is a huge subject of discussion in high schools. Teens do talk a lot about the economy, ROI of different degrees (nursing being the best, law school and engineering giving less chance of jobs and being much harder, everything else being useless), that their passions don't matter, they have to get a degree that leads to jobs, number of years before they can afford living on their own etc...

Re: With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

#35

Post by m4x »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #16
lisper wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be an unconvincing piece, but it still seems like a very plausible hypothesis to me.

I've got a plausible (to me) hypothesis of my own - namely, that the "kids these days are getting worse and worse" is something people have been thoughtlessly regurgitating for as long as we have historical written records, and that new customs or technologies are easiest to blame. Today it's Facebook, previously it was TV, earlier still it was walkmans and metal bands. Hell, if I'm to believe random quotes from the…

They are not "thoughtlessly regurgitating" anything. Depression and suicide rates have risen significantly, and they are putting some effort into identifying the cause. This is stated explicitly in the introduction to the article.

Re: With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

#36

Post by AckSyn »

deckard1 wrote: post #12

They did a study using Facebook. But I'm more curious about Instagram. "Look at all these rich beautiful people with millions of followers sailing around the world on their yachts." Ten minutes on Instagram is enough to fill any sane person with existential dread and bring about severe depression.

Your hyperbole aside, being exposed to other people's lifestyles shouldn't result in any kind of depression for a healthy adult.

I can see this happening to immature people or those without a firm grip on reality.

Re: With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

#37

Post by ars »

jotm wrote: post #19
randomname2 wrote: post #9

Is it possible this is also in part due to EMFs from their phones (and environment) and circadian rhythm disturbances from screens? Some studies suggest the radiation can be risky to kids: Christ A, Gosselin MC, Christopoulou M, K’uhn S, & Kuster N. (2010 Jan.). Age dependent tissue-specific exposure of cell phone users. Physics in Medicine and Biology, 55: 1767-1783. Retrieved from http://iopscience.iop.org/0031-915…

Ah, whatdya know, I said the same thing a while ago - we don't actually know the effects of long term exposure to so much radiation. But I think it's mostly the Internet - too much information, endless info streams, endless mindless entertainment, endless feeds of successful people (so it seems that everyone is successful, or making 50K/year, or pretty, except you and your family/friends/hometown).

> we don't actually know the effects of long term exposure to so much radiation.

Don't you mean so little radiation? The sun puts out far more radiation than a phone, and now people are getting less sun, and thus less radiation.

Re: With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

#38

Post by pmoriarty »

deckard1 wrote: post #12

They did a study using Facebook. But I'm more curious about Instagram. "Look at all these rich beautiful people with millions of followers sailing around the world on their yachts." Ten minutes on Instagram is enough to fill any sane person with existential dread and bring about severe depression.

I'm not sure that "sane" is the right term to use for a person who becomes suicidal from looking at pictures of rich people.

Obsessively materialiastic, maybe. Sane, no.

Re: With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

#39

Post by dorfsmay »

bkohlmann wrote: post #23
CryoLogic wrote: post #7

Housing market is pretty bad factor. Most generations previous could afford a starter house on two minimum wage or a bit above minimum wage incomes. In many areas today you need two engineering incomes to pay off a 30 yr mortgage.

I'm not sure how many 13-17 year old teenagers were or are concerned with their ability to purchase a home.

More than you think. They are concerned about being independent, which means affording rent which leads them to think about buy vs rent.

Re: With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

#40

Post by tomp »

Faaak wrote: post #24
davito88 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

correlation does not imply causation

No, but its a pretty good clue.

huh? It could very well be that teens who are depressed (because of unrelated causes) prefer to spend time on social media, not hanging out with friends...
Post reply on HN