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Statistics about Utah must always be taken with a grain of salt, even larger than is typically appropriate for gross/large-scale generalizations. People know th
by cookiecaper 10y ago
Statistics about Utah must always be taken with a grain of salt, even larger than is typically appropriate for gross/large-scale generalizations. People know that Utah stats are seen as a proxy for the success and/or failure of Mormonism and will distort findings to accommodate their agenda.
A quick example of this is that after Prop 8 passed in CA, a "study", using data sourced from a single, unnamed "top 10 pay site vendor" was published claiming that Utah had the highest incidence of online porn use in the US. That myth stuck for a while, but PornHub started releasing state-by-state traffic reports on its blog and have repeatedly and clearly debunked it. By those numbers, Utah regularly ranks in the bottom 10 states for online porn use.
Regarding depression, Mormon leaders explicitly encourage people to seek mental health treatment if/as necessary, and actively work to destigmatize the use of antidepressants, so increased use in Utah should not be a surprise. Leaders have told them it's OK, so they proceed without the guilt that may be unresolved in other areas.
Just conjecture here, but maybe a correlation between suicide and antidepressant use is a signal that antidepressants are inadequate and/or, at least in some cases, potentially counterproductive, rather than a signal that the populace is less happy vs. the baseline.
- narrowrail 10y agoI've had so many jack-mormon friends over the last 20 years. We'd drink beer and whiskey, and smoke a joint. Anti-depressants are straight-up drugs. It's like removing the fructose from fruit and leaving the fiber. The mormons I've known that were still devout wouldn't even consume caffeine. Edit: Over the last 30 years my 3 best ski days were at Solitude, Snowbird, and Alta. I just wish you all had more realistic laws for beer and weed.