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The teen mental illness epidemic is international (2023)

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Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international (2023)

#691
post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's addressed in the post. There is some of that, but there are similar increases in hospitalisation for self-harm, which wouldn't be affected by an increase in awareness of mental illness.

That assumes people aren’t induced towards self harm due to an increased awareness? If you believe suicide or self harm are common (and valid/acceptable) solutions to your issue, would you not be more likely to do so?

I guess also suicide attempts and hospitalizations will be highly affected by how society views it. Actual successful suicides seem the least influenced by external trends.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international (2023)

#692

Hyper-individualism in all spheres of life, magnified by anti-social technology. They are depressed because current life-form is depressing. Capitalism is pathologically tautological.

> Capitalism is pathologically tautological.

I know you're mud-slinging at capitalism, so I should recalibrate my expectations, but this is even worse than usual. What's "pathologically tautological"? So intrinsically tautological it's like a disease?"

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international (2023)

#693

People underestimate the change that took place between 2008 and 2012 with ubiquitous phone usage. All of a sudden we all started staring at these devices for several hours a day. We never leave this thing. The resulting impact on our mental state cannot be overstated.

Maybe people also don't really process or understand their emotions when the phone is available. If you always have your phone to entertain you (play music, scroll on instagram etc.), then you don't give yourself time to reflect on your current mental state

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international (2023)

#694

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reads like it was generated by Heritage Foundation GPT.

“The era of big government is over.” — Bill Clinton, 1990 something We’re still living in Reagan’s World and they still don’t get it.

In the US 9/11 ended "big government is over". FUD handed everything over to the fed's on a silver platter.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international (2023)

#695
post #328

People pretend like this is a new startling development. But we are not even close to the youth suicides numbers of the 1880s. Luckily now we are talking about how we feel and try to get better, compared to the rest of human history. To me there is obviously no new epidemic, but just finally an acknowledgement of issues that has always been present.

> But we are not even close to the youth suicides numbers of the 1880sTo me there is obviously no new epidemic

Do we have any reason to believe that the suicide numbers in the 1880s are at all correlated with systemic factors that still persist? i.e. were people committing suicide for the same reasons people are today?

Without this answer, it seems very difficult to support the conclusion that there is “obviously no new epidemic”.

It’s also worth noting that:

1. The mental health epidemic people are increasingly concerned about isn’t just about suicide rates

2. Regardless of centuries past, current concerns are based on local trends, indicating that something is indeed changing

Yes, we’re talking more about mental health now more than ever. But this is not enough to account for recent trends.

I’d be curious to learn more about the time period you’re referencing and how you’re comparing the systemic factors to reach the conclusion that these are the same issues we’ve always faced.

At a minimum, it must be acknowledged that the context has completely changed, and even if we’re dealing with the same underlying psychological factors, the world context in which they’re surfacing must affect people in new ways that were not possible in the 1880s.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international (2023)

#696

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m amazed that I had to read so many comments complaining about social media before I hit this one. How have so few failed to consider the idea that young people might be correctly anxious and worried about the future which looks, in many ways, pretty grim.

virtually all of that fear and anxiety is generated from consuming click-bait doomer social media.

That seems like a denial of reality. You believe if they don't have social media to tell them that they're working 2 dead end jobs and can't afford to place to live while choking on smoke all summer that they wouldn't notice and just be happy?

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international (2023)

#697
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of that cultural change in attitudes can be traced back to the Etan Patz kidnapping case in 1979. That case received widespread, prolonged media attention at the time which made many parents more fearful. He was one of the first missing children to be featured on milk cartons which made it impossible to ignore. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/etan-patz-case-verdict-pedro-he...

It seemed free roaming was still widely accepted in the 90s though? What changed since the 2000s?

For me personally, the ability to look at the sex offender registry and realize there are 4 registered folks within a mile of my house.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international (2023)

#698

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We will probably won't find a culprit It's capitalism. That's the answer you're looking for

> It's capitalism We had capitalism for a LONG time before we had the international teen mental illness epidemic.

Yes but we didnt' have the entire thing uploaded into our heads. To use Byung-Chul Han's phrase, you're both master and slave in one now. You're not even a subject any more (that has some places to escape to) but a project.

To tie it into the article, the social media dynamic, young girls seeing themselves as never-ending beauty projects that have to get lip-fillers, more clicks, more likes, compete with each other, is just the logic of capital without even someone needing to subject them to it, they're doing it themselves.

Capital's eaten all the physical space, it's still hungry so it's gobling up all the mental space, and information tech was the vector to jump from one to the other. And it does to the mental environment exactly what it did to physical spaces once its done harvesting them.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international (2023)

#699

What started as a critical blogpost about wokism turned into an worldwide youth mental illness crisis. This raises a few red flag on me.

Jonathan Haidt is a very thoughtful researcher and has been looking at this and related issues for a very long time. I think your dismissal is perhaps a bit too casual.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic is international (2023)

#700

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's addressed in the post. There is some of that, but there are similar increases in hospitalisation for self-harm, which wouldn't be affected by an increase in awareness of mental illness.

Mental illness has become a badge to wear. "I have depression/ADHD/Autism/Bipo/sch" Once you think you have it, you notice all the systems. As a medical owner, I'm not going to deny someone money if they are coming. With grey areas, and the lack of science in medical, it very well could be a tracking thing. I certainly wouldn't tell anyone I had a mental issue in the 90s or 00s. Today, its almost cool.

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