Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would love to explore Reddit's influence on this phenomenon. The timelines seem to sync somewhat and it seems like a perfect vehicle for adversarial nation states to use to influence public opinion.
I highly doubt that Reddit per se has any significant effect whatsoever—which is not to say that it can't be an instance of the overarching platforms that cause the phenomenon. The reason I'm disregarding Reddit as a significant cause is threefold: a) Reddit is overwhelmingly male, and the most affected group are teenage girls b) Reddit is not that big of a platform in the teenage demographic c) Even if it were, its…
The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere
311–320 of 514 posts
Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere
#312(Seemingly) Inevitable climate change and ecological destruction, growing income inequality and falling standards of living, a deathly pandemic that's still killing people while we pretend everything is back to normal (+ long covid probably bringing about a disability crisis in 3-5 years), increasing tensions between various nuclear-capable states (Russia, China) and the West, changes in the age distribution in most…
> less and less of a future Everything is relative. My grandfather's biggest dream was to live in a city, that's it. Now young people dream (and envy) of way more. So I'd say there's more and more future for youth. They can afford, at least once in one's life: travel abroad, snow skiing, parachuting, going to a restaurant. It's just baseline jumped.
Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere
#313Earlier quoted context omitted.
To me that seems like a purely post-hoc argument with no evidence to justify it. For instance, imagine that the data were showing the opposite effect, that is, adults having a significantly greater increase in depression and anxiety than teenagers. If that were the case, one could just as easily argue that it fits with the "our societies are so advanced that we can listen to mental illnesses" hypothesis quite well, b…
In my experience, adults seem just as quick to dismiss other adults issues as "not real problems"
Obviously, the part in italics is fiction. It is referring to the alternate world I mentioned in my comment above where the effect was the the opposite of what we're seeing (with the added extra of adult men appearing to be seeing a greater increase than adult women) and how it's so easy to come up with post-hoc explanations using what seem like reasonable and factual premises.
Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere
#314Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the old days trans people weren't shooting up christian schools out of frustration. I wonder if perhaps society made a mistake by so many members giving them the false impression that society should accept them for who they identify as. In the old days they pretty much had to learn to accept themselves for who they were and not worry about what other people thought, both because no one was encouraging them they de…
This narrative about trans shooters is disconnected from reality. If you take every trans shooter in the last decade, you get less than 10… out of thousands. For context, last year America has nearly 700 mass shootings. Trans people are actually under represented in mass shootings. Estimates put trans people at up to 1% of the population. We would naively expect 7 shooters last year to be trans, but none were. Saying…
Edit:
re pupptailwags: Yes we should be examining whenever people are engaging in violence, factors behind that happening. I'm quite certain, unlike assertion made below, that people indeed have studied the qualities of males in particular engaging in this kind of violence.
rethelopa: I was replying to a comment talking about why something (male disposition to this kind of violence) hadn't been studied; it has.
[note I'm rate limited, which is reason for replying this way]
Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere
#315Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Saw a post on Paul Graham’s twitter about this, turns out white, liberal female teens were the most depressed, for whatever reason, that’s a strange specific group to be extremely depressed imho. That’s…honestly, exactly the combination of race and gender I would expect to be most depressed right now, even thinking only about expectations people have been raised with about the direction of progress for their own co…
Can you expand on your thoughts here? This is not a group whose lives I generally expect to be getting worse (in day-to-day life, barring social media effects).
White liberal women have a lot of incompatible expectations placed on them. If they stay home to raise children, they're labeled as lazy, "betraying the feminist cause", etc. for not participating in the workforce. If they work, they're labeled as neglectful of their children (if they have them) or told they're going to regret their choices. They have to outpace their male coworkers to be respected at work, but their career is also seen as a "nice to have". So the standards for women are impossible, but simultaneously so low that achieving them doesn't earn respect.
In a strange way, the group's relative privilege is a contributing factor to depression. If you're a member of a group that is violently oppressed, the act of protest and standing up to oppressors provides a sense of purpose. Because white women's position isn't "that bad," though, attempts to improve their situation are considered too small to celebrate at best and entitled whining at worse. Further, there's been a movement, particularly in liberal spaces over the past few years, to lift up the voices of the most oppressed. So liberal white women have pressure to just shut up and swallow their concerns from both sides of the political aisle.
None of this is to advocate drowning out the concerns of other groups to prioritize the mental health of white women, only a recognition that a seemingly easier life doesn't necessarily mean a happier one. In fact, an easier life can be more depressing.
Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere
#316I 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…
If we take the approach of not overthinking it, we might notice that many of these mental illnesses feature dissociation, and what does an iPhone do if not dissociate you from your physical being? Teenagers (and younger) in their formative years are pouring a significant part of their lives into virtual environments and identities. Their digital lives are literally disconnected from their physical lives. Their sense…
I don't really know who I am as a person because I spent all my time online and not spending a lot of time with people. Not developing as a person, not realizing who I am and what I want to be. No social skills, etc.
Is it some kind of ego-death or personality-death? If not death, then something that hadn't been developed and is now far out of my grasp as my brain cements itself as I head into my 30's?
It sucks and I constantly remind myself of it, but maybe there's hope for the younger generations now that we've lived through the early stages of social media and know how it can harm the younger ones.
Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere
#317Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is just an ad hominem. Address the content/message, not the speaker.
I agree with you about ad hominems but unfortunately your account has been using HN primarily for political/ideological battle, and also is arguably breaking the rule against trollish usernames here ( https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... ). I've therefore banned it. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow th…
Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere
#318Earlier quoted context omitted.
This narrative about trans shooters is disconnected from reality. If you take every trans shooter in the last decade, you get less than 10… out of thousands. For context, last year America has nearly 700 mass shootings. Trans people are actually under represented in mass shootings. Estimates put trans people at up to 1% of the population. We would naively expect 7 shooters last year to be trans, but none were. Saying…
The desperation to argue against a straw man is real. If trans people went from no school shootings to one in 2020 and one in 2023 there may or may not be a "trend" but it's still worth finding out why that is happening. Edit: re pupptailwags: Yes we should be examining whenever people are engaging in violence, factors behind that happening. I'm quite certain, unlike assertion made below, that people indeed have stud…
Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere
#319Earlier quoted context omitted.
The desperation to argue against a straw man is real. If trans people went from no school shootings to one in 2020 and one in 2023 there may or may not be a "trend" but it's still worth finding out why that is happening. Edit: re pupptailwags: Yes we should be examining whenever people are engaging in violence, factors behind that happening. I'm quite certain, unlike assertion made below, that people indeed have stud…
You optimize for the common case, not the uncommon one. Shouldn’t we figure out why shootings in general are happening rather than fixating on a specific case because it involved an unpopular minority group?
Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere
#320I'm a father of teen kids, teacher and educator. I don't think that there is a single reason here. All mentioned things contribute – social media pressure, climate problems, economical crisis etc. But I'd like to add another one – declining quality of education. I see increasing number of teens depressed because they don't have teachers and their education isn't good enough for jobs they'd like to get in future. And…
There's also been a corresponding dramatic drop in the number of teens who have had any sort of job. Not many things are as fulfilling as doing a job and getting paid for it. I remember when I realized I was making enough money that I could pay all my bills and no longer needed anything from my dad. It felt really good. For me that was the dividing line between being a child and an adult.