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

The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

jonathanhaidt.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 565 posts

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#361

Post by MetaWhirledPeas »

gnramires wrote: post #118
vkk8 wrote: post #51

Anecdotally, I was (as probably many here were) ahead of the curve in digital devices usage when I started hanging out in IRC and various web forums as a teenager in early 2000s. At some point I noticed that just using computers induced some amount of anxiety compared to "old tech"; whenever there was some period of time when I used my computer less (like christmas, vacations, etc.) and joined back to the "world of t…

> Can you think of other activities that require this? Well, reading books (and other documents). I also am suspicious of screens (and specially spending too much time on them... I'm certainly guilty), but the existence of books is somewhat confusing in this regard. However, I really don't think the population as a whole was reading quite as many books/documents as we today use digital devices or social media. That c…

> Something I've noticed since about that time as well is a growing unease and pessimism with our collective future (and even present!).

This is why I like movies and stories about the world coming together to overcome great difficulties. Like Pacific Rim, for instance. I'd love to hear more stories like that, no matter how far-fetched. I'd especially like to get some of the pariah states (North Korea, Iran) to be welcomed in for some more team high-fives. We really do need optimistic visions of the future to keep us going.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#362

Post by DubiousPusher »

password54321 wrote: post #355

It doesn't help the fact that less teens now believe in God [1]. Whether or not God is real, the belief of one gives more purpose to more people with religious text helping you think beyond what the limbic system wants but on your character and the people around you. And not people as objects but as other sacred beings also with a purpose. To degenerate a society, strip off traditions that have been formed over centu…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years%27_War

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#363

Post by nineplay »

ndriscoll wrote: post #320
nineplay wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that this is a serious issue. I know 3 kids who graduated in 2019 and got into top universities. Three years later -- One flatly refused to leave home despite a lot of pushing from their parents. They are working at the local theater and taking community college courses here and there with no real future plans or goals -- One also decided to go to CC, with her parent's support this time. She's 21, just got ma…

> I don't want to look down on women who wish to become SAHMs, but I think it's terribly short-sighted to make that decision at 21 and give up on pursuing a "real" career. Certainly it requires a lot of trust and commitment, but I wouldn't call it short-sighted. It's risky, but if you do find a good spouse, it's not like you're missing out on anything (my wife is a SAHM and has never had nor wanted a career). To me p…

I don't trust a 21 year old to know if they've found a good spouse. I don't trust anyone to know if they've found a good spouse which is why I'd tell everyone, male or female, to have a career they can fall back to if something happens to their marriage. It might not just be a bad spouse, it might be a spouse who dies young and then a woman with multiple kids and a 10 year old vet tech degree has to figure out how on earth she's going to support herself. Life insurance only lasts so long.

I'm old enough to have seen a lot of young happy couples turn into divorced bitter singles and I can't speak to the average experience but in my circle, the women end up screwed. They've got the kids, ( the ex wanted nothing to do with the kids ) they've got no income ( the ex either has no money or is fighting tooth and nail to avoid sending any money ) and they are living off of parents, friends, and social services trying to find some job they can do part time ( no daycare ) that has a hope of supporting them.

Some of these women stayed in bad circumstances for a long time because they knew how hard it would be to manage without their spouse. Some women are still in terrible circumstances because they can't afford to leave.

> some of them were 38+ and saying they're thinking about having kids soon; there's like a 25% chance that ship has already sailed,

25% is nonsense.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#365

Post by candiodari »

PantaloonFlames wrote: post #198
tasspeed wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only avoided suicide because of social media. I had no way to hang out with friends because my parents were always too busy working to take me places so I talked with my online friends to numb the pain.

It's sad that you depended on your parents for transport to your friends. Ideally a teenager would be able to walk or ride a bicycle to hang out with peers. Or take a bus. Did you live in a place where homes were very far apart?

Societal acceptance of such dangerous activity has been dropping lately:

https://reason.com/2023/01/30/dunkin-donuts-parents-arrested...

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#366

Post by nocoolnametom »

commandlinefan wrote: post #316
1234letshaveatw wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

right, teen kids are so worried about healthcare costs! Gimmie a break, your comment has nothing to do with the article, it's low effort and a better fit for reddit

Well, in fairness, OP is right : everybody would be under a lot less stress if all of their needs were met for the entirety of their lives with no expectation to ever contribute anything. He's missing the realization that somebody has to contribute something to meet the needs of all the people whose needs are being met regardless of their contribution, which is why communism always fails in practice.

Everybody would be under a lot less stress if [a basic level] of their needs were met [to avoid at the very least bankruptcy and preventable life-long injury or even death] for the entirety of their lives with no expectation to ever contribute anything. He's missing the realization that [everyone] has to contribute something [via progressive taxation] to meet the [basic level of] needs of all the people whose [basic level of] needs are being met regardless of their contribution, which is why [every other industrialized nation, even with failures and economic issues in parts of their systems, is able to provide at least this basic level for their citizens, except for the US because of for-profit healthcare lobbyists].

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#367

Post by tux2bsd »

jocaal wrote: post #112
ketzo wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social media isn't totally global, though -- I would be interested to see this youth mental health data correlated with smartphone uptake in a given country.

For all intents and purposes, it is global. Facebook claims multiple billions of users and I myself am from a pretty isolated area and can say that social media definitley has a big presence here.

[dead]

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#369

Post by smolder »

whstl wrote: post #207
benrhodesuk wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea. I agree there is a lot of bad things to consume. In general what he consumes tends to lean towards the toxic end of things. A lot of learning, science and educational content. And then gaming-related content (Minecraft, etc.). Obviously, some of the gaming content can get toxic. But he's always been pretty good about staying away from more toxic gaming content. And while he will watching gaming content on Youtub…

I think you're the first here in this topic that talked about Twitch and streamers. I know a few streamers and we're aware of people that spend sometimes up to 5 hours a day on every single stream they do. Some of those donating hundreds of dollars a month to a single streamer. The stream chat is their hobby and the majority of their social interaction. The streamers are also burned out. I'm all for people finding a…

Streamers who aren't big enough to be financially successful (which is 99.999%) but have dreams of high viewer counts and big advertising checks (they work hard at growing their channels) are like an underfed child army of influence. The desperation to be popular online fuels a tremendous aggregate effort with little return for the streamers, but which is very effective at drawing their peers and adjacent peer groups into this unhealthy viewership, all in the service of showing ads.

The whole culture around twitch, TikTok, and social media influence generally is very exploitative of teens and younger people with more time and energy than wisdom.

I don't think it's the technology itself that is harmful to kids, not even slightly. It's the environment created online by adults who act to make a profit that drives the pathological use of technology. It's exploiting people's psychology, their need for attention or belonging, and constantly driving engagement that makes the impact of tech on society so ugly. The biggest danger to our youth online is arguably unfettered capitalism, not child predators.

Capitalism can and does work synergistically without the kind of pathological, societal self-harm that's so broadly accepted. Modern technology has just enabled perverse new ways to chew up and spit out the young and disadvantaged en masse while essentially looking the other way, just seeing the participants as rows in a DB table. From most parents' point of view, the threats posed by the profiteering actors in tech are hard to detect and reason about, and hard to protect from in ways that aren't net harmful & draconian, so many young people are left very vulnerable.

Further, for many tech workers, or for those that use the tech to generate business, it's hard to steer away from "evil technology" that is so effective in paying the bills.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#370

Post by selimthegrim »

renewiltord wrote: post #201
mabbo wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Social media is global, so any effects it has should be visible globally. That isn't true at all. There may be a hundred factors at play, which are all different in different cultures, regions, countries, etc. The cultural context of an individual can dramatically change how they react to situations, pressures, and mental illness.

Fascinating. It is a pity then that our culture is so terrible as to make teens have mental illness at rates that dwarf other nations (who have cultures that are far superior at keeping teens mentally healthy). It is a shame that we blame social media for this when clearly it is our culture that is the difference and the cause.

Which other nations?
Post reply on HN