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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

#41

Is it because the world is more depressing? Inequality, injustice, war, climate change, lack of opportunity, loneliness, destruction of social systems by technology, decay of community values and the promise of a worse not better future. Is it that this generation is less well off than its parents, that housing is no longer affordable, that the world is polluted, that nuclear war has returned as a possibility, that c…

Turns out when people can't afford kids, healthcare, housing they are unhappy.

Usually it's rich people who are puzzled as to why others are unhappy.

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

#42
Is this like how everyone warned us about an ADHD epidemic and it turned out it was an epidemic of getting extra time on exams? There were lots of explanations from the mental health brigade. These kinds of extra strong effects are like the blue zones situation - there's always something else that creates a formal effect that is nothing like an actual change.

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

#43
Turns out houses are getting smaller for most people,and less interest in gardening and outdoor activities, sitting around and playing on there phones all the time will create boredom. And without having goals in there life to keep them motivated is one of the key things to prevent depression. John kirwin also stated this in his book. Apart from people with chemical inbalance

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

#44

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…

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

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Why not? The claim (which I believe is well supported) is that these things hijack some innate impulses to trap us in bad decisions. If you consistently make bad decisions (eg, put off developing your life) your line is less likely to continue. This is just like animals that didn’t run from humans — they didn’t know to be scared of us and now they’re dead. Even massive things that could crush us can be killed if we s…

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

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? The claim (which I believe is well supported) is that these things hijack some innate impulses to trap us in bad decisions. If you consistently make bad decisions (eg, put off developing your life) your line is less likely to continue. This is just like animals that didn’t run from humans — they didn’t know to be scared of us and now they’re dead. Even massive things that could crush us can be killed if we s…

So hopefully future generations develop an instinctive fear of food deliveries and TikTok, or what?

In the future they'll just 3D-print humans "al gusto".. if they decide it's even worth the trouble.

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

#47
post #25

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.

Melted illness, that sounds very serious. He sure loves his brain hemisphere lateralization, wasn't that stuff seriously questioned? Like found to be divided the opposite way around, or not at all. He's also a bore, which according to the trendy theory of the day means he is doing a public service by making us bored.

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

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? The claim (which I believe is well supported) is that these things hijack some innate impulses to trap us in bad decisions. If you consistently make bad decisions (eg, put off developing your life) your line is less likely to continue. This is just like animals that didn’t run from humans — they didn’t know to be scared of us and now they’re dead. Even massive things that could crush us can be killed if we s…

So hopefully future generations develop an instinctive fear of food deliveries and TikTok, or what?

Just to be clear, I'm arguing that there _does_ appear to be evolutionary pressure here, so we probably will evolve in response. That argument doesn't require predicting how exactly we will evolve; you're kindof asking an orthogonal question. But I don't mind orthogonal questions, and I can imagine some ways that we might evolve in response:

1. Human reward-seeking becomes longer-term, with less of an emphasis on short term rewards. I'd bet this trend has probably already been ongoing for a long time. But I wonder if there are some negative effects of this -- for example perhaps it takes us longer to learn things that truly do have very quick, direct feedback loops. Maybe it takes us longer to learn how to walk, swim, etc as a result.

2. Screen-avoidant communities start to dominate the human population. Eg, Amish communities, "traditionalist" communities like that, your friends that religiously don't use social media, etc. I'd bet this is already happening too! Would be really interesting to look at the proportion of new births, perhaps controlling for usage of birth control. I wonder if this effect could result in humanity generally becoming more religious (as opposed to the recent trend of becoming less religious). Admittedly, this is more of a cultural change than a change in our dna, but I feel it fits the category -- it's a widespread change across humanity in response to the pressure of distracting apps.

3. Humans grow a stronger distaste for blue light. I suspect this wouldn't be the "end" state, because if it happens we'll probably just start buliding devices that put off less blue light.

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

#49

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…

Exactly. See also statistics for "how many people are left-handed". The incidence of left-handedness didn't go up; acceptance of it went up, and people stopped trying to force other people to hide/mask it.

It is also possible that depression itself is more widespread. But it seems exceedingly likely that acceptance, willingness to talk about it, and general understanding that the correct answer to "chemical imbalance in the brain" is not "cheer up!", have improved substantially.

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

#50
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's absolutely not the whole answer and never has been. - People who crave validation seek good looks. They want to be accepted. - People who crave status seek good looks. They want to be awarded. - People who crave admiration seek good looks. They want to be desired. There are so, so many more possible reasons and motivations, and it highly depends on the individual. Someone could have all of the above or none of…

Yes, but if they only see the people of their small town, they see averages, and get a better idea of their own looks, than if they see best shots of the best actors online/in movies.
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