Yes Sabine, of course we need a non-sensationalist, non-alarmist analysis of the effects of social media on mental health (and not only in young girls). Thanks!
@@SabineHossenfelder Thanks for reading my comment 😉As a suggestion, do incorporate family life into the analysis. I see families in which parents and children neither communicate anymore nor actively spend time together, partly due to spending too much time digitally. However, also the necessity of multiple jobs to keep track with the cost of life is often a factor.
On the note of family life, at least since the Nixon Administration, there's been a concerted effort to incarcerate a large number of fathers, breaking the family structure of entire demographics.
The correlation between high income level and low mental health is probably due to higher accessibility to mental health services for the more wealthy and greater willingness of people with higher incomes to access mental health support. I think these figures fail to reflect the prevalence of untreated mental health problems among poorer families and individuals.
Yes, untreated and undiagnosed mental health statistics are inherently difficult to accurately represent, lacking a method for collecting data on the unknowns. Correlations of income and access to diagnosis are important to consider, as you have noted, and I'm not sure whether these figures account for that correlation.
So why it is not visible in Europe, where everybody has the same access to health care? Furthermore, in the US the health division line pretty much coincide with political division line while the politics in the US is getting crazier every year for several decades.
It seems to me and many others that these "mental health" problems are simply symptoms of a greater issue at hand, and that "mental health services" are simply a poorly understood, short-term, catch-all band-aid for such symptoms but not a solution to the underlying issue that gives rise to the symptoms. A better solution, it would seem, would be to put our efforts into identifying the underlying issues that give rise to the symptoms and fix those. We need to take serious and consider the fact that ancient humans, like other animals, never needed "mental health services." There are two possibilities in my view: (a.) These mental health problems are not "real" and are merely a natural result of modern humans being softened by all the comforts and/or sensibilities of modern civilization (e.g. technology), and thus not being able to cope with the realities of the world when they are presented. Like a zebra that was trapped in a zoo all its life suddenly being released onto the plains of the Serengeti. For example, "Anxiety" can be shown not to be abnormal/a mental health problem by the simple fact that most animals experience high levels of anxiety on a daily basis due to the possibility of them or their relations being violently killed and eaten by predators. Anxiety in this case is a good thing, and the lack of anxiety is what is abnormal. Our "predators" simply take on new forms now. (b.) Mental health problems are "real" and are a result of the modern humans being given psychosis by all the comforts and/or ideals of modern civilization, and thus not being able to cope with the realities of the world when they are presented. Something about modern civilization (e.g. cities/technology) is innately unhealthy and bad for flourishing of the human/animal mind. The solution: cities and smart devices dismantled; returning to small, intimate, self-sustaining, agrarian societies where people actually talk to, rely on, and form deep connections with each other. (c.) Some combination of (a.) and (b.).
Indeed. Even if you wanted a therapist, most people can't afford just how absurdly expensive they are if they are even available where you live at all. And when you do scrape up enough money to see one, they're nothing but a pill peddler who tosses you some drugs that might not even be helpful or relevant and sends you on your way. Healthcare in the US is a joke, let alone mental health
When I was in the hospital for a non-mental health related problem it seemed that they were actively trying to get people to think they had a mental health problem. When I answered a question if I was feeling sad or depressed with a yes a psych showed up. When she asked why I thought I was depressed I told it was because I was in the hospital. There can be legitimate reasons not to be happy
DIid "they" tell you what might constitute whatever they meant by " a mental health problem? One way of telling a court or tribunal that your client is daft without saying that it terms in front of him, is to say something like :" Some people for various reasons find some aspects of life a bit complicated. perhaps I can put it this way; my client finds absolutely*Everything * complicated". Now has my chap got "mental health" problems, or is he just daft as brush?
@rambunctiousvegetable having a friend tell me he doesn't feel the same anxiety as i do was so refreshing and legitimized my mental state. Almost everyone will agree they feel anxious like you but my friend recognizes normal anxiety and crippling anxiety. I wish more people recognized being depressed and anxious for normal reasons vs being clinically affected by it
You zero'd the axis! Thank you! I keep seeing economics videos that misrepresent data based on a non-zero axis. My anxiety disorder hit 6 months before covid. I woke up one morning more afraid of nothing in particular than I had ever been afraid of anything before. Social anxiety is one aspect of it. Lockdowns and social distancing were a blessing for me. I really needed the break while I got my shit together.
@@CAThompson He is quoting Mark Twain (or perhaps Benjamin Disraeli) about the ability to deceive with statistics and graphs. One of the most common techniques to distort significance is by manipulating the X/Y axes of graphs. That said, you don't always want to zero an axis to illustrate an intended point.
There never is so few suicides as during a war . Anxiety is when you feel useless …. When you have food , house , security…. Our brain did not evolve for the « no problem » state .
When covid first hit was the least anxious I've ever been. When everyone else is levelling up their anxiety being born a lvl99 master anxious wreck makes a person feel kinda normal for a change
my heart broke a little when you said you were feeling like everything you do sucks maybe it was just a joke because you do a lot of dry humor and i vibe with that, but i want to remind you that your videos are very educational and helpful to a lot of us and we appreciate you thank you for all you hard work and if you ever really do doubt yourself like that, come on here and take this reminder, ok? your mental health is important and the youtube life ain't easy
I think it's a sign of good mental health to be able to recognize the reality of your post inadequacies and build on them. What is concerning is not to be able to recognize growth (inferiority complex) or not to be able to recognize inadequacy (narcissism).
Lovely presentation as usual! I work in mental health crisis/suicide prevention in the US, and I suggest reverse causation as a hypothesis: people who are already lonely/isolated/friendless are more likely invest more time and feelings of importance into social media. I talk to a disturbing number of people (not all of whom are young, but many are) who tell me they have no real friends they can turn to, no one they trust to listen to them. Or if they do trust someone, that person already has too much going on and they shouldn't burden then any more. I'm not in a position to know if it's a mostly a matter of distorted perception (and if so, why it's such a common perception) or not, but that's where I'd look for a general explanation first.
Does work in mental health mean that you are a psychiatrist - a qualified medical doctor? - What the devil is "mental health"? - The opposite of being a raving lunatic or madman? There are indeed some madman about the place, some of them imagine that they are women and some of them imagine that they are Napoleon but and some of them imagine that they have been taken up to Venus by the notions and they are all stark raving mad not to mince words.
I just want to say that none of your work sucks. I think you do an excellent job making your content interesting, informative, with the right amount of humor added in! You come across as very transparent but knowledgeable and trustworthy! You don’t seem at all arrogant and your level-headed humility is welcoming. I subscribed because I know you care about making sure to cover as much of a topic as possible but be unbiased as well. I say just keep up the great work, keep learning, and you can relax that it’s all well worth the effort!
I've adored how somewhat ramshackle the earliest videos on this channel are, how they showcase a raw, courageous human setting out on a new endeavour. I loved how they were made by someone willing to put themselves out there who then kept going and refining their craft whilst keeping the same spirit they started with. I hope Sabine never gets too polished, the human in the frame is what makes these videos as entertaining as they are. All the wiz-bang graphics and tech there is can't bring what being Sabine does.
@@juhaniwinter What do you mean by 'transgender problem'? No doubt that LGBQTIA+ people facing renewed discrimination especially transgender people. People who can have babies are also being treated badly in increasing numbers including the United States.
@@ataraxia4526 If you mean her music, I adore it. She's one of my favourite musical artists. She has some tracks on SoundCloud that aren't on UA-cam as well.
@@CAThompson I mean fuckin up your hormones (worst yet, effing up your child's) with pills, and destroying your body with operations, when your at an age your brain has not stopped developing yet - when the right approach would be to learn and live in the state and sex that your are.
As a person who qualified in physics then studied medicine and became a psychiatrist, this is a good video but missing a few things because of society's 'mental culture' - not Sabine's fault, very few people know about the following. Here is what the situation really is: i) Its normal and not an illness to feel depressed and anxious if really bad things are happening to you (and it would be abnormal not to respond this way). The cure is uually fixing the social problem, not a pill or therapy which doesn't work very well (unsurprisingly), ii) severe psychiatric illness is very different and really does exist (unlike what Thomas Szasz said, who also graduated in physics before doing medicine, but was completely clueless about medicine including psychiatry), such as properly diagnosed (not 'spectrum') schizophrenia or bipolar illness, iii) even for people with these illnesses, who are at the highest risk of suicide, the lifetime suicide risk is only 5 to 10%, iii) however the 90 to 95% who do not die by suicide (only those with severe psychiatric illnesses) have a much reduced average life expectancy, iv) in the UK its an average reduction in life expectancy of 15 to 20 years and in the US for schizophrenia its an even more awful average reduction in life expectancy of 28.5 years - official government figures (links below). Society has been focusing more and more over the past 20 years on the mildest 'mental disorders' and including those which are not illnesses at all (such as a normal reactions to awful social problems), instead of focusing on the most severe psychiatric illnesses which have greatly increased 'all cause mortality'. We know what the end stage diseases are, but don't really understand why these diseases are so prevalent, and this is not a new thing - turns out its always been like this. To put these figures in context, the average loss of life expectancy from a range of common cancers is 10 years. This means severe psychiatric illnesses are a lot worse than cancer. Very few people know this and its not being discussed generally in society. In a 100 years time our current 'mental culture' (=ignore 'physical' and ignore the most severely ill people) will be recognised for how awful it is. Mild conditions are not unimportant but they are less important (and not associated with greatly increased all cause mortality) compared to severe illnesses. Even on the UK and US goverenent websites I referred to, these figures are not particlarly emphasised, but you can find the figures here (note '.gov'): UK: www.gov.uk/government/publications/severe-mental-illness-smi-physical-health-inequalities/severe-mental-illness-and-physical-health-inequalities-briefing US: www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/schizophrenia UK: cancer pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15655548/
Physics, medicine AND psychiatry?! It's a pity, or more a mystery, that you didn't study writing skills a bit more. Have you ever heard of a paragraph?
I lived abroad and in many parts of the world mental illness is simply undiagnosed and unaddressed/stigmatized. I encountered very unstable people who had no chance of treatment. The same could be said in the United States due to cost/availability of care, but for example, in China, there are simply not psychologists/therapists available.
@@jakeaurod The exorcists are often the only sane people in some communities. Everyone else will go off on some weird tangent on how a young girl should act, while the exorcist will actually talk to her and give a referral to a psychologist. (No, seriously, no one will think of using modern medicine until the exorcist makes a recommendation.)
For me 25 years of being in corporate America where I had to keep customers happy, lacked rest, and lacked economic and employment security caused immense harm both physically and psychologically.
@@cg6176 It could be great if you firstly do some internship instead of starting out with a full-time job. It can be more costly for a company to hire someone without experience. I am not assuming that an internship is feasible for your level of personal responsibilities, but it is what can change your story if you can do it.
@@cg6176 They also don't want to hire people WITH experience (over the age of 45 in software). I'm over 50 and, after 2 years of struggle, just gave up (30 years of software engineering) on the idea of coding again. 1200+ job applications, 80+ interviews, 10 actual 2nd interviews, and 2 "welcome to the team" followed by HR rejection as soon as my age was gleaned from my college dates. Still unemployed and running out of savings, but, staying hopeful, but if I end up homeless, I'm retiring myself permanently.
OMG Sabine! Yes! Please do more about social media and mental health in young people! 🙂 I work at a children's hospital ER, and I see a lot of kids in mental health crises. 😢... It's heartbreaking to watch sometimes... BUT, being one who struggled with it in their youth, which has continued on, to varying degrees ever since, I have a passion to help those kids. I try and let them know every day that I am an ally to them, and I generally tend to do pretty well at keeping them from spiraling further while they stay in the Emergency Department. I know what it's like to struggle with social crap, family problems, mental health, bullying, etc... So those kids will always be on my extra tender care list... Anywho, I've babbled enough for one day... Have a good day, Sabine! And thanks for everything you do to raise awareness! 💞
Perhaps bringing coal to Newcastle, but this might interest you «Associations between media viewing and language development in children under age 2 years» Frederick J Zimmerman 1 , Dimitri A Christakis, Andrew N Meltzoff pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17889070/
I wonder if that has anything to do with more infants than ever before becoming separated from their biological mothers while they are still infants? Like for example after that infant and their mother while they were residing temporary in a women's shelter get served divorce papers which are demanding access to those infants? While at the same time any disadvantaged single women are being approached to consider becoming a surrogate mother or a if they have been diagnosed with any kind of developmental delay then being encouraged under supervision to become a single mother who may be willing to later after getting pregnant to give up that infant to what is now being called open adoption schemes. Climate change does not explain everything going wrong among youth.
That used to be a funny observation since nothing really bad happened but things have changed. In my state (NM) due to the massive illegal immigration its bringing in all kinds of dangerous diseases. Kids are sick almost continuously now, its life threatening. The doctors are over run and shocked by the increase. Not so funny any more.
From my experience, the "mental health crisis" mostly a combination of generally low life satisfaction because our workplaces don't see their employees as people anymore, the economy basically everything else collapsing right under our feet making our future very uncertain, and a higher acceptance of mental health diagnosis and treatment.
@user-pq4by2rq9y I think the internet has helped with my loneliness because without it I wouldn't talk to anyone. Working over 40 hours a week really sucks anything resembling a desire to be around others out of me, even including my friends.
What the devil is "mental health"? Going by the drivel have encountered where the term "mental health" appears it seems to be some euphemistic catch-all for Diddums -is -not-happy-bunny-because-he-cannot-always-have-his-own-way.
Workplaces have NEVER seen their employees as people, only as slaves and beasts of burden. The current 40 hour work week and weekend holidays we have is due to the unions that fought and were slaughtered for it.
@@danielrodrigues4903 Workplaces, being *places*, do not have eyes to "see" anything. I think you might mean employers, but clearly English is not your mother tongue. No union has been or could have been " slaughtered" because they are organisations which cannot be " slaughtered, any more than companies(in the colonies corporations) or churches can be slaughtered. T he whole point of slaves is that they*don't* have to be paid. In practice employees are servants of their employer, hired to perform particular functions an as a matter of enlightened self interest, it is probably wise to look after your servants so as to get the best out of them, depending on what function you want them to perform. Good servants require good masters
As an almost 30 year old in the US, im gonna give my concise view of why mental health is deteriorating. 1. A lack of community, due to both social media and a general trend of social distancing (not just from covid, but from a reduction in social bonding through groups, organizations, community goals, etc.) in part due to the internet. 2. The rise of objective scientific thought and a reduction of religious beliefs among young people leading to a lack of purpose and feeling unique or special or like you have a place in the universe. 3. The lack of decent jobs and careers. The devaluation of currency and not being able to afford a decent place to live and no upward mobilty. I may never own a house the way things are going here. Everything is too expensive and almost no young person makes enough or will ever make enough. General economic and lifestyle stagnation. 4. Everything is too damn complicated. Whether its trying to figure out how to do taxes or learning about a new subject, the rise of technology and exponential growth of knowledge has made specializing in a career such an immense challenge. The education system in this country has failed the youth in preparing them for the future. Not every child by any means, but many many communties and families have been left in the dust to work menial jobs for menial pay with no chance of going anywhere with their lives. And they know it. Anyways, im not an expert at all but these are a few thing I've noticed where I live. I didnt spend long on this so take it easy on me if I'm over generalizing.
Number 2 is an extreme positive in my opinion. A lack in objective cosmic purpose can allow us to focus on point 1, and the end of belief in free will can allow us to stop focusing on blame and what people "deserve" and focus on just making it all better, addressing point 3 and 4. Humanity can't move forward if it keeps placing stock in proven nonsense
@@kamikeserpentail3778 Crucially, people must accept the ownership of purpose and avoid the dread that nihilism brings as well as the assumption that purpose is something to be bestowed freely by religious or superstitious acceptance or upon recognition otherwise by a "greater" being or ideal.
@@kamikeserpentail3778 right, and I agree with you. But, I meant it in the human context of not receiving that validation of being and purpose from your family or community or career or whatever. For the vast majority of people, if they lose that sense of purpose and have nothing to fill the void, their life and everything else becomes meaningless. It's not about what you believe, it's about what effect believing in SOMETHING and having something or someone to fall back on in difficult times has on a person. Not everyone shares the same views and we have to take into account how people FEEL, not how irrational their beliefs may be. For a lot of people in the USA, if you lose or reject your religious beliefs, you also give up ties with your church, your family, your friends, your community. You are shunned purposely and the effect can be detrimental, especially if you have nowhere to turn. Yes, it can be liberating in a certain sense. But you lose your faith and your community ties and then what? You turn around to face a vast, dark and possibly endless universe devoid of inherent meaning knowing you are going to die and everything you do is pointless. It is a scary and isolating feeling for "social creatures". On top of that, the world really is going to shit, you have a job you absolutely hate, a shitty apartment, no opportunities, and it may never get any better. The threat of global annihilation at the hands of a few extremely wealthy men, and a world where normal citizens have no real power at all. It's already proven recently that votes don't matter, and anyone who says any differently is deluding themselves. Young people with no wealth have had all power, opportunity, purpose, and meaning ripped out of their hands and have been given nothing else to turn to but memeing on the internet about how nothing matters and they may as well be dead anyways. And as it turns out, they are right.
Well, I WAS an “expert” in the mental health field for longer than you’ve been alive, and I have to say you’ve summed it up incredibly well. Sadly. I’m retirement age and have opted out, but would have stayed years longer if the services were headed anywhere but down the tubes. There’s a chance that, now that the neoliberal order is cracking, there may be some turn around, but all the good people have left and the services are run by those with strong sociopathic tendencies. Sorry. Truly.
A female relative was "Instagram Famous" in 7th grade, and her reward was terrible bullying by the girls in her school, leading to social isolation in the real world, depression, and anxiety. When i was a college professor I could see the depression and anxiety in many students. The American Dream is having problems these days.
1976 the Homestead Act was repealed, marking the end to the American Dream. Or...at least, a redefinition. Even being able to own a home on a small lot is becoming a major challenge these days.
Yeah, hatred of success hatred of flourishing and freedom. If you see the world as a zero sum game where your wuccess is at the cost of others and nature... This is what you get. Sad
Famous people are warriors. They don't give a f*** and that's been true forever. It's not for the faint of heart. You have to have a security apparatus then you have to be ruthless enough or smart enough to deal with the codependent psychosis of your peers. This is true with or without the internet actually. The Beatles I'll have scars on their faces from fights. David Bowie almost lost an eye from a fight. The Who were notoriously violent. So there's your answer as to why America is depressed and violent.
If Trump wins the nomination it would be the right time to move abroad if not sooner. I moved permanently to Spain back in 98 from LA where I grew up when times were supposedly good because I'd had had enough of the shallow narcissistic mentality there at the time. I expect it's much worse nowadays. 🤷
My brother is over 30 and just now was diagnosted with ADHD after watching some YT videos of ADHD people sharing their life and was like "huh, that sounds really, really familiar".
I was just discussing this with some friends. I think that most rational Americans that are stuck living paycheck to paycheck (which feels like most of them), are living with a constant, low level feeling of dread. It's tough working constantly to barely survive, especially with "inflation" and healthcare costs being insane, even with insurance. It's easy to feel like there's little hope of things getting better here for anyone but the most wealthy, who are doing better than ever.
My thoughts. If you see that you cannot build up.a life this is undoubtly depressing and creating anxiety. Also the abuse of all kinds of drugs, to make this mess bearable, could play a role.
@@GlazeonthewickeR Man... I don't know. It really feels like we're beyond the point of no return. Far too many people are brainwashed or just don't want to think about the real horrors. By the time things get bad enough for people to take action, the ones responsible will have moved to their manors in New Zealand and let the country burn.
Living paycheck to paycheck... you can earn 50k plus benefits with no experience in the US. That's just 1 income. You are so totally removed from the rest of the world it's unreal.
A year ago, my dog died. It was from an accident and was a traumatic and horrible experience. Not long before that, I had lost my mother to COVID. I was offered anti-depressants, but I declined. Antidepressants wouldn't bring my mother back. They wouldn't bring my dog back. Sometimes we're not depressed. We're just very sad. In these cases, time and support are the only real antidepressants that work.
I look at your content and channel and think you must be so proud and I am thankful that I found your channel. Thank you and I hope you know how much I appreciate you.
It's telling to me that the rise in suicide rates were similar in the US and Brazil. As a US citizen, I think what is partially fueling this is an acquired neurosis. In the US, we are consistently told that our country is solid, working well, and the economy is fine. Yet, each state has it's own autonomy, with no oversight as to what services are available to the public. Although we can reasonably assume that in crisis there is someone paying attention and an adequate response will ensue, instead the people in charge many times just go "meh.". We are also forced to work for very little pay and we are told we are, in fact, wealthy. Unfortunately, never getting out of debt and spending time working in poor conditions is very detrimental for the average person. We are told to suck it up and are treated like worker bees. This is happening in every career area. But the thing most contributing is that most of those in charge are sociopaths. It's almost like a learned helplessness followed by a feeling of no way out that we experience. The US is becoming a third world country, which is wanted by the top wealth. They literally would like to have a tyrannical sweatshop-like society. Anyone who senses it or even flat out sees it for what it is is automatically down about it, but the more sensitive people are put into despair. Add to it synthetic drugs everywhere, a poor health care system, and socially acceptable snarkiness, and you have a recipe for disaster. People need a sense of stability and ability. There is a constant underlying feeling of there being the opposite. And we are not encouraged to discuss it. which leads to the neurosis I started with. tldr: You can't keep telling people everything is ok and to carry on if it is not, in fact, ok. The roads that this view leads down are all washed out and dangerous.
By what I hear and read from a distance (I don't live in the US), I have indeed the impression that the US economy leans too much to the liberalistic side to be good for most of the people.
Thank you so much for your input, @sabine I would welcome a discussion with you, especially on the subject of counselling as an intervention As a qualified counsellor, I no longer practice as I’ve realised counselling is not empowering enough. I lost my husband to suicide and got very close to that ‘cliff edge’ myself. Today, I have a solution to offer and am on a mission to demystify the dreadful epidemic suicide has become. Deeply value your contribution, too. Well done 👏 Eliana
Yes Sabine, a video on the links between mental health and social media would be great. Johnthan Haidt released a paper a while ago showing that experiments which showed no correlation between mental health and social media conducted the studies for a shorter period than experiments which did.
I lost my footing in the early 10s and never got it back. Primarily due to an abusive relationship, but also being on the autism spectrum confounded my ability to handle it. It was tricky to find a job that would support an entire person and 2 dogs (i'd sooner jump off a bridge than go on without them) without depending on a partner or roommate. The longer I stayed stuck in the relationship the worse I got emotionally. It also made it easy for jobs to dismiss me before even interviewing, what with a job gap so large. I've heard people on the spectrum have been the canaries in the coal mine, we're failing early on and we should be a warning to a horrible social and cultural and political setting that suits no one except the wealthy.
“I’m unfit to live in society without being dependent on other people” followed by “other people need to make changes because their social cultural and political positions are horrible”. 🙄
@@Kyle-86oh, Kyle you’re such an empathetic person. Gee. Usually people like you are either super traumatized or supper spoiled. Which are you, I wonder? I can tell you that no one on any kind of assistance enjoys it or would chose it. Keep telling yourself that people are making careers of not putting effort in. Keep building those welfare queen strawmen to rage against. It keeps the attention off the rich not being taxed enough, our environment being destroyed and the shrinking of social programs that used to help working Americans. There should be no billionaires. Not when kids in Appalachia can’t eat, kids in Mississippi have no clean water and assholes like you think they’re strong simply because life hasn’t pooped on you with poverty or illness. Lucky you. You “screw you I got mine” guys make my stomach hurt. If you were lazy / sick / depressed / addicted I’d still want you fed and housed. I wouldn’t judge you. You’re a precious human being no matter what your work output is. You deserve the basics as well as dignity.
I’m 65 and autistic and happily retired. Autistic jobs like AI, robotics, computer programming and analysis pays more than most job. I made a lot learning to time the stock market.
Sabine, I sincerely thank you for your work! It is very important to publicize such serious public problems and I am pleased to see progress. Next will sound strange, but I am especially grateful for your wonderful diction! I'm from Ukraine, from the generation where English was already taught, but the program was VERY BAD. And therefore it is quite difficult to perceive English by ear, but not with you! THANK YOU!❤
Maybe the other way to see the Fentanyl issue is as follows: people are in tremendous chronic physical pain, and/or don’t see a point to prolonging their suffering, and/or have no sense of positive belonging or safety in their lives, rationally don’t see existence as “a gift” and simply want to exit, but have no globally accessible, voluntary, safe, legal, guaranteed and peaceful method of self-exiting and therefore are resorting to painful and irrational ways of exiting. The standard (medical model) way to see it is: people are individually mentally “ill” and this is why they’re overdosing on painkillers.
'it should not be confused with the local burden of disease commonly known as kindergarten' had to pause and rewind to make sure. just discovered you yesterday, love your mind!
Don't underestimate the effects of a bad diet, a diet low in nutrition and filled with ultra-processed foods worsen most mental conditions, changing my diet had a significant impact on my happiness.
Diet + exercise + real world socialization. I'd be willing to bet the reason young men get depressed after high school/university is mostly modern isolation
Young people in the US are facing new economic stresses. Most prevalent is that incomes of young people are no where close to keeping up with rising expenses like rent and real estate prices, and now interest rates. For instance, my house has nearly tripled in the number of dollars required to buy it since 2009 when I acquired it. However, employee compensation has nowhere close to tripled over the same time frame. I could not buy the house I'm living in today, even after the promotions I have gotten in my job. It's even worse if you're not established in a good job like I am. If you're younger, the amount required for a down payment is going up faster than you can save. In my case, my yearly property taxes are on track to be more than my mortgage payments were per year by the time I retire. The math for the traditional "American Dream" no longer works. And this is just one part of what seems to be a nation-wide dumpster fire.
I kinda figured this "crisis" was due to efforts to actually find and treat mental illness rather than just ignore it. As compelling an argument as "Back in my day things were better" is, it makes sense you find more cases if you actually look for them. As opposed to "back in the day" where treatment involved not saying anything and downing alcohol after and sometimes during work.
What's depressing though is that, mortality rates from mental illness remains stable. We are treating it a lot more, paying a lot more attention to it and it is not working at all. Increased screening and treatment is not being reflected as better outcomes.
@mariopiedrahita2917 does a stagnant mortality rate really mean things aren't getting better at all? Or does it mean we're not good at treating severe cases? Severe cases aren't the whole story.
Then again this cannot be a measure to grade mental illness globally as the access of facilities and resources aren't available. The whole happiness index is also questionable. This is one of those areas which the data is still very inconclusive . It can be used to rate quality of services available for those suffering with mental illness.
Yes, I'd be interested in a breakdown of the social media research. I'm 42, so I am old enough to remember life before the internet even though I'm now very comfortable with it. Further, my kids are at the age where they are being exposed to it. I also have been teaching middle school for the last three years. From deep within my bubble, the impact of social media seems obvious and almost always very negative. That said, I think it's much more nuanced that more social media = more mental health issues. I think I tend to see an added relationship between family structure as a contributing factor, though if that observation holds, I don't know if one mediates the other or if the two are independent.
It's the culmination of decades of gaslighting. The younger adults are getting tired of it. The kids are having none of it. The older "adults," at least the ones in power, are screaming that this is a "mental health crisis" because it's undefinable and really, unfixable from their point of view. The entire world runs off fear in one way or another, and the younger people are tired of that fear being needlessly directed at each other.
I'm 41 and life before and during the early internet days were fabulous. Everyone connecting, fun sites and most of it was text... and the internet was only available to nerds and geeks that could use a modem. Now I feel the internet has been dragged down to shit by the "average" people that are on it. It's a totally different place. Nobody has any patience or attention span. Now we've got kids ONLY using the internet, not connecting, talking or meeting up.
It's not only social media that's affecting young adults and teenagers. The general exposure to an unprecedented amount of information could also be relevant.
Remember having to go to a friends house to see if they were even there? Having to talk to parents and politely ask if buddies were there and could come play? And having to go find them if they weren't home? Now people feel hurt when they get left on read. It's sad.
I have read over a thousand comments and the main reason for depression in USA for 20-35 year-olds is: Low wages, high rents and high property prices so many believe they have no hope of ever getting a home and car. They have "no good-financial future" - hence more depression and homelessness. This is what I've picked up from comments to this video. (I am not in USA myself) Solution? Social housing like they have in EU is the main answer and more .... Social Media? Its playing a role but not clear from comments exactly what role - lots of different analyses.
As one who worked in east Africa for 30 years relying on data gathering, I always love to "confidence" with which the gatherers harvest whatever data are available, irrespective of the fitness of those data. Even comparatively affluent countries like Kenya struggle to provide health care to rural population for infections diseases and widespread adult conditions like liver diseases, diabetes, respiratory illness and physical wear leading to arthritis. Mental health care is so far beyond the need to address more recognizable conditions immediate presentation as to be negligible for all but the urban affluent. I can't imagine the situation to be any different in rural and poor areas of Asia, Latin America, small island states and West Virginia. The mere concepts of in situ "global data" for health treatment is an oxymoron.
well, from Brazil here. The suicide rate is not only correlated to depression or consequence of economical distress. Schizophrenic and psychotic patients are often left to their own fate these diseases often culminate in suicide. I was personally "surprised" to find out most people living on the streets suffer from psychosis. This may just be a detail, but I would trust the data from psychiatry journals more than psychology. There may be a different level of acceptance of mental illness among countries. Sounds tricky, but seeing suicide in the top-10 causes of death is terrifying.
Now the world knows just how inhuman Brazil has been towards the ecology, the collective conscience of Brazilians makes the guilt of ecologicide palpable, and the few truly empathic civilians in Brazil are committing suicide out of a misplaced sense of shame, they weren't the ones with chainsaws.... mostly.
@@seanhewitt603 Nobody is taking their own lives out of shame for what chainsaws do. Suicide happens for many reasons, but I can assure to you that a fuzzy notion of eco-colonialism is not what's wrecking the lives of city dwelling mentally ill Brazilians. You wrote a lot of incorrect and debatable points. Unfortunately, I'm afraid a comprehensive response to all the mistakes and insults your two lines of text convey is futile, because the correlation you established makes for a questionable interlocutor. But it has to be said: the planet isn't suffering a climate crisis because of a poor nation that still has native forests. The polluters enjoy great life standards in the USA, Europe, Japan and so on. The developing countries are not the right target of the tip of angry eco-fingers. Imagine the Amazon Rainforest had been under American or German control instead of the impoverished peoples during the first half of the 20th century? I don't believe it would still exist at its current size. If it still stands, it's thanks to the millions of hard working people who live there.
@@seanhewitt603 Ridiculous ignorant and xenophobic comment. The american industrial military complex pollutes more than 171 countries alone. Go learn geography.
I think part of it might be the culture (or, really, cultures) in the United States. We can be very individualist and I think can leave people feeling isolated. I also think we expect people to be very self sufficient. We venerate the "self made" individual and seeking help or assistance can be somewhat taboo. We also put a lot of emphasis on making money and I think that can feel like a shallow pursuit, that can leave some people feeling unfulfilled. I think it can also feel kind of futile, as financial success can seem like it's getting less and less accessible. But we are also very culturally divided as a country, and it can be hard to know exactly where you fit in, not to mention there can be a good deal of hostility between the different groups.
I think we are just more aware of mental health issues. I myself have been suffering from mental health problems (GAD, BPD) since I was a teenager. It finally started to get better as I approached the age of 40. What surprises me is just how much more accepted it is to be open about mental illness now as compared to before. I think everybody is just more open and that's why we think there are more mentally ill people. But the total number must be the same. 😊 It's a good thing to be more open about mental illness as it will probably allow for more solutions to come forward.
Well, when most countries strip you of rights and use you as a Guinea pig, it makes sense. ‘S why most individuals with psychiatric disorders kept their heads down.
I would love a video on the effects of social media on mental health. Speaking from personal experience, my brother and I got rid of social media a few months, and our mental health has been improving. I'm not sure if our bad mental health was caused by the social media though. I think social media fed an unhealthy loop of feeling worse about myself to staying on social media because of our gods, the algorithms. Getting off social media made us more aware of our faults and since we didn't have a constant distraction of social media to keep us 'busy.' It made us get so annoyed with our faults until we did something about them.
@@theedspage I personally think it's been a positive in other countries. Even though I don't like meta/Facebook, Facebook/Whatsapp has made critical communication a lot faster and easier in developing countries. I think most people in developed countries would see at the very least short term benefits if they uninstalled all social media.
Isn't UA-cam a social media too? I've learned a few things from watching UA-cam videos and my latest skill is assembling a new PC. Something I couldn't have done 20 years ago. I think it depends on how you use social media. UA-cam can be a great tool IMO but I've done away with Facebook and general news media.
Thanks for sharing. The issues is not social media content itself, but rather, the disproportionate amount of time to “sort out” what you mentally ingested. In other words, less time to sort out yourself and how you may fit, and more about sorting out literally everyone else by watching merely them. The latter is exhaustive and can not be practically resolved.
One thing I see that was uncommon when I was young, mental introspection, where as today there seems to be a large movement in public awareness of unhealthy mental patterns. Not sure if the introspection is a result from an increase in mental illness but I’m fully convinced that you typically don’t find things you are not looking for 🥴
Your asservation that you do not find something until you look for it does not mean it was not there before you looked for it. I will tell you unless one themselves has personally faced a mental health crisis one is dismissive of how pervasive mental health issues are in society. Plus people who have mental health issues tend to hide them seeing it as a personal weakness. So your statement in short is nonsense. But glad for you that you and your friends and acquaintances have no mental health issues.
@@finestructureconstant3921 I’m so sad that I offended you. My comment was not intended in any to dismiss mental illness as something that is to be ashamed of, or that I was not familiar with mental illnesses. I had one sibling, he was my older brother by two years and at age 20 was severely struck by schizophrenia and eventually died an early death due to a myriad of various drug side effects as they took their toll on his physical health and did very little to help his condition. I personally have not had any serious mental health issues but have dealt with some mild depression and anxiety. My heart goes out to all those who suffer from mental illness and their families…. I know our family went through horrible times as we tried to provide care for my brother. My comment was simply I meant to imply that there may very well have always been a similar level of mental illness shared by humanity, but we are just now performing the introspection that is required for many of us to determine that we are experiencing one form or another. Again, I apologize if my statement brought you pain in any way 🙏
We are living in a house where the parents are at each other’s throats constantly. Some stay with mom and some stay with dad, each side telling the other they are wrong. And believing it passionately. Dad tells his kids moms crazy and vice versa.
Watch the mind from "behind", don't believe in anything it is trying to sell you. It's all just stories made up, nothing of that has anything to do with you. You are not your thoughts.
Same at my house. But it seems like both are suffering from mental health disorder. But we can't even get help because First, no money, Second, both of them don't even believe in Mental health issues. They don't think they have any problem. But even if they knew that they had a problem that needed to be solved, money is still the issue here. Therapy is so expensive and medicine too. I think poverty is the worse. It cause a lot of mental illness. Or at least it stops you from treating those illnesses.
Yes. Teachers and mentors of teenagers are really anxious to know more about positive/negative effects of smartphones and social media. Please dig around more! Thanks for all your excellent work Sabine!
Either there is indeed already lot of data available on this, and I do not know about it, or I am really surprised that nobody seems to see these links between mental health disorders and parents who are themselves undiagnosed narcissists or just completely ignorant and unable to take responsibility. Most people I know personally with any kind of mental health disorder, but especially depression and border line and so on, had a very tough, traumatizing childhood because their parents were just constantly gas lighting, ignoring, emotionally unavailable, emotionally unstable etc. I have recently seen a video by a former medical worker in an Addiction Treatment Facility who talked about his observation that the patients who come to these facilities to be treated, are actually the healthy ones. 9 out of 10 of them would not have any problems if they stayed away from their parents, and as soon as they are released from the facility back to their homes, the "illness" comes back. It should be the parents who go to psychotherapy, not their children. It is baffling that this is not visible in the studies which were discussed in this video (or even the claim that there is no apparent link between the problems of the previous generation leads to mental health issues in the younger generations).
I cant believe people have so much access, than ever before, in good methods to improve but they dont have a priority their mental health! Its shocking!
I really thought we'd get around to acknowledging that depressive responses are not innately an illness; there's a reason creatures tend to check out when externalities dwarfing their level of agency, start thrashing them around stochastically. Reacting to preventable unabated tragedy with sadness, is not an illness; failing to react at all, is.
Another thing to consider is what cause is attributed to the illness. Depression at the current moment in time seems to be treated as purely, or mostly, due to a 'chemical imbalance' in the brain. The actual social/material realities of individuals is given relatively less importance. Which to me seems pretty backwards and illogical, Moreover, it treats the person who is suffering as just a subject of study in how it reduces the source of their problems to little more than a biological disturbance in their brain and body.
You're completely right that external factors can be really important for development of depression. But I wouldn't completely discard the differences in genetics either. It's probably more complicated than that, and for different people the external and internal factors will influence in different proportions. Which is why things like changing their lifestyle will treat one person's depression and do absolutely nothing for another.
Capitalistic corporations, are terrified they may have to treat their workers better (this includes higher pay) if they acknowledge in any way they are human
One likely contributing issue in the U.S. is the lack of healthcare for many people. This not only means many people not getting mental healthcare (which can also be psychotherapy or other non drug treatments) but also results in many people not getting healthcare or rationing the needed medications (for instance insulin). Whether this effects suicide rates or just “normal” deaths to use an inappropriate colloquialism probably hasn’t been properly studied.
Of course, being healthy is a natural state - humans don't "need" healthcare to be healthy. It's only because we've been brainwashed by the medical profession that we can't be healthy without their interventions that people no longer take responsibility for their own health.
@@dmitripogosian5084 I’m sure that has a large impact as well. My comment is more speculative, but could be adding to it. Certainly the general (relative) economics for younger people and the climate crisis are also factors.
This is completely anecdotal, but as someone who lived in the US until I was 19, I think the mental health epidemic has to do with the social pressures people are put under. I suffered from the depression also. It started because all the other kids I knew at the time refused to speak to me for almost two years. It felt kind of like depression, but it was just extreme loneliness. Of course I turned to the internet to cope and at least get SOME kind of social interaction. It was extreme pressure too. I have heard a lot of similar stories and I think shunning for unknown reasons is a common experience in the US. However, in Germany, France, Italy, etc, it does not seem to be a common experience, at least if you are not a foreigner. Aside from pressure from peers, there is also pressure to finish college, pressure from jobs, pressure from debt, the list goes on. You cannot deviate from a very narrow mould in any way or you will be severely punished. It's no wonder that so many people crack under the pressure.
Yes, too much pressure. You just can't live in peace. I went to school when I was 2.5 years old. I hated it the most. I tried every way to skip school but my parents would always force me to go there. In 15 years school ended and then it's all about scoring well in Entrance Exams to go to a good college. I am still stuck in this. Trying to study so that I can go to a good college. But I have no strength. I can't even focus on my studies. I wanted to become a scientist and I loved physics as a kid but I just get so anxious because of all the things that I feel like I have to do that I can't even focus on my studies. There is also pressure to earn money cuz it's not like my family is rich. We have been struggling these days. My sister doesn't even have a permanent job. I just hope she gets a high paying good job then at least we wouldn't have to worry about money. I also just want to earn money. I have no interest in anything anymore. I have been trying to earn money but it is really hard to do anything. But if there wasn't all this pressure I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have so much anxiety all the time and I would be able to live in peace and actually contribute something to the world. Sorry for the rant.
@person1420 Yeah, I feel you. I tried to study physics too but couldn't focus either, partially because the exams put too much stress and pressure on me. I felt so much pressure because I worried my life would fall apart if I couldn't do it. I also had genuine love and interest for science as a child and teenager. But this love doesn't seem apparent to most people who know me now, including my partner. I'm not sure I would want to dedicate my life to it anyway. I've realized how much of modern science is centered around getting money and advancing people's careers. And how much of it is straight up fraud. In the end I couldn't do it but it seems like God has given another path to live a decent life and I hope it turns out to be true. But yes, you are right. It is much harder for us to "just earn money" than it was for our parents. My 66 year old dad was a software engineer with only a bachelor's degree in English. When he wasn't earning enough money, he just did a 6 week coding boot camp, and bam, he was a software engineer. Now everyone who dropped out of college and their mother has tried to do one of those things. It's not a good way to secure a living anymore. It's easy to feel like a failure when you didn't finish college. But just remember that lots of people who finished college can't find a job either. It's not a guarantee of anything.
mental illness is not rewarded or celebrated, it is being normalized. This means that, nowadays, mental health is not a taboo and you don't have to feel bad for going to the psychologist.
I’m live in the US, Los Angeles to be specific. Regarding the alleged mental health crisis here; trust me, you don’t want to know - just hearing a few of the details would cause your own mental health crisis.
Thank You Sabine, I believe the The Mental Health ‘Crisis’ has always been here ( in the USA) But I think we have finally excavated down to being able to discuss it . ( as opposed to substance abuse and suicide )
I'd love to see more in-depth exploration of social media and it's impact on mental health. Having been in the influencer circles, I've seen how people's behaviour is changed when their life becomes focused on engagement and networking. I've seen those with existing mental illness hide from it by using the adoration and attention as a salve and how resistant they are to turning away from that and confronting their illness. I'm talking about adults here, people in the 25-40 age group, I dread to think what the worst this kind of environment can do to a youth would be.
While you are probably right that a big part of the increase is due to raised awareness, I’d say only going by the physical damages is still very limited, because said awareness also probably avoids the worst in many cases. So it might very well be that the prevalence of depression has really increased while suicide rates have not, so more people suffer, but in their worst moments they’re caught by the healthcare net. Which to me, despite being based purely on anecdotal evidence, seems kinda right.
In the UK where mental health in kids start to go increase coincides with an important date. In 1986, enacted in 87 schools were banned from using corporal punishment. In 2004 the UK in Scotland and Wales banned smacking by parents are severely restricted what parents could do to their kids in the UK. Can you believe it, when you stop keeping your kids in-line, their mental health deteriorates…..must come as a shock to some!
The United States is unique in that psychology is an industry that thrives on convincing people that they need treatment. It’s all about money here. It’s a powerful incentive to pull people in and keep them there.
Don’t forget the media, in league with governments, are convincing people that the world is hurtling toward an impeding heat death unless they feel bad about being white!
That's every industry in America. We encourage selfish behavior and outright theft. Everything is a money grab. For example the real estate companies buying the burned down properties in Maui when people are most vulnerable.
You said there was going to be an advert halfway through and there wasn’t which has affected my mental health. Admittedly it’s affected it in a positive way as I didn’t have to sit through an advert but it affected it none the less.
@@jth4242 if you read the prescription details, all SSRIs can cause suicidal and homicidal ideation. I’m not making it up, it’s a fact. Read the details.
When people start to feel better, but before the depression lifts too much, the risk of suicide increases. It's because the person has the energy to act on their suicidal feelings.
@@NotSoNormal1987 SSRIs don't give energy, and I am *more* active physically when depressed because my aggression levels are higher. You people just don't like pharmaceuticals and thus choose to believe dumb shit you've heard somewhere.
Really love your channel Sabine & actually endure the skillshare ads to help the YT algo... We Americans aren't necessarily nuts, but certainly over stressed...
one of the issues that confuses all this discussion of mental health is that the definition has always included things that are nothing of the sort. the definition has been plagued by this from the earliest and tidying up this mess is badly hampered by a determination on the part of organisations like APA with a clear conflict of interest also being the bodies that hold the role of defining what 'mental illness' means, how it is understood etc. Far too often this relies solely on behavioural assessments that are based on culturally determined criteria, and subject to personal bias. some of them (including ones mentioned explicitly in this video) are, to be blunt, farcical in their definition. as anyone who has worked with data analysis is all too aware, "shit in = shit out." importantly, though, the definitions take little or no account of not just cultural differences, but access to terminology, which itself is complexified by the prevalent language in a region or country. Notably English-language regions tend to have limited access to research and theory published in other languages, while many non-English language regions have higher levels of English language ability as a second language, making English language publications disproportionately influential. A good example of this is the widespread awareness of and use of the DSM published by the APA from the USA - itself a country not that culturally representative of other English-language areas - in non-English speaking regions in parallel to the ICD. This effect is compounded by the strong influence recent iterations of the DSM has had on categorisation and criteria used within the ICD. one of the biggest shifts (one ongoing for several decades now yet barely evident in diagnostic manuals and assessment tools) is the growing awareness of the complex nature of what are commonly termed 'mental disorders.' to date, this has amounted to little beyond recategorisation which itself has been patchy and determined more by government policies, education systems and the like such that one country's 'learning disability' is another's 'developmental disorder' and yet another's 'intellectual disability' and for others a 'mental condition' or 'mental disorder' and even 'mental illness'... and as a result how these are recorded, prioritised for assessment or even reckoned to be 'a real thing' within a society or among medical professionals and diagnosticians is driven by culture, educational policy, dominant language, willingness of organisations to fund or carry out studies, and many many more socially determined factors. this is why apparently in northern ireland the prevalence of Autistic minors is about 600%-800% what it is in the republic of ireland just across an entirely open border on a single small island in a population that has similar population density, education levels, a shared cultural heritage for the most part, similar levels of access to healthcare and so on... and also why NI apparently has Autistic prevalence rates several times that recorded in the rest of the UK, just across the irish sea in Britain. Not to mention that current understanding would have 'ASD' removed entirely from DSM and ICD along with several other neurotypes... something that is unlikely to happen for 15-20 years. what matters is wellbeing, and the focus here on suicide rates gets closer to the mark than any attention to problematic 'disorder' categorisations but is itself only a measure of an extreme end-point that lies to one side of a complex web of possible outcomes including several forms of anxiety, depression, suicidality and more (all of which vary once you exit the Englsih language sphere, sometimes quite markedly). the social determinants of health - which originally focused primarily on a few measures of physical health (notably average life expectancy in a a national or regional population) are now well understood and their impacts more widely appreciated... even as their nuances are still being explored. the discussions around 'screen time' and social media impacts lie in this space and we are not at all clear yet on what to study, how to interpret the data produced, nor how that data relates (as Sabine noted here and elsewhere) to adverse physical or mental health outcomes. given that each decade brings rapidly evolving understanding and thus areas of focus for research it will be a while yet before we can provide any sort of meaningful longitudinal data... and so perhaps the focus for those of us not engaged full time in professions working in these fields should be on the here and now, the local, the immediate: our selves, our families and friends and communities, not to determine whether our overall mental health is improving or worsening, but on more practical and basic matters such as 'does this activity cause me distress and if so, is it essential for me to continue with it?' or 'what brings me or others security, comfort, connection, joy... and how might we reinforce those aspects of our lives?' any data we have, be it global, regional or local is above all the product of individuals thinking about, talking about, and acting on questions like that. fretting about a headline telling us that 'we are in a global mental health crisis' is to engage in a potential self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts, and one with no hope of a positive outcome - we cannot realistically change global mental health measures. we can strengthen community bonds, act in compassion towards our family and friends and colleagues, be more forgiving of our own inevitable and very human shortcomings, be patient, seek support, listen to the voices of those actually experiencing distress as experts in their own wellbeing and, in so far as we can act on a larger scale, tell our politicians, healthcare providers, educators that we want and need exactly those kinds of approaches to dominate policy and funding priorities. mental health matters are by definition individual experiences and if progress is possible it can only be possible by change driven from the ground up by placing individual needs above political ideology or economic policy or reflex responses to headlines about a global mental health crisis that doesn't exist. if there is a crisis, it is only that this reprioritisation has not already occurred.
Great content Sabine. I’ve had anxiety for years but not diagnosed. However, taking the easy way out is not an option as I have seen the affect that suicide has on family and friends and I never want that.
Describe what you call anxiety, and see if you can understand that you would be lost without it. In relation to exactly what are you anxious and in which of your functions is t experienced. Weird creature, men(human beings) they clutch their wholly unnecessary suffering to the bosoms as a mother clutch yes her babe to her breast- they will happily sacrifice anything-you-please *But* their unnecessary suffering. Now why do you think that is?
I really appreciate the way you approach current events and science despite our differences in our worldviews. You are a brilliant scientist, and I look up to you in a way as a junior chem student
Come on Sabine, it’s not that hard to figure it out… When you turn into an young adult, what do you aim for? Finishing college, getting a fairly paid job, buying a car, maybe buying a house. The thing is that your generation promised everything for ours, and the when we reached the moment at which we could claim these rewards, we were denied. It’s very hard to get a decently paid job nowadays. The cost of living has skyrocketed since you were my age, in terms of price of households, rent, food and everything. It’s growing up and getting to know the reality that you’ll NEVER be able to afford to buy a house. I’m an aeronautical engineer and I’m from Brazil, I get paid less then the minimum for my category and if I want to buy a new but the cheapest car, i would have to work a whole year without any other bills to pay. As an engineer after studying for 5 years in the University plus 1 year internship in Germany, I thought I could have a better life. “Okay, but Pedro, you could move abroad”. That’s not that simple. 1st world countries do the best they can without being labeled as xenophobic to avoid immigration. Restrict laws, processes, and high visa prices in the end only benefit the rich to immigrate. Wrapping around, it’s the gigantic valley between the world and the promise that your generation made to your children, us, a very common cause for this global mental health “pandemic”
You make it sound as if this was the case everywhere in the world. I live in a small city in northern Europe. A modest house costs 250k€. A young engineer probably makes 30k€ after tax. Not that bad IMO. But many young people here want to live in big cities where houses cost 600k€ and the salary is only marginally better than in a small city. That is the issue.
I think we’re overlooking the elephant in the room here. I assume people will develop more mental issues if they don’t see how the future is going to be better than the past. My subjective perception is that very few people today have an impression that the life is going to get better and not worse in next five years. I feel that young people such as myself are unsure they will be able to buy a house, financially support a future family, accumulate enough savings for retirement etc in addition to the feeling that things are getting worse. Also, if we talk about the US, the inequality (say gini index) is on the rise, the trust in public institutions is all time low etc. Someone must have researched that.
Fun fact: locally (meaning: my county in the US), one of the largest facilities to give mental health services is the County Detention Services. .....the jail. That's one way people here end up getting mental health care. It's nice that it's there....but if you happen to not be locked up, there aren't many other options locally. Your doctor won't 'be able to help' and getting an appointment with a health care provider that is more than a counselor (which is better than nothing but, here, it equates to 'talk therapy only') and that is, currently, going to be about a year out. When it comes to a person having a mental health crisis... there is one (of the three large) hospital that *can* take people in, but they are usually full. So, you end up in the ER waiting room. Other than that, if you're having a crisis, there are hotlines you can call....and talk to a counselor for a bit, but they get full at times too. Sadly, if you are having an crisis.... you're lucky if you're able to get help, even if that's family to help at home. A lot (including family members of mine) have a crisis and their first interaction with anyone associated with mental health care... is a law enforcement officer. They are amazing people (generally speaking) but that isn't their job and not a core part of their training. That's changing lately, however, but it's hard (for me, anyway) to argue that police officers should deal with everything from fatal car accidents to mundane minor crimes to gang-related crime...all the way up to robbers, murderers, drug dealers and the occasional high speed chase or shootout/shooting... and then expect them to be 'trained to handle a person in a mental health crisis' or 'to bring a liscensed mental health professional to every call' (that person would be useless on most calls and if they aren't actually there during a mental breakdown, then they can't help) or 'wait for said professional to arrive before moving forward' (which is a suggestion that seems to forget the unpredictable nature of a police standoff or a mental health crisis). The prison, incidently, is full as well. Literally. A few weeks ago, for a few days in a row, if a cop arrested someone, both would have to sit in the cruiser for hours ...waiting for an inmate to be released so a bed would be open. 🤦♂️ It's not like it's a horrible place to live, but mental health care is difficult to get, even if you go with the 'get help from the jail' route.
"Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted." - Jiddu Krishnamurti
5:20 also, overdiagnosis. If a psychologist or psychiatrist tells a teenage girl that she's chronically depressed and high anxiety when in reality she's just a girl in high school going through puberty and having a normal existential crisis, she'll believe it, and not only will she be recorded in some database as another case of those disorders, she could easily end up inducing the actual conditions because she's overthinking them.
@@MNbenMN yes. But I think it specifically works with anxiety and depression because it's easy to build delusions that produce those issues and they are negative feedback loop disorders.
@@Velereonics So, should we aim to detect and treat the suggestibility itself as its own disorder (opening up a new category of diagnoses), or avoid making the suggestions (potentially leaving many undiagnosed)?
@@MNbenMN Im not convinced therapy and medication is effective. I think it's probably really hard to find a definitive answer on that because I went to lots of therapists and then just stopped going without warning each time, so I don't know how that would have been recorded. Point being, if it's not effective then yeah trying to influence it at all with some kind of national or global standard is rash/arrogant. I think focusing internally on why you have certain feelings is nonsense. There's no consistency to feelings. They're totally contextual, and the time that passes between when the thing happened and talking with the therapist is completely going to warp what actually happened. So you can either talk about something with them that may not even be true or accurate and why you feel negatively about it even though you're negative feelings are probably justifiable based on your memory, Or you can recognize that at the end of the day nothing is going to make you feel better about certain things. And when people say to "ignore" bad memories, they're not saying sit there and try not to think about it because that's impossible. You have to do new things. Like go develop new hobbies, go talk to people you don't know like things like that. You have to build some kind of goal and direction to go in and envision, otherwise the only thing you can focus on is the past which for most people in therapy is bad.
@@Velereonics Ironically, in electronic circuits, negative feedback is use to to reduce distortion effects, not compound them. That's positive feedback.
On a more positive note, you are helping foster a mental health event. I have been sending your videos to a school in West Africa. The students range from 12 to 16 and while not everyone is interested in this (perfectly understandable), I am pleased to see some of the more interesting comments. As an example, on the case of the FMRI and the dead salmon, I was asked if it would work with a chicken. (They don't really have salmon there). I said I would imagine the experiment would turn out just the same -- they said "Good, we can now prove the chicken is smarter than our president". Not quite pure science, but they are thinking! And, if we'd done that some time ago with say, members of congress, we could have saved ourselves a lot of trouble, and used the famous line "I see brain dead people!" Thanks for making science interesting to kids as some did for me many years ago back in the mesozoic
15:29 Could it be that young boys, being less likely to open up about how they feel because of societal conditioning and expectations, are less likely to admit their feelings of sadness and hopelessness, causing the result shown here?
Don't think so. On average, looking at the character traits from the OCEAN model, females score higher in agreeableness and neuroticism. This might have some good and some bad consequences. And here we see one of the consequences.
Makes sense. I guess that means that both groups are dealing with the same/similar issues, one group is just having a harder time coping with it than the other.
Sabine, wonderful show, as usual. I agree kindergarten children are germ bombs 💣. On the topic of mental health,. It should be considered not enough people are turning off the tv,phones, and other electronics. That coupled with lack of exercise and sunshine.. Keep up the good work 👏 👍 ❤
Oh come on.... lack of sunshine isn't that bad. My skin is 20 years younger at the cost of resembling a pale white vampire. My whiteness shines so bright at night it keeps my spouse from getting a good sleep.
Using phones and getting less sun isn't the reason people are depressed ffs. Capitalism is. Most people in my generation work their entire lives just to scrape by. We'll probably never own our own homes. We can't afford to have children... Like, there are serious reasons as to why people feel hopeless and it isn't because of social media or the sun. I also lift weights 6 days a week, am outside a lot and still feel bad about my future most days. Because lack of exercise IS NOT the issue. That's a childlike and very privileged understanding of what's actually wrong with the world.
Vitamin D+calcium supplements will help with the lack of sunlight. I was told to take them whilst in hospital as my Vitamin D levels were low and I was at risk of developing osteoporosis.
@firesideaudiobooks5744 Well.... let's look at the bright side. In a couple of months, you'll be back to paying off the minimum monthly amount of your school loans while the overall balance continues to increase!!!! But in the end, you will get the last laugh. You will definitely stick it to everyone. Because you will die with those school loans not fully paid off and the balance owed will be pushed onto the rest of society!!! Make sure to write in your will, "Too you Uncle Sam, I leave you this wonderful school loan balance I could not pay off."
I run a social group for autistic people, founded in 2002. After the pandemic, I noticed members of the group (that meets weekly) are on the phones far more often. There is a huge change, more time spent on social media is correlated with worse mental health.
What*Is* "mental health? Every halfwit and his brother seems to bleat about it; it seems a little odd that those with little or nothing between their ears to concern themselves whether no it is some idea of healthy
Don't get your children smart phones. We only provided the basics for our children. Anything else meant they had to get an external part-time job or do without. Consequently they ate little junk food and spent almost no time on social media. It was all too expensive. They ended up being disciplined savers, family orientated, sober and hardworking , and paid for their own weddings, scuba and guitar lessons, and mortgages ... one in 29 months, the other in 42. All positives!
I never had a smart phone as a child, I've had chronic un- and underemployment, anxiety and depression, difficulty with studying during and after grade school. n I've ADHD and very likely other neurodivergent disorders. Mental health and neurodivergent conditions still affect people like me who grew up well before smartphones appeared and spent all or most of our childhood without the internet, let alone social media.
Excellent video. I live in a part of the world where medical mental health care is almost non-existent but hype for this and that is high. Those who have autistic or dyslexic etc. problems are generally cared for by family and have to suffer ordinary schooling as there does not exist a special-needs system.I think today there are many 'hype mental issues' that are being pushed to the forefront and those with genuine medical mental health problems are having to take a back seat. At least, that's the way it seems to me. Thank you, Sabine, for all your hard work. Is there any chance of a video about your 'average day'? Might serve as 'holiday' as you wouldn't have to delve into all those stats.😀
What is "medical mental health care"? For that matter what is "mental health-or its exact opposite?About forty or fifty years ago almost every chattering weakling was bleating about something it called "stress" which turned out to be anything diddums did not like; god alone knows what contemporary chattering weaklings are calling "mental health", and whatever it is they whine or bleat about it, because chattering weaklings do little else
Since I'm a Phys. Ed. teacher in New York City, I get to know large numbers of people over time. I've seen legitimate cases of people with severe mental health issues (teachers and students). I've also seen a larger number of people who use a mental health diagnosis as an excuse for avoiding all accountability. These people are despicable because they diminish those who genuinely suffer.
I have a humble opinion on the mental health issue: The financial system is the major single driver of feelings of insecurity, insoluble victimhood, family and friendship breakage, and permanent classification of financial losers as worthless takers. I see the global financial system as an archaic operating system that was developed hundreds of years ago largely to serve the interests of aristocrats and war lords. It must be replaced, neither by more free market nor first-draft communism.
@@theboombody You mean in terms of wealth inequality? Certainly things to which the Pareto Principle applies can obviously change such that the Pareto Principle doesn't apply in the same way anymore.
*To overcome stress/anxiety, take 10 deep, slow breaths.* Oxygen breaks down stress hormones, and deep breathing directs the Vagus Nerve to slow the heart rate and stop the production stress hormones. Taking ten deep, slow breaths might seem annoying but it is far less annoying than freaking out and being too scared to think for hours or days on-end. Exhale, first, because if your lungs are full and you try to take a deep breath it can feel like you can't breath, so get the old air out before bringing fresh air in. Any time you notice that you are thinking about your breath, take a deep breath. *For basic depression, imagine the sensation of happiness--do not imagine ideas of things you think might make you happy--imagine the sensation of happiness.* The imaginary state is in your head and the actual mood is in your head, so imagining the mood, and you can do this with any mood, makes you experience the mood. Imagine being sad and angry, if you like, but the best option for the best outcome as far as overall health is concerned comes from imagining the sensation of happiness.
Yes Sabine, of course we need a non-sensationalist, non-alarmist analysis of the effects of social media on mental health (and not only in young girls). Thanks!
Thanks for the feedback!
@@SabineHossenfelder Thanks for reading my comment 😉As a suggestion, do incorporate family life into the analysis. I see families in which parents and children neither communicate anymore nor actively spend time together, partly due to spending too much time digitally. However, also the necessity of multiple jobs to keep track with the cost of life is often a factor.
On the note of family life, at least since the Nixon Administration, there's been a concerted effort to incarcerate a large number of fathers, breaking the family structure of entire demographics.
It's is mainly young girls.
Or a concerted effort of fathers to get themselves incarcerated? Or a disconcerting lack of effort of fathers to avoid incarceration, perhaps?
The correlation between high income level and low mental health is probably due to higher accessibility to mental health services for the more wealthy and greater willingness of people with higher incomes to access mental health support. I think these figures fail to reflect the prevalence of untreated mental health problems among poorer families and individuals.
Yes, untreated and undiagnosed mental health statistics are inherently difficult to accurately represent, lacking a method for collecting data on the unknowns. Correlations of income and access to diagnosis are important to consider, as you have noted, and I'm not sure whether these figures account for that correlation.
So why it is not visible in Europe, where everybody has the same access to health care? Furthermore, in the US the health division line pretty much coincide with political division line while the politics in the US is getting crazier every year for several decades.
@@kudr66well the stats are similar and most countries in Europe aren't half as wealthy as us
It seems to me and many others that these "mental health" problems are simply symptoms of a greater issue at hand, and that "mental health services" are simply a poorly understood, short-term, catch-all band-aid for such symptoms but not a solution to the underlying issue that gives rise to the symptoms.
A better solution, it would seem, would be to put our efforts into identifying the underlying issues that give rise to the symptoms and fix those.
We need to take serious and consider the fact that ancient humans, like other animals, never needed "mental health services."
There are two possibilities in my view:
(a.) These mental health problems are not "real" and are merely a natural result of modern humans being softened by all the comforts and/or sensibilities of modern civilization (e.g. technology), and thus not being able to cope with the realities of the world when they are presented. Like a zebra that was trapped in a zoo all its life suddenly being released onto the plains of the Serengeti. For example, "Anxiety" can be shown not to be abnormal/a mental health problem by the simple fact that most animals experience high levels of anxiety on a daily basis due to the possibility of them or their relations being violently killed and eaten by predators. Anxiety in this case is a good thing, and the lack of anxiety is what is abnormal. Our "predators" simply take on new forms now.
(b.) Mental health problems are "real" and are a result of the modern humans being given psychosis by all the comforts and/or ideals of modern civilization, and thus not being able to cope with the realities of the world when they are presented. Something about modern civilization (e.g. cities/technology) is innately unhealthy and bad for flourishing of the human/animal mind. The solution: cities and smart devices dismantled; returning to small, intimate, self-sustaining, agrarian societies where people actually talk to, rely on, and form deep connections with each other.
(c.) Some combination of (a.) and (b.).
Indeed. Even if you wanted a therapist, most people can't afford just how absurdly expensive they are if they are even available where you live at all. And when you do scrape up enough money to see one, they're nothing but a pill peddler who tosses you some drugs that might not even be helpful or relevant and sends you on your way. Healthcare in the US is a joke, let alone mental health
When I was in the hospital for a non-mental health related problem it seemed that they were actively trying to get people to think they had a mental health problem. When I answered a question if I was feeling sad or depressed with a yes a psych showed up. When she asked why I thought I was depressed I told it was because I was in the hospital. There can be legitimate reasons not to be happy
DIid "they" tell you what might constitute whatever they meant by " a mental health problem?
One way of telling a court or tribunal that your client is daft without saying that it terms in front of him, is to say something like :" Some people for various reasons find some aspects of life a bit complicated.
perhaps I can put it this way; my client finds absolutely*Everything * complicated".
Now has my chap got "mental health" problems, or is he just daft as brush?
That's exactly what they do. They teach people they are mentally ill. You must believe the Bible or fall victim to opportunists.
@rambunctiousvegetable having a friend tell me he doesn't feel the same anxiety as i do was so refreshing and legitimized my mental state. Almost everyone will agree they feel anxious like you but my friend recognizes normal anxiety and crippling anxiety. I wish more people recognized being depressed and anxious for normal reasons vs being clinically affected by it
Sadness is not depression. And being depressed is not illegitemate.
Depressed and not happy overlap but they’re not at all the same thing
You zero'd the axis! Thank you! I keep seeing economics videos that misrepresent data based on a non-zero axis.
My anxiety disorder hit 6 months before covid. I woke up one morning more afraid of nothing in particular than I had ever been afraid of anything before. Social anxiety is one aspect of it. Lockdowns and social distancing were a blessing for me. I really needed the break while I got my shit together.
@@icouldbewrongicouldberight what
Edit: Excuse me sorry, I was being ignorant.
@@CAThompson He is quoting Mark Twain (or perhaps Benjamin Disraeli) about the ability to deceive with statistics and graphs. One of the most common techniques to distort significance is by manipulating the X/Y axes of graphs. That said, you don't always want to zero an axis to illustrate an intended point.
There never is so few suicides as during a war . Anxiety is when you feel useless …. When you have food , house , security…. Our brain did not evolve for the « no problem » state .
When covid first hit was the least anxious I've ever been. When everyone else is levelling up their anxiety being born a lvl99 master anxious wreck makes a person feel kinda normal for a change
agree
my heart broke a little when you said you were feeling like everything you do sucks
maybe it was just a joke because you do a lot of dry humor and i vibe with that, but i want to remind you that your videos are very educational and helpful to a lot of us and we appreciate you
thank you for all you hard work and if you ever really do doubt yourself like that, come on here and take this reminder, ok? your mental health is important and the youtube life ain't easy
I think it's a sign of good mental health to be able to recognize the reality of your post inadequacies and build on them. What is concerning is not to be able to recognize growth (inferiority complex) or not to be able to recognize inadequacy (narcissism).
Some might some are great . You yourself are valuable and interesting 👍🏻🇨🇦🥇 disagree lots but love your content
Lovely presentation as usual! I work in mental health crisis/suicide prevention in the US, and I suggest reverse causation as a hypothesis: people who are already lonely/isolated/friendless are more likely invest more time and feelings of importance into social media. I talk to a disturbing number of people (not all of whom are young, but many are) who tell me they have no real friends they can turn to, no one they trust to listen to them. Or if they do trust someone, that person already has too much going on and they shouldn't burden then any more. I'm not in a position to know if it's a mostly a matter of distorted perception (and if so, why it's such a common perception) or not, but that's where I'd look for a general explanation first.
Does work in mental health mean that you are a psychiatrist - a qualified medical doctor? - What the devil is "mental health"? - The opposite of being a raving lunatic or madman? There are indeed some madman about the place, some of them imagine that they are women and some of them imagine that they are Napoleon but and some of them imagine that they have been taken up to Venus by the notions and they are all stark raving mad not to mince words.
you mean the decrease of true social interactions in recent times could have a negative effect on mental health ?! I'm so shocked rn
Just mentioning the suffering of girls is unscientific. Should this trending report apply to the rest of her work?
The nearside whatever it is that you suppose to be what you call "mental health", why would you or anyone for that matter want to "prevent" suicide?
What are you calling "mental health"?
I just want to say that none of your work sucks. I think you do an excellent job making your content interesting, informative, with the right amount of humor added in! You come across as very transparent but knowledgeable and trustworthy! You don’t seem at all arrogant and your level-headed humility is welcoming. I subscribed because I know you care about making sure to cover as much of a topic as possible but be unbiased as well. I say just keep up the great work, keep learning, and you can relax that it’s all well worth the effort!
💚
Since when is "you don't suck" a compliment? 😂
I've adored how somewhat ramshackle the earliest videos on this channel are, how they showcase a raw, courageous human setting out on a new endeavour. I loved how they were made by someone willing to put themselves out there who then kept going and refining their craft whilst keeping the same spirit they started with. I hope Sabine never gets too polished, the human in the frame is what makes these videos as entertaining as they are. All the wiz-bang graphics and tech there is can't bring what being Sabine does.
Superb tiptoeing around the trans problems... can't point at it whilst it stares you in the face, oh well
Have you seen her other UA-cam channel? You should.
@@juhaniwinter What do you mean by 'transgender problem'?
No doubt that LGBQTIA+ people facing renewed discrimination especially transgender people. People who can have babies are also being treated badly in increasing numbers including the United States.
@@ataraxia4526 If you mean her music, I adore it. She's one of my favourite musical artists. She has some tracks on SoundCloud that aren't on UA-cam as well.
@@CAThompson I mean fuckin up your hormones (worst yet, effing up your child's) with pills, and destroying your body with operations, when your at an age your brain has not stopped developing yet - when the right approach would be to learn and live in the state and sex that your are.
As a person who qualified in physics then studied medicine and became a psychiatrist, this is a good video but missing a few things because of society's 'mental culture' - not Sabine's fault, very few people know about the following. Here is what the situation really is: i) Its normal and not an illness to feel depressed and anxious if really bad things are happening to you (and it would be abnormal not to respond this way). The cure is uually fixing the social problem, not a pill or therapy which doesn't work very well (unsurprisingly), ii) severe psychiatric illness is very different and really does exist (unlike what Thomas Szasz said, who also graduated in physics before doing medicine, but was completely clueless about medicine including psychiatry), such as properly diagnosed (not 'spectrum') schizophrenia or bipolar illness, iii) even for people with these illnesses, who are at the highest risk of suicide, the lifetime suicide risk is only 5 to 10%, iii) however the 90 to 95% who do not die by suicide (only those with severe psychiatric illnesses) have a much reduced average life expectancy, iv) in the UK its an average reduction in life expectancy of 15 to 20 years and in the US for schizophrenia its an even more awful average reduction in life expectancy of 28.5 years - official government figures (links below). Society has been focusing more and more over the past 20 years on the mildest 'mental disorders' and including those which are not illnesses at all (such as a normal reactions to awful social problems), instead of focusing on the most severe psychiatric illnesses which have greatly increased 'all cause mortality'. We know what the end stage diseases are, but don't really understand why these diseases are so prevalent, and this is not a new thing - turns out its always been like this. To put these figures in context, the average loss of life expectancy from a range of common cancers is 10 years. This means severe psychiatric illnesses are a lot worse than cancer. Very few people know this and its not being discussed generally in society. In a 100 years time our current 'mental culture' (=ignore 'physical' and ignore the most severely ill people) will be recognised for how awful it is. Mild conditions are not unimportant but they are less important (and not associated with greatly increased all cause mortality) compared to severe illnesses. Even on the UK and US goverenent websites I referred to, these figures are not particlarly emphasised, but you can find the figures here (note '.gov'):
UK: www.gov.uk/government/publications/severe-mental-illness-smi-physical-health-inequalities/severe-mental-illness-and-physical-health-inequalities-briefing
US: www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/schizophrenia
UK: cancer pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15655548/
Thanks! These are helpful resources!
'Mild conditions are not unimportant but they are less important' -> they are much more profitable though 😉
How can you all talk about this and ignore the fact that Sabine said that girls are most affected when 4 out of 5 teenage suicides are boys.
Physics, medicine AND psychiatry?!
It's a pity, or more a mystery, that you didn't study writing skills a bit more. Have you ever heard of a paragraph?
I believe having some kind of mental disorder is a requirement for functioning in our global capitalist system.
I lived abroad and in many parts of the world mental illness is simply undiagnosed and unaddressed/stigmatized. I encountered very unstable people who had no chance of treatment. The same could be said in the United States due to cost/availability of care, but for example, in China, there are simply not psychologists/therapists available.
On an unrelated note, I hear that "demon possession" is on the rise.
Unrelated note: cousin marriage is thriving, but intercourse with donkeys and goats still fails to produce offspring.
On a related note the entire field of psychology and therapy is undergoing a reproduction crisis
@@jakeaurod The exorcists are often the only sane people in some communities. Everyone else will go off on some weird tangent on how a young girl should act, while the exorcist will actually talk to her and give a referral to a psychologist. (No, seriously, no one will think of using modern medicine until the exorcist makes a recommendation.)
Is one sign of mental illness the propensity to use a pseudonym?
For me 25 years of being in corporate America where I had to keep customers happy, lacked rest, and lacked economic and employment security caused immense harm both physically and psychologically.
I can't find a job. I have 4 degrees. I have sent my CV out at least 200 times now. Nobody wants to hire people with no experience.
@@cg6176 It could be great if you firstly do some internship instead of starting out with a full-time job. It can be more costly for a company to hire someone without experience. I am not assuming that an internship is feasible for your level of personal responsibilities, but it is what can change your story if you can do it.
@@cg6176 They also don't want to hire people WITH experience (over the age of 45 in software). I'm over 50 and, after 2 years of struggle, just gave up (30 years of software engineering) on the idea of coding again. 1200+ job applications, 80+ interviews, 10 actual 2nd interviews, and 2 "welcome to the team" followed by HR rejection as soon as my age was gleaned from my college dates. Still unemployed and running out of savings, but, staying hopeful, but if I end up homeless, I'm retiring myself permanently.
Read up on socialism then enjoy the radicalization
OMG Sabine! Yes! Please do more about social media and mental health in young people! 🙂
I work at a children's hospital ER, and I see a lot of kids in mental health crises. 😢... It's heartbreaking to watch sometimes... BUT, being one who struggled with it in their youth, which has continued on, to varying degrees ever since, I have a passion to help those kids. I try and let them know every day that I am an ally to them, and I generally tend to do pretty well at keeping them from spiraling further while they stay in the Emergency Department. I know what it's like to struggle with social crap, family problems, mental health, bullying, etc... So those kids will always be on my extra tender care list... Anywho, I've babbled enough for one day... Have a good day, Sabine! And thanks for everything you do to raise awareness! 💞
Perhaps bringing coal to Newcastle, but this might interest you
«Associations between media viewing and language development in children under age 2 years»
Frederick J Zimmerman 1 , Dimitri A Christakis, Andrew N Meltzoff pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17889070/
I wonder if that has anything to do with more infants than ever before becoming separated from their biological mothers while they are still infants? Like for example after that infant and their mother while they were residing temporary in a women's shelter get served divorce papers which are demanding access to those infants? While at the same time any disadvantaged single women are being approached to consider becoming a surrogate mother or a if they have been diagnosed with any kind of developmental delay then being encouraged under supervision to become a single mother who may be willing to later after getting pregnant to give up that infant to what is now being called open adoption schemes. Climate change does not explain everything going wrong among youth.
"local burden of disease, commonly known as kindergarten"
her sense of humor is unmatched.
That used to be a funny observation since nothing really bad happened but things have changed. In my state (NM) due to the massive illegal immigration its bringing in all kinds of dangerous diseases. Kids are sick almost continuously now, its life threatening. The doctors are over run and shocked by the increase. Not so funny any more.
I agree! And she also taught us the right way to pronounce kindergarten in German.
I cackled. Most of her humor is amusing rather than comical, but this one got me.
@@TomO-nx1bd As a native German, I'd say this still sounds more like English to me. In German, the t is more prominent and often aspirated.
GOP MONSTERS FROM THE ID ???
From my experience, the "mental health crisis" mostly a combination of generally low life satisfaction because our workplaces don't see their employees as people anymore, the economy basically everything else collapsing right under our feet making our future very uncertain, and a higher acceptance of mental health diagnosis and treatment.
I just think it is widespread loneliness. We now get around by cars and the internet works wonders to minimize human contact.
@user-pq4by2rq9y I think the internet has helped with my loneliness because without it I wouldn't talk to anyone. Working over 40 hours a week really sucks anything resembling a desire to be around others out of me, even including my friends.
What the devil is "mental health"? Going by the drivel have encountered where the term "mental health" appears it seems to be some euphemistic catch-all for Diddums -is -not-happy-bunny-because-he-cannot-always-have-his-own-way.
Workplaces have NEVER seen their employees as people, only as slaves and beasts of burden. The current 40 hour work week and weekend holidays we have is due to the unions that fought and were slaughtered for it.
@@danielrodrigues4903 Workplaces, being *places*, do not have eyes to "see" anything. I think you might mean employers, but clearly English is not your mother tongue. No union has been or could have been " slaughtered" because they are organisations which cannot be " slaughtered, any more than companies(in the colonies corporations) or churches can be slaughtered. T he whole point of slaves is that they*don't* have to be paid. In practice employees are servants of their employer, hired to perform particular functions an as a matter of enlightened self interest, it is probably wise to look after your servants so as to get the best out of them, depending on what function you want them to perform. Good servants require good masters
As an almost 30 year old in the US, im gonna give my concise view of why mental health is deteriorating.
1. A lack of community, due to both social media and a general trend of social distancing (not just from covid, but from a reduction in social bonding through groups, organizations, community goals, etc.) in part due to the internet.
2. The rise of objective scientific thought and a reduction of religious beliefs among young people leading to a lack of purpose and feeling unique or special or like you have a place in the universe.
3. The lack of decent jobs and careers. The devaluation of currency and not being able to afford a decent place to live and no upward mobilty. I may never own a house the way things are going here. Everything is too expensive and almost no young person makes enough or will ever make enough. General economic and lifestyle stagnation.
4. Everything is too damn complicated. Whether its trying to figure out how to do taxes or learning about a new subject, the rise of technology and exponential growth of knowledge has made specializing in a career such an immense challenge. The education system in this country has failed the youth in preparing them for the future. Not every child by any means, but many many communties and families have been left in the dust to work menial jobs for menial pay with no chance of going anywhere with their lives. And they know it.
Anyways, im not an expert at all but these are a few thing I've noticed where I live. I didnt spend long on this so take it easy on me if I'm over generalizing.
Number 2 is an extreme positive in my opinion.
A lack in objective cosmic purpose can allow us to focus on point 1, and the end of belief in free will can allow us to stop focusing on blame and what people "deserve" and focus on just making it all better, addressing point 3 and 4.
Humanity can't move forward if it keeps placing stock in proven nonsense
@@kamikeserpentail3778 Crucially, people must accept the ownership of purpose and avoid the dread that nihilism brings as well as the assumption that purpose is something to be bestowed freely by religious or superstitious acceptance or upon recognition otherwise by a "greater" being or ideal.
This needs to have more votes.
@@kamikeserpentail3778 right, and I agree with you. But, I meant it in the human context of not receiving that validation of being and purpose from your family or community or career or whatever. For the vast majority of people, if they lose that sense of purpose and have nothing to fill the void, their life and everything else becomes meaningless. It's not about what you believe, it's about what effect believing in SOMETHING and having something or someone to fall back on in difficult times has on a person. Not everyone shares the same views and we have to take into account how people FEEL, not how irrational their beliefs may be. For a lot of people in the USA, if you lose or reject your religious beliefs, you also give up ties with your church, your family, your friends, your community. You are shunned purposely and the effect can be detrimental, especially if you have nowhere to turn. Yes, it can be liberating in a certain sense. But you lose your faith and your community ties and then what? You turn around to face a vast, dark and possibly endless universe devoid of inherent meaning knowing you are going to die and everything you do is pointless. It is a scary and isolating feeling for "social creatures". On top of that, the world really is going to shit, you have a job you absolutely hate, a shitty apartment, no opportunities, and it may never get any better. The threat of global annihilation at the hands of a few extremely wealthy men, and a world where normal citizens have no real power at all. It's already proven recently that votes don't matter, and anyone who says any differently is deluding themselves. Young people with no wealth have had all power, opportunity, purpose, and meaning ripped out of their hands and have been given nothing else to turn to but memeing on the internet about how nothing matters and they may as well be dead anyways. And as it turns out, they are right.
Well, I WAS an “expert” in the mental health field for longer than you’ve been alive, and I have to say you’ve summed it up incredibly well. Sadly.
I’m retirement age and have opted out, but would have stayed years longer if the services were headed anywhere but down the tubes.
There’s a chance that, now that the neoliberal order is cracking, there may be some turn around, but all the good people have left and the services are run by those with strong sociopathic tendencies.
Sorry. Truly.
A female relative was "Instagram Famous" in 7th grade, and her reward was terrible bullying by the girls in her school, leading to social isolation in the real world, depression, and anxiety. When i was a college professor I could see the depression and anxiety in many students. The American Dream is having problems these days.
1976 the Homestead Act was repealed, marking the end to the American Dream. Or...at least, a redefinition. Even being able to own a home on a small lot is becoming a major challenge these days.
Yeah, hatred of success hatred of flourishing and freedom. If you see the world as a zero sum game where your wuccess is at the cost of others and nature... This is what you get. Sad
Uh, sorry to hear. Thanks for sharing though.
You have to be asleep to believe in the 'American Dream'.
Famous people are warriors. They don't give a f*** and that's been true forever. It's not for the faint of heart. You have to have a security apparatus then you have to be ruthless enough or smart enough to deal with the codependent psychosis of your peers. This is true with or without the internet actually. The Beatles I'll have scars on their faces from fights. David Bowie almost lost an eye from a fight. The Who were notoriously violent. So there's your answer as to why America is depressed and violent.
America is definitely going nuts
And making the whole internet a toxic minefield
💯
Two-party democracy making fun of one party democracies.
Boy, wait until you find out what our biggest export really is....
Its crazy
If Trump wins the nomination it would be the right time to move abroad if not sooner. I moved permanently to Spain back in 98 from LA where I grew up when times were supposedly good because I'd had had enough of the shallow narcissistic mentality there at the time. I expect it's much worse nowadays. 🤷
My brother is over 30 and just now was diagnosted with ADHD after watching some YT videos of ADHD people sharing their life and was like "huh, that sounds really, really familiar".
I was just discussing this with some friends. I think that most rational Americans that are stuck living paycheck to paycheck (which feels like most of them), are living with a constant, low level feeling of dread. It's tough working constantly to barely survive, especially with "inflation" and healthcare costs being insane, even with insurance. It's easy to feel like there's little hope of things getting better here for anyone but the most wealthy, who are doing better than ever.
Eat the rich & speak loudly and proudly about class warfare at every opportunity. Stay radicalized. Let’s not allow social taboos to keep us quiet.
My thoughts. If you see that you cannot build up.a life this is undoubtly depressing and creating anxiety. Also the abuse of all kinds of drugs, to make this mess bearable, could play a role.
@@GlazeonthewickeR Man... I don't know. It really feels like we're beyond the point of no return. Far too many people are brainwashed or just don't want to think about the real horrors. By the time things get bad enough for people to take action, the ones responsible will have moved to their manors in New Zealand and let the country burn.
Living paycheck to paycheck... you can earn 50k plus benefits with no experience in the US. That's just 1 income. You are so totally removed from the rest of the world it's unreal.
@@hairsstandonendThen just read what young Americans write all over the web. Maybe you learn that you are the one detached from reality.
A year ago, my dog died. It was from an accident and was a traumatic and horrible experience. Not long before that, I had lost my mother to COVID. I was offered anti-depressants, but I declined. Antidepressants wouldn't bring my mother back. They wouldn't bring my dog back. Sometimes we're not depressed. We're just very sad. In these cases, time and support are the only real antidepressants that work.
"I've been struggling with the feeling that everything I create sucks" - Sabine Hossenfelder 😂😂
I look at your content and channel and think you must be so proud and I am thankful that I found your channel. Thank you and I hope you know how much I appreciate you.
It's telling to me that the rise in suicide rates were similar in the US and Brazil. As a US citizen, I think what is partially fueling this is an acquired neurosis. In the US, we are consistently told that our country is solid, working well, and the economy is fine. Yet, each state has it's own autonomy, with no oversight as to what services are available to the public. Although we can reasonably assume that in crisis there is someone paying attention and an adequate response will ensue, instead the people in charge many times just go "meh.". We are also forced to work for very little pay and we are told we are, in fact, wealthy. Unfortunately, never getting out of debt and spending time working in poor conditions is very detrimental for the average person. We are told to suck it up and are treated like worker bees. This is happening in every career area. But the thing most contributing is that most of those in charge are sociopaths. It's almost like a learned helplessness followed by a feeling of no way out that we experience. The US is becoming a third world country, which is wanted by the top wealth. They literally would like to have a tyrannical sweatshop-like society. Anyone who senses it or even flat out sees it for what it is is automatically down about it, but the more sensitive people are put into despair. Add to it synthetic drugs everywhere, a poor health care system, and socially acceptable snarkiness, and you have a recipe for disaster. People need a sense of stability and ability. There is a constant underlying feeling of there being the opposite. And we are not encouraged to discuss it. which leads to the neurosis I started with.
tldr: You can't keep telling people everything is ok and to carry on if it is not, in fact, ok. The roads that this view leads down are all washed out and dangerous.
Money is not the root of happiness.
@@carlyellison8498
religion is the cause of misery.
@@carlyellison8498 Nowhere in my statement did I say it was. Only someone who has never had to worry about money would say something like that.
@@jonnawyattI didn’t realize Black Rock was a religion
By what I hear and read from a distance (I don't live in the US), I have indeed the impression that the US economy leans too much to the liberalistic side to be good for most of the people.
Thank you so much for your input, @sabine
I would welcome a discussion with you, especially on the subject of counselling as an intervention
As a qualified counsellor, I no longer practice as I’ve realised counselling is not empowering enough.
I lost my husband to suicide and got very close to that ‘cliff edge’ myself.
Today, I have a solution to offer and am on a mission to demystify the dreadful epidemic suicide has become.
Deeply value your contribution, too.
Well done 👏
Eliana
Yes Sabine, a video on the links between mental health and social media would be great. Johnthan Haidt released a paper a while ago showing that experiments which showed no correlation between mental health and social media conducted the studies for a shorter period than experiments which did.
I lost my footing in the early 10s and never got it back. Primarily due to an abusive relationship, but also being on the autism spectrum confounded my ability to handle it. It was tricky to find a job that would support an entire person and 2 dogs (i'd sooner jump off a bridge than go on without them) without depending on a partner or roommate. The longer I stayed stuck in the relationship the worse I got emotionally. It also made it easy for jobs to dismiss me before even interviewing, what with a job gap so large. I've heard people on the spectrum have been the canaries in the coal mine, we're failing early on and we should be a warning to a horrible social and cultural and political setting that suits no one except the wealthy.
“I’m unfit to live in society without being dependent on other people” followed by “other people need to make changes because their social cultural and political positions are horrible”. 🙄
@@Kyle-86oh, Kyle you’re such an empathetic person. Gee. Usually people like you are either super traumatized or supper spoiled. Which are you, I wonder?
I can tell you that no one on any kind of assistance enjoys it or would chose it. Keep telling yourself that people are making careers of not putting effort in. Keep building those welfare queen strawmen to rage against. It keeps the attention off the rich not being taxed enough, our environment being destroyed and the shrinking of social programs that used to help working Americans. There should be no billionaires. Not when kids in Appalachia can’t eat, kids in Mississippi have no clean water and assholes like you think they’re strong simply because life hasn’t pooped on you with poverty or illness. Lucky you. You “screw you I got mine” guys make my stomach hurt. If you were lazy / sick / depressed / addicted I’d still want you fed and housed. I wouldn’t judge you. You’re a precious human being no matter what your work output is. You deserve the basics as well as dignity.
@@Kyle-86 "I'm an unabashed ableist" 🙄
I’m 65 and autistic and happily retired. Autistic jobs like AI, robotics, computer programming and analysis pays more than most job. I made a lot learning to time the stock market.
@@QuesoCookies”I use gay made up words and think I’m smart”
Sabine, I sincerely thank you for your work! It is very important to publicize such serious public problems and I am pleased to see progress.
Next will sound strange, but I am especially grateful for your wonderful diction! I'm from Ukraine, from the generation where English was already taught, but the program was VERY BAD. And therefore it is quite difficult to perceive English by ear, but not with you!
THANK YOU!❤
Maybe the other way to see the Fentanyl issue is as follows: people are in tremendous chronic physical pain, and/or don’t see a point to prolonging their suffering, and/or have no sense of positive belonging or safety in their lives, rationally don’t see existence as “a gift” and simply want to exit, but have no globally accessible, voluntary, safe, legal, guaranteed and peaceful method of self-exiting and therefore are resorting to painful and irrational ways of exiting.
The standard (medical model) way to see it is: people are individually mentally “ill” and this is why they’re overdosing on painkillers.
@Sabine - Your uploads never suck, I watch all of them and always look forwards to the next one. Your choice of topics is excellent 😊
'it should not be confused with the local burden of disease commonly known as kindergarten' had to pause and rewind to make sure. just discovered you yesterday, love your mind!
Don't underestimate the effects of a bad diet, a diet low in nutrition and filled with ultra-processed foods worsen most mental conditions, changing my diet had a significant impact on my happiness.
Cancer rates are also increasing among American youth
@@electron6825 these issues are certainly exacerbated by what is seen online
Diet + exercise + real world socialization. I'd be willing to bet the reason young men get depressed after high school/university is mostly modern isolation
Thanks for all the information and context. You changed my mind on the "mental health crisis".
Young people in the US are facing new economic stresses. Most prevalent is that incomes of young people are no where close to keeping up with rising expenses like rent and real estate prices, and now interest rates. For instance, my house has nearly tripled in the number of dollars required to buy it since 2009 when I acquired it. However, employee compensation has nowhere close to tripled over the same time frame. I could not buy the house I'm living in today, even after the promotions I have gotten in my job. It's even worse if you're not established in a good job like I am. If you're younger, the amount required for a down payment is going up faster than you can save. In my case, my yearly property taxes are on track to be more than my mortgage payments were per year by the time I retire. The math for the traditional "American Dream" no longer works. And this is just one part of what seems to be a nation-wide dumpster fire.
I kinda figured this "crisis" was due to efforts to actually find and treat mental illness rather than just ignore it. As compelling an argument as "Back in my day things were better" is, it makes sense you find more cases if you actually look for them. As opposed to "back in the day" where treatment involved not saying anything and downing alcohol after and sometimes during work.
What's depressing though is that, mortality rates from mental illness remains stable. We are treating it a lot more, paying a lot more attention to it and it is not working at all. Increased screening and treatment is not being reflected as better outcomes.
@mariopiedrahita2917 does a stagnant mortality rate really mean things aren't getting better at all? Or does it mean we're not good at treating severe cases? Severe cases aren't the whole story.
@@mariopiedrahita2917 good note
Its a problem of manufacturing excess related workers who need to justify their existence, reclassification rigs the statistics.
Then again this cannot be a measure to grade mental illness globally as the access of facilities and resources aren't available. The whole happiness index is also questionable. This is one of those areas which the data is still very inconclusive . It can be used to rate quality of services available for those suffering with mental illness.
Yes, I'd be interested in a breakdown of the social media research. I'm 42, so I am old enough to remember life before the internet even though I'm now very comfortable with it. Further, my kids are at the age where they are being exposed to it. I also have been teaching middle school for the last three years. From deep within my bubble, the impact of social media seems obvious and almost always very negative. That said, I think it's much more nuanced that more social media = more mental health issues. I think I tend to see an added relationship between family structure as a contributing factor, though if that observation holds, I don't know if one mediates the other or if the two are independent.
Most of the "problems" are kids realizing obvious bullshit and adults trying to pass off the kid's rightful outrage as "mental health" problems.
It's the culmination of decades of gaslighting. The younger adults are getting tired of it. The kids are having none of it. The older "adults," at least the ones in power, are screaming that this is a "mental health crisis" because it's undefinable and really, unfixable from their point of view.
The entire world runs off fear in one way or another, and the younger people are tired of that fear being needlessly directed at each other.
I'm 41 and life before and during the early internet days were fabulous. Everyone connecting, fun sites and most of it was text... and the internet was only available to nerds and geeks that could use a modem.
Now I feel the internet has been dragged down to shit by the "average" people that are on it. It's a totally different place. Nobody has any patience or attention span.
Now we've got kids ONLY using the internet, not connecting, talking or meeting up.
It's not only social media that's affecting young adults and teenagers. The general exposure to an unprecedented amount of information could also be relevant.
Remember having to go to a friends house to see if they were even there? Having to talk to parents and politely ask if buddies were there and could come play? And having to go find them if they weren't home?
Now people feel hurt when they get left on read. It's sad.
I have read over a thousand comments and the main reason for depression in USA for 20-35 year-olds is: Low wages, high rents and high property prices so many believe they have no hope of ever getting a home and car. They have "no good-financial future" - hence more depression and homelessness. This is what I've picked up from comments to this video. (I am not in USA myself)
Solution? Social housing like they have in EU is the main answer and more ....
Social Media? Its playing a role but not clear from comments exactly what role - lots of different analyses.
You're one of my favorites, Sabine! Your videos are so well done and easy to understand. Thanks for all you do! ❤🎉🎉
We love you Sabine
You make me laugh so much and I look forward to seeing you
As one who worked in east Africa for 30 years relying on data gathering, I always love to "confidence" with which the gatherers harvest whatever data are available, irrespective of the fitness of those data. Even comparatively affluent countries like Kenya struggle to provide health care to rural population for infections diseases and widespread adult conditions like liver diseases, diabetes, respiratory illness and physical wear leading to arthritis. Mental health care is so far beyond the need to address more recognizable conditions immediate presentation as to be negligible for all but the urban affluent. I can't imagine the situation to be any different in rural and poor areas of Asia, Latin America, small island states and West Virginia. The mere concepts of in situ "global data" for health treatment is an oxymoron.
well, from Brazil here. The suicide rate is not only correlated to depression or consequence of economical distress. Schizophrenic and psychotic patients are often left to their own fate these diseases often culminate in suicide. I was personally "surprised" to find out most people living on the streets suffer from psychosis.
This may just be a detail, but I would trust the data from psychiatry journals more than psychology.
There may be a different level of acceptance of mental illness among countries. Sounds tricky, but seeing suicide in the top-10 causes of death is terrifying.
Now the world knows just how inhuman Brazil has been towards the ecology, the collective conscience of Brazilians makes the guilt of ecologicide palpable, and the few truly empathic civilians in Brazil are committing suicide out of a misplaced sense of shame, they weren't the ones with chainsaws.... mostly.
@@seanhewitt603 Nobody is taking their own lives out of shame for what chainsaws do. Suicide happens for many reasons, but I can assure to you that a fuzzy notion of eco-colonialism is not what's wrecking the lives of city dwelling mentally ill Brazilians.
You wrote a lot of incorrect and debatable points. Unfortunately, I'm afraid a comprehensive response to all the mistakes and insults your two lines of text convey is futile, because the correlation you established makes for a questionable interlocutor.
But it has to be said: the planet isn't suffering a climate crisis because of a poor nation that still has native forests. The polluters enjoy great life standards in the USA, Europe, Japan and so on. The developing countries are not the right target of the tip of angry eco-fingers. Imagine the Amazon Rainforest had been under American or German control instead of the impoverished peoples during the first half of the 20th century? I don't believe it would still exist at its current size. If it still stands, it's thanks to the millions of hard working people who live there.
@@seanhewitt603 Ridiculous ignorant and xenophobic comment. The american industrial military complex pollutes more than 171 countries alone. Go learn geography.
Your ability to analyse and summarise is beautiful. Keeping the bs at bay and telling it how it is. Cheers Sabine. Keeping it real 🙂
I do feel compassion for kids. I was one too. The body shaming T&A media onslaught before a kid has her first period is shameful and hurtful 😢.
Literally what media makes any female feel bad for having a period?
@@Novarcharesk he didn't say that, he said BEFORE her first period. beauty magazines are bad for women's mental health
I really enjoy how you explore other subjects non physics related, and stil you have a objective and scientific approach to it
I think part of it might be the culture (or, really, cultures) in the United States. We can be very individualist and I think can leave people feeling isolated. I also think we expect people to be very self sufficient. We venerate the "self made" individual and seeking help or assistance can be somewhat taboo. We also put a lot of emphasis on making money and I think that can feel like a shallow pursuit, that can leave some people feeling unfulfilled. I think it can also feel kind of futile, as financial success can seem like it's getting less and less accessible. But we are also very culturally divided as a country, and it can be hard to know exactly where you fit in, not to mention there can be a good deal of hostility between the different groups.
Another brilliant video by Sabine! Everybody loves the Hossenfelder. Keep up the great work :)
I think we are just more aware of mental health issues. I myself have been suffering from mental health problems (GAD, BPD) since I was a teenager. It finally started to get better as I approached the age of 40. What surprises me is just how much more accepted it is to be open about mental illness now as compared to before. I think everybody is just more open and that's why we think there are more mentally ill people. But the total number must be the same. 😊 It's a good thing to be more open about mental illness as it will probably allow for more solutions to come forward.
Well, when most countries strip you of rights and use you as a Guinea pig, it makes sense. ‘S why most individuals with psychiatric disorders kept their heads down.
I would love a video on the effects of social media on mental health. Speaking from personal experience, my brother and I got rid of social media a few months, and our mental health has been improving. I'm not sure if our bad mental health was caused by the social media though. I think social media fed an unhealthy loop of feeling worse about myself to staying on social media because of our gods, the algorithms. Getting off social media made us more aware of our faults and since we didn't have a constant distraction of social media to keep us 'busy.' It made us get so annoyed with our faults until we did something about them.
Social media has not been a benefit.
@@theedspage I personally think it's been a positive in other countries. Even though I don't like meta/Facebook, Facebook/Whatsapp has made critical communication a lot faster and easier in developing countries. I think most people in developed countries would see at the very least short term benefits if they uninstalled all social media.
Isn't UA-cam a social media too?
I've learned a few things from watching UA-cam videos and my latest skill is assembling a new PC. Something I couldn't have done 20 years ago. I think it depends on how you use social media. UA-cam can be a great tool IMO but I've done away with Facebook and general news media.
Thanks for sharing. The issues is not social media content itself, but rather, the disproportionate amount of time to “sort out” what you mentally ingested. In other words, less time to sort out yourself and how you may fit, and more about sorting out literally everyone else by watching merely them. The latter is exhaustive and can not be practically resolved.
Imagine that! Working on a problem by solving it!
Sabine, you should be VERY PROUD of the great work you do!
One thing I see that was uncommon when I was young, mental introspection, where as today there seems to be a large movement in public awareness of unhealthy mental patterns.
Not sure if the introspection is a result from an increase in mental illness but I’m fully convinced that you typically don’t find things you are not looking for 🥴
Your asservation that you do not find something until you look for it does not mean it was not there before you looked for it.
I will tell you unless one themselves has personally faced a mental health crisis one is dismissive of how pervasive mental health issues are in society.
Plus people who have mental health issues tend to hide them seeing it as a personal weakness.
So your statement in short is nonsense. But glad for you that you and your friends and acquaintances have no mental health issues.
@@finestructureconstant3921 I’m so sad that I offended you. My comment was not intended in any to dismiss mental illness as something that is to be ashamed of, or that I was not familiar with mental illnesses.
I had one sibling, he was my older brother by two years and at age 20 was severely struck by schizophrenia and eventually died an early death due to a myriad of various drug side effects as they took their toll on his physical health and did very little to help his condition.
I personally have not had any serious mental health issues but have dealt with some mild depression and anxiety.
My heart goes out to all those who suffer from mental illness and their families…. I know our family went through horrible times as we tried to provide care for my brother.
My comment was simply I meant to imply that there may very well have always been a similar level of mental illness shared by humanity, but we are just now performing the introspection that is required for many of us to determine that we are experiencing one form or another.
Again, I apologize if my statement brought you pain in any way 🙏
We are living in a house where the parents are at each other’s throats constantly. Some stay with mom and some stay with dad, each side telling the other they are wrong. And believing it passionately. Dad tells his kids moms crazy and vice versa.
That sounds awful.
Watch the mind from "behind", don't believe in anything it is trying to sell you. It's all just stories made up, nothing of that has anything to do with you. You are not your thoughts.
Sounds like dad and mom are both right. Ghastly environment in which to be brought up.
Same at my house. But it seems like both are suffering from mental health disorder. But we can't even get help because First, no money, Second, both of them don't even believe in Mental health issues. They don't think they have any problem. But even if they knew that they had a problem that needed to be solved, money is still the issue here. Therapy is so expensive and medicine too.
I think poverty is the worse. It cause a lot of mental illness.
Or at least it stops you from treating those illnesses.
“Every society is 3 meals away from chaos.”
🙌 👏 🙏 🤝 👍 great quote ! Source ?
Yes. Teachers and mentors of teenagers are really anxious to know more about positive/negative effects of smartphones and social media. Please dig around more! Thanks for all your excellent work Sabine!
Either there is indeed already lot of data available on this, and I do not know about it, or I am really surprised that nobody seems to see these links between mental health disorders and parents who are themselves undiagnosed narcissists or just completely ignorant and unable to take responsibility.
Most people I know personally with any kind of mental health disorder, but especially depression and border line and so on, had a very tough, traumatizing childhood because their parents were just constantly gas lighting, ignoring, emotionally unavailable, emotionally unstable etc.
I have recently seen a video by a former medical worker in an Addiction Treatment Facility who talked about his observation that the patients who come to these facilities to be treated, are actually the healthy ones. 9 out of 10 of them would not have any problems if they stayed away from their parents, and as soon as they are released from the facility back to their homes, the "illness" comes back. It should be the parents who go to psychotherapy, not their children. It is baffling that this is not visible in the studies which were discussed in this video (or even the claim that there is no apparent link between the problems of the previous generation leads to mental health issues in the younger generations).
I cant believe people have so much access, than ever before, in good methods to improve but they dont have a priority their mental health! Its shocking!
I really thought we'd get around to acknowledging that depressive responses are not innately an illness; there's a reason creatures tend to check out when externalities dwarfing their level of agency, start thrashing them around stochastically.
Reacting to preventable unabated tragedy with sadness, is not an illness; failing to react at all, is.
Another thing to consider is what cause is attributed to the illness. Depression at the current moment in time seems to be treated as purely, or mostly, due to a 'chemical imbalance' in the brain. The actual social/material realities of individuals is given relatively less importance. Which to me seems pretty backwards and illogical, Moreover, it treats the person who is suffering as just a subject of study in how it reduces the source of their problems to little more than a biological disturbance in their brain and body.
You're completely right that external factors can be really important for development of depression. But I wouldn't completely discard the differences in genetics either.
It's probably more complicated than that, and for different people the external and internal factors will influence in different proportions. Which is why things like changing their lifestyle will treat one person's depression and do absolutely nothing for another.
The vicissitudes of life 😞
Capitalistic corporations, are terrified they may have to treat their workers better (this includes higher pay) if they acknowledge in any way they are human
I really feel sad that politicians and common folks are so eager to blame tools (social media) but not social environment.
Big thanks! I enjoy your talks
One likely contributing issue in the U.S. is the lack of healthcare for many people. This not only means many people not getting mental healthcare (which can also be psychotherapy or other non drug treatments) but also results in many people not getting healthcare or rationing the needed medications (for instance insulin). Whether this effects suicide rates or just “normal” deaths to use an inappropriate colloquialism probably hasn’t been properly studied.
Of course, being healthy is a natural state - humans don't "need" healthcare to be healthy. It's only because we've been brainwashed by the medical profession that we can't be healthy without their interventions that people no longer take responsibility for their own health.
That seem to be going opposite to the other suggestion, that increase in mental issues in US because it is more recognized and diagnosed
@@dmitripogosian5084 I’m sure that has a large impact as well. My comment is more speculative, but could be adding to it. Certainly the general (relative) economics for younger people and the climate crisis are also factors.
This is completely anecdotal, but as someone who lived in the US until I was 19, I think the mental health epidemic has to do with the social pressures people are put under.
I suffered from the depression also. It started because all the other kids I knew at the time refused to speak to me for almost two years. It felt kind of like depression, but it was just extreme loneliness. Of course I turned to the internet to cope and at least get SOME kind of social interaction. It was extreme pressure too.
I have heard a lot of similar stories and I think shunning for unknown reasons is a common experience in the US. However, in Germany, France, Italy, etc, it does not seem to be a common experience, at least if you are not a foreigner.
Aside from pressure from peers, there is also pressure to finish college, pressure from jobs, pressure from debt, the list goes on. You cannot deviate from a very narrow mould in any way or you will be severely punished. It's no wonder that so many people crack under the pressure.
Yes, too much pressure. You just can't live in peace.
I went to school when I was 2.5 years old. I hated it the most. I tried every way to skip school but my parents would always force me to go there. In 15 years school ended and then it's all about scoring well in Entrance Exams to go to a good college. I am still stuck in this. Trying to study so that I can go to a good college. But I have no strength. I can't even focus on my studies. I wanted to become a scientist and I loved physics as a kid but I just get so anxious because of all the things that I feel like I have to do that I can't even focus on my studies.
There is also pressure to earn money cuz it's not like my family is rich. We have been struggling these days. My sister doesn't even have a permanent job. I just hope she gets a high paying good job then at least we wouldn't have to worry about money.
I also just want to earn money. I have no interest in anything anymore. I have been trying to earn money but it is really hard to do anything.
But if there wasn't all this pressure I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have so much anxiety all the time and I would be able to live in peace and actually contribute something to the world.
Sorry for the rant.
@person1420 Yeah, I feel you. I tried to study physics too but couldn't focus either, partially because the exams put too much stress and pressure on me. I felt so much pressure because I worried my life would fall apart if I couldn't do it.
I also had genuine love and interest for science as a child and teenager. But this love doesn't seem apparent to most people who know me now, including my partner. I'm not sure I would want to dedicate my life to it anyway. I've realized how much of modern science is centered around getting money and advancing people's careers. And how much of it is straight up fraud.
In the end I couldn't do it but it seems like God has given another path to live a decent life and I hope it turns out to be true.
But yes, you are right. It is much harder for us to "just earn money" than it was for our parents. My 66 year old dad was a software engineer with only a bachelor's degree in English. When he wasn't earning enough money, he just did a 6 week coding boot camp, and bam, he was a software engineer. Now everyone who dropped out of college and their mother has tried to do one of those things. It's not a good way to secure a living anymore.
It's easy to feel like a failure when you didn't finish college. But just remember that lots of people who finished college can't find a job either. It's not a guarantee of anything.
Could it be that mental illness (without directly mentioning any groups) is celebrated, "protected", and rewarded more than ever?
mental illness is not rewarded or celebrated, it is being normalized. This means that, nowadays, mental health is not a taboo and you don't have to feel bad for going to the psychologist.
I’m live in the US, Los Angeles to be specific. Regarding the alleged mental health crisis here; trust me, you don’t want to know - just hearing a few of the details would cause your own mental health crisis.
Given LA looks like a third world country now, I can guess
Thank You Sabine,
I believe the The Mental Health ‘Crisis’ has always been here ( in the USA)
But I think we have finally excavated down to being able to discuss it .
( as opposed to substance abuse and suicide )
Always? Since when? The dawn of the US State? Cause that sounds like bullshit
Would love to see you in a long form podcast setting. Love the videos, keep it up!
I'd love to see more in-depth exploration of social media and it's impact on mental health. Having been in the influencer circles, I've seen how people's behaviour is changed when their life becomes focused on engagement and networking. I've seen those with existing mental illness hide from it by using the adoration and attention as a salve and how resistant they are to turning away from that and confronting their illness. I'm talking about adults here, people in the 25-40 age group, I dread to think what the worst this kind of environment can do to a youth would be.
While you are probably right that a big part of the increase is due to raised awareness, I’d say only going by the physical damages is still very limited, because said awareness also probably avoids the worst in many cases. So it might very well be that the prevalence of depression has really increased while suicide rates have not, so more people suffer, but in their worst moments they’re caught by the healthcare net.
Which to me, despite being based purely on anecdotal evidence, seems kinda right.
In the UK where mental health in kids start to go increase coincides with an important date. In 1986, enacted in 87 schools were banned from using corporal punishment. In 2004 the UK in Scotland and Wales banned smacking by parents are severely restricted what parents could do to their kids in the UK. Can you believe it, when you stop keeping your kids in-line, their mental health deteriorates…..must come as a shock to some!
The United States is unique in that psychology is an industry that thrives on convincing people that they need treatment. It’s all about money here. It’s a powerful incentive to pull people in and keep them there.
Don’t forget the media, in league with governments, are convincing people that the world is hurtling toward an impeding heat death unless they feel bad about being white!
That's every industry in America. We encourage selfish behavior and outright theft. Everything is a money grab.
For example the real estate companies buying the burned down properties in Maui when people are most vulnerable.
Sabine, The content you put out most definitely does NOT suck. I would rather watch your stuff over most other science channels.
You said there was going to be an advert halfway through and there wasn’t which has affected my mental health. Admittedly it’s affected it in a positive way as I didn’t have to sit through an advert but it affected it none the less.
thanks for the video. Please yes, look into the link between social media use and young people
SSRIs cause suicidal ideation. I’m always fascinated when that fact is completely ignored in discussions about increasing suicide rates.
It's certainly part of the story.
They decrease suicidal tendencies. That's what they are for. What are you talking about?
@@jth4242 if you read the prescription details, all SSRIs can cause suicidal and homicidal ideation. I’m not making it up, it’s a fact. Read the details.
When people start to feel better, but before the depression lifts too much, the risk of suicide increases. It's because the person has the energy to act on their suicidal feelings.
@@NotSoNormal1987 SSRIs don't give energy, and I am *more* active physically when depressed because my aggression levels are higher.
You people just don't like pharmaceuticals and thus choose to believe dumb shit you've heard somewhere.
Really love your channel Sabine & actually endure the skillshare ads to help the YT algo... We Americans aren't necessarily nuts, but certainly over stressed...
one of the issues that confuses all this discussion of mental health is that the definition has always included things that are nothing of the sort. the definition has been plagued by this from the earliest and tidying up this mess is badly hampered by a determination on the part of organisations like APA with a clear conflict of interest also being the bodies that hold the role of defining what 'mental illness' means, how it is understood etc. Far too often this relies solely on behavioural assessments that are based on culturally determined criteria, and subject to personal bias. some of them (including ones mentioned explicitly in this video) are, to be blunt, farcical in their definition. as anyone who has worked with data analysis is all too aware, "shit in = shit out."
importantly, though, the definitions take little or no account of not just cultural differences, but access to terminology, which itself is complexified by the prevalent language in a region or country. Notably English-language regions tend to have limited access to research and theory published in other languages, while many non-English language regions have higher levels of English language ability as a second language, making English language publications disproportionately influential. A good example of this is the widespread awareness of and use of the DSM published by the APA from the USA - itself a country not that culturally representative of other English-language areas - in non-English speaking regions in parallel to the ICD. This effect is compounded by the strong influence recent iterations of the DSM has had on categorisation and criteria used within the ICD.
one of the biggest shifts (one ongoing for several decades now yet barely evident in diagnostic manuals and assessment tools) is the growing awareness of the complex nature of what are commonly termed 'mental disorders.' to date, this has amounted to little beyond recategorisation which itself has been patchy and determined more by government policies, education systems and the like such that one country's 'learning disability' is another's 'developmental disorder' and yet another's 'intellectual disability' and for others a 'mental condition' or 'mental disorder' and even 'mental illness'... and as a result how these are recorded, prioritised for assessment or even reckoned to be 'a real thing' within a society or among medical professionals and diagnosticians is driven by culture, educational policy, dominant language, willingness of organisations to fund or carry out studies, and many many more socially determined factors. this is why apparently in northern ireland the prevalence of Autistic minors is about 600%-800% what it is in the republic of ireland just across an entirely open border on a single small island in a population that has similar population density, education levels, a shared cultural heritage for the most part, similar levels of access to healthcare and so on... and also why NI apparently has Autistic prevalence rates several times that recorded in the rest of the UK, just across the irish sea in Britain. Not to mention that current understanding would have 'ASD' removed entirely from DSM and ICD along with several other neurotypes... something that is unlikely to happen for 15-20 years.
what matters is wellbeing, and the focus here on suicide rates gets closer to the mark than any attention to problematic 'disorder' categorisations but is itself only a measure of an extreme end-point that lies to one side of a complex web of possible outcomes including several forms of anxiety, depression, suicidality and more (all of which vary once you exit the Englsih language sphere, sometimes quite markedly). the social determinants of health - which originally focused primarily on a few measures of physical health (notably average life expectancy in a a national or regional population) are now well understood and their impacts more widely appreciated... even as their nuances are still being explored. the discussions around 'screen time' and social media impacts lie in this space and we are not at all clear yet on what to study, how to interpret the data produced, nor how that data relates (as Sabine noted here and elsewhere) to adverse physical or mental health outcomes.
given that each decade brings rapidly evolving understanding and thus areas of focus for research it will be a while yet before we can provide any sort of meaningful longitudinal data... and so perhaps the focus for those of us not engaged full time in professions working in these fields should be on the here and now, the local, the immediate: our selves, our families and friends and communities, not to determine whether our overall mental health is improving or worsening, but on more practical and basic matters such as 'does this activity cause me distress and if so, is it essential for me to continue with it?' or 'what brings me or others security, comfort, connection, joy... and how might we reinforce those aspects of our lives?'
any data we have, be it global, regional or local is above all the product of individuals thinking about, talking about, and acting on questions like that. fretting about a headline telling us that 'we are in a global mental health crisis' is to engage in a potential self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts, and one with no hope of a positive outcome - we cannot realistically change global mental health measures. we can strengthen community bonds, act in compassion towards our family and friends and colleagues, be more forgiving of our own inevitable and very human shortcomings, be patient, seek support, listen to the voices of those actually experiencing distress as experts in their own wellbeing and, in so far as we can act on a larger scale, tell our politicians, healthcare providers, educators that we want and need exactly those kinds of approaches to dominate policy and funding priorities. mental health matters are by definition individual experiences and if progress is possible it can only be possible by change driven from the ground up by placing individual needs above political ideology or economic policy or reflex responses to headlines about a global mental health crisis that doesn't exist. if there is a crisis, it is only that this reprioritisation has not already occurred.
Great content Sabine. I’ve had anxiety for years but not diagnosed. However, taking the easy way out is not an option as I have seen the affect that suicide has on family and friends and I never want that.
Perhaps you should try following this simple advice:
*If*you find yourself in a hole,
*Stop* digging.
Describe what you call anxiety, and see if you can understand that you would be lost without it. In relation to exactly what are you anxious and in which of your functions is t experienced.
Weird creature, men(human beings) they clutch their wholly unnecessary suffering to the bosoms as a mother clutch yes her babe to her breast- they will happily sacrifice anything-you-please *But* their unnecessary suffering. Now why do you think that is?
@@vhawk1951kl I have no idea what you’re on about!
Sabine, you are my favourite channel, and yes, please investigate social media.
Sabine is so funny 😂
I really appreciate the way you approach current events and science despite our differences in our worldviews. You are a brilliant scientist, and I look up to you in a way as a junior chem student
I say, I say, *what is* your worldview?!
Thank you, Sabine, for addressing this not-so-easy topic.
Yes! Please do a deep dive in social media and mental health
Thanks for the feedback!
@@SabineHossenfelder please 🙏
Come on Sabine, it’s not that hard to figure it out… When you turn into an young adult, what do you aim for? Finishing college, getting a fairly paid job, buying a car, maybe buying a house. The thing is that your generation promised everything for ours, and the when we reached the moment at which we could claim these rewards, we were denied. It’s very hard to get a decently paid job nowadays. The cost of living has skyrocketed since you were my age, in terms of price of households, rent, food and everything. It’s growing up and getting to know the reality that you’ll NEVER be able to afford to buy a house. I’m an aeronautical engineer and I’m from Brazil, I get paid less then the minimum for my category and if I want to buy a new but the cheapest car, i would have to work a whole year without any other bills to pay. As an engineer after studying for 5 years in the University plus 1 year internship in Germany, I thought I could have a better life. “Okay, but Pedro, you could move abroad”. That’s not that simple. 1st world countries do the best they can without being labeled as xenophobic to avoid immigration. Restrict laws, processes, and high visa prices in the end only benefit the rich to immigrate. Wrapping around, it’s the gigantic valley between the world and the promise that your generation made to your children, us, a very common cause for this global mental health “pandemic”
You make it sound as if this was the case everywhere in the world.
I live in a small city in northern Europe. A modest house costs 250k€. A young engineer probably makes 30k€ after tax. Not that bad IMO.
But many young people here want to live in big cities where houses cost 600k€ and the salary is only marginally better than in a small city. That is the issue.
I love this channel so much!!😊
Simply great😊
I think we’re overlooking the elephant in the room here. I assume people will develop more mental issues if they don’t see how the future is going to be better than the past. My subjective perception is that very few people today have an impression that the life is going to get better and not worse in next five years. I feel that young people such as myself are unsure they will be able to buy a house, financially support a future family, accumulate enough savings for retirement etc in addition to the feeling that things are getting worse. Also, if we talk about the US, the inequality (say gini index) is on the rise, the trust in public institutions is all time low etc. Someone must have researched that.
So true. I agree with you.
Yes! Please do look into the relation between social media use and depression!
Fun fact: locally (meaning: my county in the US), one of the largest facilities to give mental health services is the County Detention Services.
.....the jail. That's one way people here end up getting mental health care.
It's nice that it's there....but if you happen to not be locked up, there aren't many other options locally. Your doctor won't 'be able to help' and getting an appointment with a health care provider that is more than a counselor (which is better than nothing but, here, it equates to 'talk therapy only') and that is, currently, going to be about a year out.
When it comes to a person having a mental health crisis... there is one (of the three large) hospital that *can* take people in, but they are usually full. So, you end up in the ER waiting room.
Other than that, if you're having a crisis, there are hotlines you can call....and talk to a counselor for a bit, but they get full at times too.
Sadly, if you are having an crisis.... you're lucky if you're able to get help, even if that's family to help at home.
A lot (including family members of mine) have a crisis and their first interaction with anyone associated with mental health care... is a law enforcement officer. They are amazing people (generally speaking) but that isn't their job and not a core part of their training.
That's changing lately, however, but it's hard (for me, anyway) to argue that police officers should deal with everything from fatal car accidents to mundane minor crimes to gang-related crime...all the way up to robbers, murderers, drug dealers and the occasional high speed chase or shootout/shooting... and then expect them to be 'trained to handle a person in a mental health crisis' or 'to bring a liscensed mental health professional to every call' (that person would be useless on most calls and if they aren't actually there during a mental breakdown, then they can't help) or 'wait for said professional to arrive before moving forward' (which is a suggestion that seems to forget the unpredictable nature of a police standoff or a mental health crisis).
The prison, incidently, is full as well. Literally. A few weeks ago, for a few days in a row, if a cop arrested someone, both would have to sit in the cruiser for hours ...waiting for an inmate to be released so a bed would be open. 🤦♂️
It's not like it's a horrible place to live, but mental health care is difficult to get, even if you go with the 'get help from the jail' route.
"Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted."
- Jiddu Krishnamurti
This is truth
5:20 also, overdiagnosis. If a psychologist or psychiatrist tells a teenage girl that she's chronically depressed and high anxiety when in reality she's just a girl in high school going through puberty and having a normal existential crisis, she'll believe it, and not only will she be recorded in some database as another case of those disorders, she could easily end up inducing the actual conditions because she's overthinking them.
Is it a mental illness to overthink suggestions that you may have a problem until they actually become a problem for you?
@@MNbenMN yes. But I think it specifically works with anxiety and depression because it's easy to build delusions that produce those issues and they are negative feedback loop disorders.
@@Velereonics So, should we aim to detect and treat the suggestibility itself as its own disorder (opening up a new category of diagnoses), or avoid making the suggestions (potentially leaving many undiagnosed)?
@@MNbenMN Im not convinced therapy and medication is effective. I think it's probably really hard to find a definitive answer on that because I went to lots of therapists and then just stopped going without warning each time, so I don't know how that would have been recorded.
Point being, if it's not effective then yeah trying to influence it at all with some kind of national or global standard is rash/arrogant.
I think focusing internally on why you have certain feelings is nonsense. There's no consistency to feelings. They're totally contextual, and the time that passes between when the thing happened and talking with the therapist is completely going to warp what actually happened.
So you can either talk about something with them that may not even be true or accurate and why you feel negatively about it even though you're negative feelings are probably justifiable based on your memory,
Or you can recognize that at the end of the day nothing is going to make you feel better about certain things. And when people say to "ignore" bad memories, they're not saying sit there and try not to think about it because that's impossible. You have to do new things. Like go develop new hobbies, go talk to people you don't know like things like that. You have to build some kind of goal and direction to go in and envision, otherwise the only thing you can focus on is the past which for most people in therapy is bad.
@@Velereonics Ironically, in electronic circuits, negative feedback is use to to reduce distortion effects, not compound them. That's positive feedback.
You are breaking frontiers of knowledge in a nouvelle way that shows how important is building a society of real and trustable knowledge. Thank you
We live in a dystopian nightmare.
You might, I don't.
On a more positive note, you are helping foster a mental health event. I have been sending your videos to a school in West Africa. The students range from 12 to 16 and while not everyone is interested in this (perfectly understandable), I am pleased to see some of the more interesting comments. As an example, on the case of the FMRI and the dead salmon, I was asked if it would work with a chicken. (They don't really have salmon there). I said I would imagine the experiment would turn out just the same -- they said "Good, we can now prove the chicken is smarter than our president". Not quite pure science, but they are thinking! And, if we'd done that some time ago with say, members of congress, we could have saved ourselves a lot of trouble, and used the famous line "I see brain dead people!" Thanks for making science interesting to kids as some did for me many years ago back in the mesozoic
Superb break down. Many thanks!
15:29 Could it be that young boys, being less likely to open up about how they feel because of societal conditioning and expectations, are less likely to admit their feelings of sadness and hopelessness, causing the result shown here?
Very unlikely. Women are known for using more the right brain hemisphere and men for using more the left one.
Don't think so. On average, looking at the character traits from the OCEAN model, females score higher in agreeableness and neuroticism. This might have some good and some bad consequences. And here we see one of the consequences.
Makes sense.
I guess that means that both groups are dealing with the same/similar issues, one group is just having a harder time coping with it than the other.
"because of societal conditioning and expectations," Why not just biological differences?
@@useodyseeorbitchute9450 Men have emotions too, but you know, "Boys don't cry".
Sabine, wonderful show, as usual. I agree kindergarten children are germ bombs 💣. On the topic of mental health,. It should be considered not enough people are turning off the tv,phones, and other electronics. That coupled with lack of exercise and sunshine.. Keep up the good work 👏 👍 ❤
Oh come on.... lack of sunshine isn't that bad. My skin is 20 years younger at the cost of resembling a pale white vampire. My whiteness shines so bright at night it keeps my spouse from getting a good sleep.
Using phones and getting less sun isn't the reason people are depressed ffs. Capitalism is. Most people in my generation work their entire lives just to scrape by. We'll probably never own our own homes. We can't afford to have children... Like, there are serious reasons as to why people feel hopeless and it isn't because of social media or the sun.
I also lift weights 6 days a week, am outside a lot and still feel bad about my future most days. Because lack of exercise IS NOT the issue. That's a childlike and very privileged understanding of what's actually wrong with the world.
@@henrythegreatamerican8136 you're funny
Vitamin D+calcium supplements will help with the lack of sunlight. I was told to take them whilst in hospital as my Vitamin D levels were low and I was at risk of developing osteoporosis.
@firesideaudiobooks5744 Well.... let's look at the bright side. In a couple of months, you'll be back to paying off the minimum monthly amount of your school loans while the overall balance continues to increase!!!!
But in the end, you will get the last laugh. You will definitely stick it to everyone. Because you will die with those school loans not fully paid off and the balance owed will be pushed onto the rest of society!!!
Make sure to write in your will, "Too you Uncle Sam, I leave you this wonderful school loan balance I could not pay off."
Thx for another delightful vid. I really enjoy your humor.
I run a social group for autistic people, founded in 2002. After the pandemic, I noticed members of the group (that meets weekly) are on the phones far more often. There is a huge change, more time spent on social media is correlated with worse mental health.
What*Is* "mental health? Every halfwit and his brother seems to bleat about it; it seems a little odd that those with little or nothing between their ears to concern themselves whether no it is some idea of healthy
correlation is not causation
Don't get your children smart phones.
We only provided the basics for our children. Anything else meant they had to get an external part-time job or do without. Consequently they ate little junk food and spent almost no time on social media. It was all too expensive. They ended up being disciplined savers, family orientated, sober and hardworking , and paid for their own weddings, scuba and guitar lessons, and mortgages ... one in 29 months, the other in 42.
All positives!
I never had a smart phone as a child, I've had chronic un- and underemployment, anxiety and depression, difficulty with studying during and after grade school. n
I've ADHD and very likely other neurodivergent disorders. Mental health and neurodivergent conditions still affect people like me who grew up well before smartphones appeared and spent all or most of our childhood without the internet, let alone social media.
So much bullshit in one comment
@@CAThompsonThat doesn't mean that social media/internet can't cause mild forms of mental disorders to form in individuals who use those excessively.
Thanks for sharing Sabine ☕☕
Excellent video. I live in a part of the world where medical mental health care is almost non-existent but hype for this and that is high. Those who have autistic or dyslexic etc. problems are generally cared for by family and have to suffer ordinary schooling as there does not exist a special-needs system.I think today there are many 'hype mental issues' that are being pushed to the forefront and those with genuine medical mental health problems are having to take a back seat. At least, that's the way it seems to me. Thank you, Sabine, for all your hard work. Is there any chance of a video about your 'average day'? Might serve as 'holiday' as you wouldn't have to delve into all those stats.😀
What is "medical mental health care"? For that matter what is "mental health-or its exact opposite?About forty or fifty years ago almost every chattering weakling was bleating about something it called "stress" which turned out to be anything diddums did not like; god alone knows what contemporary chattering weaklings are calling "mental health", and whatever it is they whine or bleat about it, because chattering weaklings do little else
Since I'm a Phys. Ed. teacher in New York City, I get to know large numbers of people over time. I've seen legitimate cases of people with severe mental health issues (teachers and students). I've also seen a larger number of people who use a mental health diagnosis as an excuse for avoiding all accountability. These people are despicable because they diminish those who genuinely suffer.
Your videos are so straight forward and you crack me up 😂 I love your dry sense of humor 😂
I have a humble opinion on the mental health issue: The financial system is the major single driver of feelings of insecurity, insoluble victimhood, family and friendship breakage, and permanent classification of financial losers as worthless takers. I see the global financial system as an archaic operating system that was developed hundreds of years ago largely to serve the interests of aristocrats and war lords. It must be replaced, neither by more free market nor first-draft communism.
Probably won't work if Pareto's research was correct. Any alternate system would still produce the 80/20 effect.
@@theboombody You mean in terms of wealth inequality? Certainly things to which the Pareto Principle applies can obviously change such that the Pareto Principle doesn't apply in the same way anymore.
there's hardly a "global financial system". It seems to me you are referring to the US, rather.
*To overcome stress/anxiety, take 10 deep, slow breaths.*
Oxygen breaks down stress hormones, and deep breathing directs the Vagus Nerve to slow the heart rate and stop the production stress hormones.
Taking ten deep, slow breaths might seem annoying but it is far less annoying than freaking out and being too scared to think for hours or days on-end.
Exhale, first, because if your lungs are full and you try to take a deep breath it can feel like you can't breath, so get the old air out before bringing fresh air in.
Any time you notice that you are thinking about your breath, take a deep breath.
*For basic depression, imagine the sensation of happiness--do not imagine ideas of things you think might make you happy--imagine the sensation of happiness.*
The imaginary state is in your head and the actual mood is in your head, so imagining the mood, and you can do this with any mood, makes you experience the mood.
Imagine being sad and angry, if you like, but the best option for the best outcome as far as overall health is concerned comes from imagining the sensation of happiness.
@@ZeroOskul How many breaths to an extra zero before the decimal point in my bank account?