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I have a theory which I can’t substantiate, just anecdotes and conversations I had throughout the years. But, I’m convinced a lot of depression/anxiety stems fr

I have a theory which I can’t substantiate, just anecdotes and conversations I had throughout the years. But, I’m convinced a lot of depression/anxiety stems from thinking too much and that in turn is caused by an ever complex word with looser and looser guidelines or norms. I’m not making judgements weather this is necessarily good or bad but rather observing. In the past, even as recent as the 50s but certainly before the 20th century, a persons course in life was mostly determined at birth. You’re born, you play, you grow up, work the fields or a job, get married, have kids of your own and die. Society was more rigid and pretty much funnelled you through a “tried and tested path”, for good or for worse. And the lack of information made things “simpler” in a way in the sense you had a small number of people to get input from. Take child rearing for example. Many modern people worry so much and research ways to “optimise” their children for example ( I’m thinking of a lot of questions I saw on the parenting stack overflow ) whereas in the last, you’d just ask your own parents. And, since they were older, the assumption was they knew what they where talking about, even if it was not necessarily true. Same with health, same with sexuality, relationships, a lot of things. Essentially lack of information and a rigid social structure meant fewer choices which meant less thinking. And less thinking meant less depression and anxiety. Now when you have a world of information at your hands, you have way more things to think about, to worry about and to look for information on how to fix or improve. I’m not sure medication, even “working” one is a sustainable solution to what appears to me to be an environmental problem rather than a biological one.

multiplegeorges 4y ago
> And less thinking meant less depression and anxiety. That's a pretty big claim. I know you're just putting out your own personal theory and you're not trying to declare you have the "answer", but I don't see how that follows. A first step is establishing that depression is more prevalent now than in the 50s. You'd have to account for the lack of diagnosis then and find some other indicator of the true rate of depression. Not an easy task, for sure, but my first thought is that depression just went untreated then and people became resigned to their lot in life and suffered.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
rustybelt 4y ago
Similarly, I don't think we're equipped for the level of exposure to life-altering tragedy that mass/social media makes available. I swear my wife subscribes to a dedicated "small child dies in horrible freak accident" facebook feed. She is constantly sharing these types of stories with me from around the world. Logically, I know that these are actually extremely rare events, but the constant exposure still makes us both more anxious about the safety of our own children.
- AlwaysRock 4y ago
  Good lord. I try to tell folks all the time that to some extend you have to ignore news. Big world events are going to find their way to you. Russian invading Ukraine is going to end up being something you hear about regardless if you follow the news at all. The tragic stories of children getting bombed in Ukraine? The photos? The gory details? That likely is only waiting for you if you go searching for it. I'm not advocating being ignorant. I'm advocating limited the amount if tragedy you seek out on a daily basis. It isnt good for ones head. It certainly doesnt make anyones life better.
  - hammyhavoc 4y ago
    I dunno about that. I know several doom-and-gloom mongers who seem to get off on sharing the woes of the world in group conversations. As a result, I've barely used Facebook or any kind of social media since the pandemic began. Quite literally, haven't used it this year except to post an interview.
    - wizofaus 4y ago
      Discuss: HN qualifies as "social media". Why or why not?
      - hammyhavoc 4y ago
        Hardly. Profiles are extremely minimal, and it's not much more fleshed out than the average WordPress comment system is. I can't follow people on HN (AFAIK) either.
martopix 4y ago
I actually read a book that made a similar claim, although I can't remember the title right now. It essentially said that depression as we know it is an illness for the contemporary world for the reasons you list. However, it made the point that there were "different" mental health problems in the past, which had to do more with the conflict against the more rigid social structure -- same but opposite to how today we suffer from the lack of direction that you describe well.
themedes 4y ago
Interesting concept, I must admit it seems a plausible explanation. I also notice that Anxiety sufferers often overthink things (its much more complex I know). I guess information size is still exploding in volume and depth, but perhaps in quite a few hundred years this will slow and we catch up through several generations. Maybe then depression or anxiety will be filtered out of subsequent generations as we cope better? Personally I suspected a lot of it was down to poor nutrition/diet, exercise, night shift work, overall sleeping less and exposure to screens/information. The main factor I think is food e.g. sweeteners, sugars, e-number chemicals, preservatives, and salt all altering our body chemistry.
hn8305823 4y ago
The good news is you don't seem to suffer from serious depression. If you did then you would know it is a very real physical problem that positive thinking can't really overcome. Not just physically in terms of brain chemistry but you often literally sink into your chair as if you were physically exhausted and don't want to move. Depression enforces negative thought templates. No matter how good your life is going you will usually see the negative side of things and be depressed mentally and physically. In a healthy person this is not the case. Your mood will vary widely by the situation you are in but most of the time positive thought templates will prevail and allow you to see the best even in difficult situations. It also gives you the mental/psycological energy needed to tackle difficult challenges/problems. In a fully depressed state you have no such energy no matter what your willpower is. A healthy person has the mental and physical energy to tackle the day even when it involves hard/tedious or unpleasant work. One paradoxical thing about depression is that it can sometimes actually feel good, in a comforting "oh it's that familiar feeling again" way. Usually that is just when you feel the onset of symptoms before the bad feelings/thoughts/feelings.
Zigurd 4y ago
This is called nostalgia. History was not neater, nor more uniform. The typical departure point in 1950s conformism, with the assumption that prior history must have been even more conformist. But that's not how most of history treated gender roles, marriage, work, etc.
froglets 4y ago
My theory is that depression is situational and doing things changes our situation, hopefully to one that is less depressing. Thinking about things isn’t very helpful if you don’t actually do anything. Medications can help people think less and do more, and do seem to be one of many correlates of depression.
grumple 4y ago
> I have a theory which I can’t substantiate, just anecdotes and conversations I had throughout the years. But, I’m convinced a lot of depression/anxiety stems from thinking too much and that in turn is caused by an ever complex word with looser and looser guidelines or norms. This is not a new theory. It's called negative self talk, and fixing that is one of the core approaches in treatment of anxiety and depression.
Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
I wonder how many people think they have depression, but are actually simply suffering from despair. Medication won't help you if you're living paycheck-to-paycheck, dealing with landlords constantly increasing rents while wages are stagnant, worried that getting sick and missing a couple days of work will result in losing your place to live.
s1artibartfast 4y ago
I would generalize that even further to an abundance of possibility. In terms of anxiety, possibility, however remote, contributes to decision paralysis and over analysis. In terms of depression, an abundance of possibility leads to disappointment, deferred action, and deferred acceptance. I can only speak for myself, but a preoccupation with trying to optimize my life in the face of infinite possibility has led to a tremendous amount of anxiety and at times depression. For lack of a better term, it is an Omnivore's Dilemma of the Soul.
retrac 4y ago
> by an ever complex word with looser and looser guidelines or norms That reminds me of one of those weird little findings. People with depression appear to more accurately estimate their control (or lack of control) over a situation, than people who are not depressed. Perhaps non-depressed people are just delusionally optimistic about the chances of things going wrong. (If true "overthinking" is probably related in some way to this.) > When participants were asked to press a button and rate the control they perceived they had over whether or not a light turned on, depressed individuals made more accurate ratings of control than non-depressed individuals.[5] Among participants asked to complete a task and rate their performance without any feedback, depressed individuals made more accurate self-ratings than non-depressed individuals.[6][7][8][9] For participants asked to complete a series of tasks, given feedback on their performance after each task, and who self-rated their overall performance after completing all the tasks, depressed individuals were again more likely to give an accurate self-rating than non-depressed individuals.[10][11][12][13][14][15] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism
theptip 4y ago
It’s really complex. For a partial survey of that complexity, see this SSC: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/06/13/what-is-depression-anyway-the-synapse-hypothesis/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/06/13/what-is-depression-any.... Part of the problem in describing/treating this condition is that depression is a huge constellation of overlapping causal mechanisms. You may be describing one set of mechanisms but it’s certainly not the only one.
DigiDigiorno 4y ago
". . . I’m convinced a lot of depression/anxiety stems from thinking too much . . ." Sertraline (Zoloft) is used to treat both depression and/or OCD. The dosages overlap too (OCD usually is a higher dosage I believe). It is also used to treat anxiety. I suspect there is a causal chain that goes like: compulsively thinking > anxiety > depression/suicide. I'm not sure how preventing reuptake of serotonin prevents compulsive thinking, but I suspect the mechanism is closer to preventing the thinking aspect and the other feelings are further down the causal chain. I am not an expert and I have only read a couple papers due to someone in my life taking Sertraline and having it reduce their OCD. (I thought it was only for depression based on my lay opinion) If anyone has read anything interesting about the thinking aspect, please share links!
sinecure 4y ago
This is essentially what Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber) theorized and wrote about in his manifesto, that industrialization and its abundance of comforts and options have destroyed human happiness and that we would all be better off if we lived simple hunter gatherer lives and knew nothing of modernity or technology. That the hunter who catches a deer and feeds his tribe is immensely more happy and fulfilled than the stock broker who navigates high finance and city life, but can't seem to get that promotion or afford that vacation house his boss has. Essentially the awareness of everyone else's lifestyle and prosperity, amplified by the advent of print newspaper and now social media, is the key destroyer of joy. The peasant works his farm and feeds his family and raises his kids. He knows he will not become king. He barely knows what the king's lifestyle is. In modern America we are blasted with thousands of kingly lifestyles 24/7 and are constantly asked, why aren't we living like that? Why do I have to work? Why can't I date the supermodel? Why do I have to struggle with rent? Our minds have not evolved to deal with this super-stimulus nor the self comparison of endless idealized lifestyles we cannot all realistically achieve.
999900000999 4y ago
Lost Connections is a great book on this. Most people used to be apart of some form of community. You made friends, made dinner together, found love , etc. In this community. Now their's none of that. Everyone is a disposable interchangeable part. Instead of getting a stable job, and having a foundation, now we're all gig workers. Or short-term contractors. Back in the day, you'd work the same job most of your life, and that's one of the ways you made friends. Back when I lived in LA, I was lucky enough to be a part of a fantastic apartment community. We cooked, and watched sports together. While I had to leave for other reasons, I definitely miss these guys. The internet's a poor substitute, even at a bar my behavior is restricted by social norms. In real life I've never had anyone call me a slur, or personally attack me. Online it's absolutely relentless, I don't use social media or online dating for this reason.
m-ee 4y ago
You might be interested in reading Tribe by Sebastian Junger. The thesis is that a lot of this is caused by the destruction of community and shared purpose in modern western society, but I think he'd push back strongly on the rigid structure being important or even beneficial. A primary example in the early parts of the book are anglo settlers who joined native american tribes either voluntarily or by force. They almost universally preferred their new lifestyle and if brought back into white society would frequently try to escape. The reverse pretty much never happened.

multiplegeorges 4y ago

> And less thinking meant less depression and anxiety. That's a pretty big claim. I know you're just putting out your own personal theory and you're not trying to declare you have the "answer", but I don't see how that follows. A first step is establishing that depression is more prevalent now than in the 50s. You'd have to account for the lack of diagnosis then and find some other indicator of the true rate of depression. Not an easy task, for sure, but my first thought is that depression just went untreated then and people became resigned to their lot in life and suffered.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

rustybelt 4y ago

Similarly, I don't think we're equipped for the level of exposure to life-altering tragedy that mass/social media makes available. I swear my wife subscribes to a dedicated "small child dies in horrible freak accident" facebook feed. She is constantly sharing these types of stories with me from around the world. Logically, I know that these are actually extremely rare events, but the constant exposure still makes us both more anxious about the safety of our own children.

AlwaysRock 4y ago
Good lord. I try to tell folks all the time that to some extend you have to ignore news. Big world events are going to find their way to you. Russian invading Ukraine is going to end up being something you hear about regardless if you follow the news at all. The tragic stories of children getting bombed in Ukraine? The photos? The gory details? That likely is only waiting for you if you go searching for it. I'm not advocating being ignorant. I'm advocating limited the amount if tragedy you seek out on a daily basis. It isnt good for ones head. It certainly doesnt make anyones life better.
- hammyhavoc 4y ago
  I dunno about that. I know several doom-and-gloom mongers who seem to get off on sharing the woes of the world in group conversations. As a result, I've barely used Facebook or any kind of social media since the pandemic began. Quite literally, haven't used it this year except to post an interview.
  - wizofaus 4y ago
    Discuss: HN qualifies as "social media". Why or why not?
    - hammyhavoc 4y ago
      Hardly. Profiles are extremely minimal, and it's not much more fleshed out than the average WordPress comment system is. I can't follow people on HN (AFAIK) either.

martopix 4y ago

I actually read a book that made a similar claim, although I can't remember the title right now. It essentially said that depression as we know it is an illness for the contemporary world for the reasons you list. However, it made the point that there were "different" mental health problems in the past, which had to do more with the conflict against the more rigid social structure -- same but opposite to how today we suffer from the lack of direction that you describe well.

themedes 4y ago

Interesting concept, I must admit it seems a plausible explanation. I also notice that Anxiety sufferers often overthink things (its much more complex I know). I guess information size is still exploding in volume and depth, but perhaps in quite a few hundred years this will slow and we catch up through several generations. Maybe then depression or anxiety will be filtered out of subsequent generations as we cope better? Personally I suspected a lot of it was down to poor nutrition/diet, exercise, night shift work, overall sleeping less and exposure to screens/information. The main factor I think is food e.g. sweeteners, sugars, e-number chemicals, preservatives, and salt all altering our body chemistry.

hn8305823 4y ago

The good news is you don't seem to suffer from serious depression. If you did then you would know it is a very real physical problem that positive thinking can't really overcome. Not just physically in terms of brain chemistry but you often literally sink into your chair as if you were physically exhausted and don't want to move. Depression enforces negative thought templates. No matter how good your life is going you will usually see the negative side of things and be depressed mentally and physically. In a healthy person this is not the case. Your mood will vary widely by the situation you are in but most of the time positive thought templates will prevail and allow you to see the best even in difficult situations. It also gives you the mental/psycological energy needed to tackle difficult challenges/problems. In a fully depressed state you have no such energy no matter what your willpower is. A healthy person has the mental and physical energy to tackle the day even when it involves hard/tedious or unpleasant work. One paradoxical thing about depression is that it can sometimes actually feel good, in a comforting "oh it's that familiar feeling again" way. Usually that is just when you feel the onset of symptoms before the bad feelings/thoughts/feelings.

Zigurd 4y ago

This is called nostalgia. History was not neater, nor more uniform. The typical departure point in 1950s conformism, with the assumption that prior history must have been even more conformist. But that's not how most of history treated gender roles, marriage, work, etc.

froglets 4y ago

My theory is that depression is situational and doing things changes our situation, hopefully to one that is less depressing. Thinking about things isn’t very helpful if you don’t actually do anything. Medications can help people think less and do more, and do seem to be one of many correlates of depression.

grumple 4y ago

> I have a theory which I can’t substantiate, just anecdotes and conversations I had throughout the years. But, I’m convinced a lot of depression/anxiety stems from thinking too much and that in turn is caused by an ever complex word with looser and looser guidelines or norms. This is not a new theory. It's called negative self talk, and fixing that is one of the core approaches in treatment of anxiety and depression.

Sohcahtoa82 4y ago

I wonder how many people think they have depression, but are actually simply suffering from despair. Medication won't help you if you're living paycheck-to-paycheck, dealing with landlords constantly increasing rents while wages are stagnant, worried that getting sick and missing a couple days of work will result in losing your place to live.

s1artibartfast 4y ago

I would generalize that even further to an abundance of possibility. In terms of anxiety, possibility, however remote, contributes to decision paralysis and over analysis. In terms of depression, an abundance of possibility leads to disappointment, deferred action, and deferred acceptance. I can only speak for myself, but a preoccupation with trying to optimize my life in the face of infinite possibility has led to a tremendous amount of anxiety and at times depression. For lack of a better term, it is an Omnivore's Dilemma of the Soul.

retrac 4y ago

> by an ever complex word with looser and looser guidelines or norms That reminds me of one of those weird little findings. People with depression appear to more accurately estimate their control (or lack of control) over a situation, than people who are not depressed. Perhaps non-depressed people are just delusionally optimistic about the chances of things going wrong. (If true "overthinking" is probably related in some way to this.) > When participants were asked to press a button and rate the control they perceived they had over whether or not a light turned on, depressed individuals made more accurate ratings of control than non-depressed individuals.[5] Among participants asked to complete a task and rate their performance without any feedback, depressed individuals made more accurate self-ratings than non-depressed individuals.[6][7][8][9] For participants asked to complete a series of tasks, given feedback on their performance after each task, and who self-rated their overall performance after completing all the tasks, depressed individuals were again more likely to give an accurate self-rating than non-depressed individuals.[10][11][12][13][14][15] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism

theptip 4y ago

It’s really complex. For a partial survey of that complexity, see this SSC: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/06/13/what-is-depression-anyway-the-synapse-hypothesis/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/06/13/what-is-depression-any.... Part of the problem in describing/treating this condition is that depression is a huge constellation of overlapping causal mechanisms. You may be describing one set of mechanisms but it’s certainly not the only one.

DigiDigiorno 4y ago

". . . I’m convinced a lot of depression/anxiety stems from thinking too much . . ." Sertraline (Zoloft) is used to treat both depression and/or OCD. The dosages overlap too (OCD usually is a higher dosage I believe). It is also used to treat anxiety. I suspect there is a causal chain that goes like: compulsively thinking > anxiety > depression/suicide. I'm not sure how preventing reuptake of serotonin prevents compulsive thinking, but I suspect the mechanism is closer to preventing the thinking aspect and the other feelings are further down the causal chain. I am not an expert and I have only read a couple papers due to someone in my life taking Sertraline and having it reduce their OCD. (I thought it was only for depression based on my lay opinion) If anyone has read anything interesting about the thinking aspect, please share links!

sinecure 4y ago

This is essentially what Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber) theorized and wrote about in his manifesto, that industrialization and its abundance of comforts and options have destroyed human happiness and that we would all be better off if we lived simple hunter gatherer lives and knew nothing of modernity or technology. That the hunter who catches a deer and feeds his tribe is immensely more happy and fulfilled than the stock broker who navigates high finance and city life, but can't seem to get that promotion or afford that vacation house his boss has. Essentially the awareness of everyone else's lifestyle and prosperity, amplified by the advent of print newspaper and now social media, is the key destroyer of joy. The peasant works his farm and feeds his family and raises his kids. He knows he will not become king. He barely knows what the king's lifestyle is. In modern America we are blasted with thousands of kingly lifestyles 24/7 and are constantly asked, why aren't we living like that? Why do I have to work? Why can't I date the supermodel? Why do I have to struggle with rent? Our minds have not evolved to deal with this super-stimulus nor the self comparison of endless idealized lifestyles we cannot all realistically achieve.

999900000999 4y ago

Lost Connections is a great book on this. Most people used to be apart of some form of community. You made friends, made dinner together, found love , etc. In this community. Now their's none of that. Everyone is a disposable interchangeable part. Instead of getting a stable job, and having a foundation, now we're all gig workers. Or short-term contractors. Back in the day, you'd work the same job most of your life, and that's one of the ways you made friends. Back when I lived in LA, I was lucky enough to be a part of a fantastic apartment community. We cooked, and watched sports together. While I had to leave for other reasons, I definitely miss these guys. The internet's a poor substitute, even at a bar my behavior is restricted by social norms. In real life I've never had anyone call me a slur, or personally attack me. Online it's absolutely relentless, I don't use social media or online dating for this reason.

m-ee 4y ago

You might be interested in reading Tribe by Sebastian Junger. The thesis is that a lot of this is caused by the destruction of community and shared purpose in modern western society, but I think he'd push back strongly on the rigid structure being important or even beneficial. A primary example in the early parts of the book are anglo settlers who joined native american tribes either voluntarily or by force. They almost universally preferred their new lifestyle and if brought back into white society would frequently try to escape. The reverse pretty much never happened.