Up@dawn 2.0 (blogger)

Delight Springs

Wednesday, February 8, 2023

Teen Mental Illness Epidemic Began Around 2012

Maybe there is a spike in anxiety (and worse) among students. But you still don't want to preface your presentation with an announced self-diagnosis. 

Jon Haidt:

From the first time I wrote about Gen Z in 2015 (with Greg Lukianoff, in our Coddling essay) through my most recent discussion in a December interview with Tunku Varadarajan in the Wall Street Journal, the main criticism I have heard is that I'm just another old man (I'm 59) shaking his fist and complaining about "kids these days," when in fact "the kids are alright." If that's true, then the first half of the Babel project—on what social media did to childhood and to teen mental health—is fatally flawed. Is the criticism valid?

...see this essay by Mike Males in LA Progressive, titled Enough Youth-Bashing, which includes this: 

From Greek poet Hesiod to modern youth bashers led by psychology professors Jonathan Haidt and Jean Twenge and former first lady Michelle Obama, no one says anything new. Hesiod cornered the market with his "no hope for the future of our people" rant against the "reckless… frivolous youth of today" (700 BC).

And this:

Eon after eon, it's the same float going by. Socrates thought books made the young mentally weak. Panics over coffee, witches, jazz, dime novels, comics, TV, backwards-masked lyrics, Ozzy, Eminem, Tupac, Grand Theft Auto, Harry Potter's Hermione, Miley, cellphones, Facebook, sexting, social media… the endless ephebiphobic idiocies should be retitled, "I'm Superior!" and given their own dismal library shelf.

These critics make two valid points: First, you can find these criticisms in all recent generations and in some going back thousands of years.

 Second, the criticisms are often part of a larger moral panic that arises in response to any new consumer product––and especially any new technology––that "kids these days" are using. Social media clearly fits this pattern. (Robby Soave explained the dynamics of tech panics well in his 2021 book Tech Panic.)

...[But there are] peer-reviewed studies and high-quality surveys showing 1) that there is in fact an epidemic of mental illness and 2) that phones and social media are substantial contributing causes. I am currently writing a book that makes both of these arguments: Kids In Space: Why Teen Mental Health is Collapsing

In the rest of this Substack post, I offer a preview of the evidence that a mental illness epidemic emerged around 2012... Jonathan Haidt

3 comments:

  1. Section #6
    LHP 1: Descartes’ Method of Doubt serves to encourage one to try and prove if there is anything in the world that can truly be proven without any slight possibility of doubt. I personally think that while this idea is a bit more reasonable than Pyrrho’s generally high skepticism of everything around him, it can also lead one down a slippery slope to becoming very skeptical about things in general similar to Pyrrho, as it promotes a cycle of doubt that can never truly be quashed.

    LHP 2: Descartes claimed that he didn’t truly know whether or not he was dreaming at the outset, as he claimed the human senses to be faulty and misleading at times. I’ve personally thought of the idea that I may be dreaming in passing (because I’ve had the “false awakening” a few times now), but overall this idea has only casually occupied my thoughts. It’s interesting to think about, but there’s too much evidence in my opinion to prove that I’m awake (more crisp sensations, the ability to read, clarity instead of gaps in memory, etc)

    LHP 6: Pascal believed that “you lose nothing”, and I’d say that I somewhat agree, in the sense that choosing to follow the Christian faith and religion doesn’t inherently come with much consequence for doing so (especially in our more Christian-focused American society), however I’d say that seeing religion as a game of bets is somewhat shallow thinking, because the point of any belief system is to follow it out of faith and a drive for personal freedom and belief, rather than for a perceived reward

    LHP 7: True. I believe that going by Pascal’s “betting” logic, that only choosing between the Christian faith or atheism is a limiting wager, as you’d be ignoring many other possible religions that (in the logic of this betting idea) are also valid candidates for success or consequence.

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  2. (Section 6)

    I would agree that there is a rise in the anxiety levels among younger people. The American Psychological Association has an article from 2000 which claims that the school-aged children of the 1980s had higher levels of anxiety than child psychiatric patients of the 1950s. It goes on to say that part of this rise in anxiety levels might be due to the current technological advancements and political state at the time. The technological advancements meant that there was less human interaction, causing social anxiety. This was also during the Cold War, where there was a constant worry about total nuclear devastation. I would say that the level of anxiety today is even worse with the prevalence of social media. It is causing people to want every aspect of their life to be "picture perfect" whether it is or not. People are so entranced within their phones that they are not taking in their surroundings or spending time face-to-face with other people. Even when they are face-to-face with other humans, they seem to still be more concerned about what is on social media.

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    Replies
    1. https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2000/12/anxiety
      A link to the article from the APA.

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