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The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere

jonathanhaidt.substack.com

491–500 of 514 posts

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere

#491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A significant part of the trans movement is a reactionary reinforcement of rigid gender roles: Perhaps you're referring to the transmedicalist position? That's rather disapproved of in the trans movement as a whole, from what I've seen. > gender as a social construct Have you not seen the memes? https://libreddit.eu.org/r/traaaaaaannnnnnnnnns/search?q=gen...

The argument appears to be "wanting to change your gender posits that gender is part of objective reality and not a social construct, which is sexist", which is analogous to "trying to create racial equality implies the races are unequal now which is racist". If you ignore realities of present society and pretend that things like gender roles and racial discrimination don't exist today, you can make it look like peop…

The analogy is deeply flawed since nobody is changing their race to fight racist social roles. Just imagine going to a classroom and telling the audience that some children are born in the wrong body that does not align to their real, deep race.

Rather, we fight racism by rejecting racialized social roles. There is nothing racist in acknowledging current racial inequality, but it's deeply racist to suggest there exist a "real", inner race that influences our behaviors, and if society pushes us into racialized roles, it's because they don't afirm our "true race".

Similarly, we fight sexism by rejecting gendered social roles, biological sex is a minor anatomical detail that - aside from well specified domains, such as reproduction and raw physical strength - should have no bearing on someone's ability and right to perform any social role they desire.

To do anything else for pragmatic reasons is as if the suffragettes would have dressed up as men on election day and attempt to vote that way; ie, recognize and reafirm the restriction instead of attacking the fundamental inequity of the male-only vote.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere

#492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea what you mean by "climate propaganda". I just lived in a place that experienced 8 consecutive heat waves that shattered all known records in the area and which will destroy the regional economic livelihood. A totally unprecedented event, which we know with quite a bit of certainty will begin to occur frequently. I have no idea how you expect polite society to accept that without distress.

When people don't even realize it exists, that's the mark of truly successful propaganda! "8 consecutive heat waves that shattered all known records in the area" Yeah, where is this? I doubt it's actually true. For sure it was reported as true, but one of the many reasons to call it climate propaganda is that that reporting of "records" doesn't mean what you think it means. Government agencies and other parts of the…

You have absolutely no idea about climatology and are just parroting garbage.

You're not a climate scientist, you have no idea how scientists reach the conclusions they have, you don't understand the evidentiary lineages that have brought us to the current understanding of the climate. You cite a single paper yet conveniently ignore the entirety of the research being carried out throughout the globe, by agencies and institutions with no relationship to each other, all reaching the same conclusions.

You haven't even the slightest understanding about the climate yet you claim "propaganda".

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere

#493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you should actually listen to the kids. After months of group therapy I can attest to they're telling us. We're just not listening. Continuing to blame social media is all the confirmation they need to know we're not listening. Oh, and the active shooter drills they've been doing at school now for the past 10 years isn't helping anything. Now they worry about going to school and getting shot. Thanks to Uvalde t…

I repeat myself: we have a similar outcome in Europe, but we have a wildly different situation, and the things you listed don't apply here (and many of them applied in the US even stronger in the past when the kids were alright). Group therapy is for helping people deal with something. It's not a process to understand a phenomenon, that's not its goal. > But hey, let's blame social media. Better yet, let's blame TikT…

> Group therapy is for helping people deal with something. It's not a process to understand a phenomenon, that's not its goal.

Yes, and I have ears - and use them. I listened to what the kids were saying. I listen to the kids I work with in the youth organizations in which I'm involved. I listen to the kids on the teams I coach. If you haven't figured it out, I'm around a lot of kids.

You wanna know something none of these kids have ever complained about (and boy do they complain a lot!) - social media making them feel bad. I don't know a single kid that was like I may as well quit since I can't do X as good as some social media darling.

I can tell you what they do complain about, and I wrote about that elsewhere on this thread.

But I do know politicians love blaming social media so they can use it as fuel for their TikTok ban. They can use it as fuel to reign in "Big Tech."

Being a Gen X'er I can tell you in the 80's and 90's it was video games and heavy metal music they were blaming for the kids' woes. Today it's social media. All I can say is they were wrong then, and they're wrong now.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere

#494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I repeat myself: we have a similar outcome in Europe, but we have a wildly different situation, and the things you listed don't apply here (and many of them applied in the US even stronger in the past when the kids were alright). Group therapy is for helping people deal with something. It's not a process to understand a phenomenon, that's not its goal. > But hey, let's blame social media. Better yet, let's blame TikT…

> Group therapy is for helping people deal with something. It's not a process to understand a phenomenon, that's not its goal. Yes, and I have ears - and use them. I listened to what the kids were saying. I listen to the kids I work with in the youth organizations in which I'm involved. I listen to the kids on the teams I coach. If you haven't figured it out, I'm around a lot of kids. You wanna know something none of…

> Being a Gen X’er I can tell you in the 80’s and 90’s it was video games and heavy metal music they were blaming for the kids’ woes.

Yeah, 80’s heavy metal music (and D&D, though politically that was more at the local level, though like heavy metal it tied in with the Satanic Panic), 90’s video games and rap music (though obviously there was no clear cut over, just a gradual shift of focus.)

And the arguments were pretty much the same as with social media, including a whole lot of post hoc ergo propter hoc without good evidence of causation and where there were alternative and stronger causal explanations.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere

#495
post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "both extremes are mad at me so I must be doing something right" I haven't said that and try to be careful never to imply it. Rather, my point is that these complaints about moderation bias (which come in from all political angles) are so isomorphic that there must be a common mechanism underlying them. (People sometimes interpret this as an argument in favor of centrist politics but that's a misunderstanding. It's…

I'm sure you've banned others, too. I read with showdead on, and I'm seeing a pretty clear bias in who's banned and who's not. Sure, it may be that right-wingers just can't behave, and I certainly see some of those. But others are perfectly fine comments, and checking their comment list, they write plenty of those, yet they still got banned. The communists don't get banned, and I can't recall seeing an obviously left…

Can you link me to specific examples of accounts that you think should be banned and haven't been? or of accounts that have been banned, which shouldn't be? I'd like to take a look.

I'd also look at links to specific comments (i.e. dead and shouldn't be, or live and shouldn't be). But that's less relevant because we have to evaluate these things at account level, not post level. For example, banned accounts can post good comments (and we hope users will vouch for those - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#cvouch, and we unkill them whenever we see them), but it doesn't follow that the account should be unbanned. That depends on the overall behavior of the account.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere

#496
post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure you can blame problems such as climate change, economic issues -- every generation had its own existential crisis: WW2, Korea, Vietnam, numerous recessions and until 1990, recent generations lived under the specter of the atom bomb. I think it's social media, that's what's really changed: Every single teenager is now comparing themselves against every other kid in the world instead of just their local pe…

20 years ago, when you finished your school day, week, or semester, you could go home, on vacation, etc., and not have any contact with your schoolmates unless you wanted to. Nowadays, you see them and they can interact with you or talk about you 24/7 on social networks. There's no escaping your bully by hiding at home anymore, as you can be publicly bullied on social platforms all the time. This is likely a terrible…

I think you are quite correct. The kid/teen social sphere today never sleeps, and never forgets, and there is no escaping it.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere

#497
post #296

I'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…

I'm not sure you can blame problems such as climate change, economic issues -- every generation had its own existential crisis: WW2, Korea, Vietnam, numerous recessions and until 1990, recent generations lived under the specter of the atom bomb. I think it's social media, that's what's really changed: Every single teenager is now comparing themselves against every other kid in the world instead of just their local pe…

"I'm not sure you can blame problems such as climate change, economic issues -- every generation had its own existential crisis: WW2, Korea, Vietnam, numerous recessions and until 1990, recent generations lived under the specter of the atom bomb."

All of those issues felt less existential (or at least had very clear points of no return that we managed to avoid going over the brink on), and climate change for many, maybe quite reasonably so, feels like we will be the proverbial boiling frog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog

It feels different because of the complexity and scale is no longer definable or predicated on a clear discrete set of objects (e.g. Nuclear powers, key banking systems, a hot war with defined participants) but is by global definition....everything.

It's abstract yet ever present (e.g. all the recent climate weirdness, and the disasters that have followed, both in terms of pure environmental impacts as well as economic and overall regional stability as byproducts thereof) and that becomes much more difficult to "manage"

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere

#498
post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And all of the things you just listed, do absolutely nothing compared to demonstrating against using oil and coal. Instead they just make your life worse, much more than it helps the environment. Virtue signaling if you will.

>And all of the things you just listed, do absolutely nothing compared to demonstrating against using oil and coal Says who? What's the marginal reduction of CO2 for skipping a day of school in the name of climate change awareness?

Probably nothing compared to actually working on replacing oil.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere

#499
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being drunk during all of your free time is socializing?

Drinking is the hobby, shooting up the forest with friends is the socializing!

I live in Iowa. I know you’re being downvoted, but you’re not wrong at all here. This accurately describes the hobbies of many people I personally know.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international – Part 1: The Anglosphere

#500
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think it's normal or expected? If so, why?

Yes. A lot of depression about the world is driven by left wing views. Women are more left wing than men, liberals are obviously more left wing than conservatives, and young people are more left wing than older people. So being young liberal and female is the intersection of all those categories. I don't know how important being white is there, but I also don't see much discussion of race in this line of articles, on…

[citation needed]

Especially because left/right dichotomy smells particularly anecdotal here.

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