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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

#61

Post by LoganDark »

deepsun wrote: post #50
LoganDark wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It feels almost disingenuous to claim it's solely caused by beauty standards.

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

#63

Post by janpeuker »

If privileged people use words like depression (without also accounting for change in diagnosis) to basically say phones should be taken away from their children so they can control their feelings more, it always reminds me of https://heatherburns.tech/2026/07/08/the-kids-with-phones-ar...:

> the upper classes have always objectified their children into possessions. These are groups who, culturally, do not want their children to have agency over their own lives, nevermind devices, nor do they want their young adults to develop essential skills to live their lives as independent adults. They never have. And they never did themselves, which is why the notion of blanket bans come so easily to them.

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

#64

Post by cucumber3732842 »

card_zero wrote: post #12
Aboutplants wrote: post #4

We are inundated with more choices and decisions than ever before, causing stress that becomes overwhelming. Up until the last generation, you didn’t even worry about what you were going to have for dinner. Your option was whatever was available. You spent the day making that thing. You ate. Now you have to make decisions on every little thing in life because there are options and choices for everything in life. We h…

So I did a chronological search for "what's for dinner", here it is in a poem from 1794: https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_pindarian... Their choices are rat, mouse, or nothing, but they do have choices, and I think non-fictional characters would typically have more palatable choices about what to have for dinner, when using this age-old common phrase, 230 years ago. Edit: 1794 was in the middle of t…

But it was less of a "choice". You could choose between using this or that now vs tomorrow, pulling something from the root cellar, etc, but it was a clear optimization problem even if some of the specifics were subjective or speculative.. No "I don't feel like eating chicken tendies" bullshit.

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

#65

Post by tim333 »

blueflow wrote: post #14

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…

One anecdote. I had a friend who went from healthy to almost unable to walk through a post viral 'chronic fatigue' type thing. She couldn't really work but chronic fatigue wasn't a recognised condition for benefits so had to claim depression to get state assistance. (Ireland)

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

#66

Post by talon8635 »

wewewedxfgdf wrote: post #31

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…

Go read some books about the past lol, my god

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

#67

Post by talon8635 »

wewewedxfgdf wrote: post #41
Avicebron wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It’s in quite literally the opposite? That depression and anxiety are rampant in rich communities, cultures, and countries?

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

#69

Post by talon8635 »

card_zero wrote: post #40
pinkmuffinere wrote: post #36

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?

Yes. A fear of destructive social/tech, and a fear of vast/easy eating habits that is destructive to their bodies
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