11 ms·

The Age of Distracti-Pression

73 points by rzk 4y ago

nullhack 4y ago
"Sitting with her puppy helped, but her teachers told her it was too distracting onscreen. Ultimately her mother decided to try her on Paxil." Sad
- DocTomoe 4y ago
  One of the great tragedies of the time beginning in the 1990s is the massive abuse of medication to solve social problems, especially in the United States.
  - emptyparadise 4y ago
    Unfortunately it's hardly a modern thing.
    - mkl95 4y ago
      She comes across as a hysterical lady. A few drops of laudanum would help.
      - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
        I'd take that over the ever so fashionable mid-century lobotomy.
    - autopilot23 4y ago
      The scale of the phenomenon is very much a modern thing
      - riversflow 4y ago
        Maybe in absolute terms, but only because there are so many more people now. You should read[1] about the way triangular trade in colonial America led to very low prices for rum creating and epidemic of alcoholism so bad it the social structure of the time and ultimately led to the rise of the Temperance movement and prohibition. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK216414/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK216414/
  - cloudymeatballs 4y ago
    I sometimes wonder how much US tech productivity is built on a foundation of ADHD med over-prescription. Discussion of taking stimulants is pervasive among the tech Twitterati, to a really depressing extent. At this point though I'm not sure where the right balance is - the US healthcare model (you are a customer) probably drives excessive medication as much as cultural pressures, but at the same time the UK model (you are a patient, but not a paying customer) drives resistance to prescribing medication where it might actually be beneficial.
    - throw__away7391 4y ago
      > I sometimes wonder how much US tech productivity is built on a foundation of ADHD med over-prescription. Probably somewhere between zero and a negative impact. I tried this briefly some years ago after hearing so much about productivity gains, then tried again once or twice after that. I quickly realized that while in the initial afternoon of the first use you may see some benefits, this come at the expense of later productivity. I'd say it is not too different from the impact of caffeine on sleep in this regard. People just like taking these meds, they like the high it gives and the chemical induced "feeling productive" rush makes it easy to tell yourself a nice story about why you're taking them and what they're doing for you, but I don't think they're actually producing any real productivity gains.
      - chrisweekly 4y ago
        That's some broad brush of ignorance you're painting with; "they like the high it gives" is laughable.
        hotpotamus 4y ago
        https://www.rxlist.com/desoxyn-drug.htm https://www.rxlist.com/desoxyn-drug.htm Take a look at the generic name for desoxyn. I mean, if I can get it from a doctor, I'll give it a shot.
        brailsafe 4y ago
        That's why they used a throwaway. No doubt, some people will get adderall or w/e for that reason, perhaps, but all people like the feeling of being productive; people with a real issue just very rarely feel that unless they slow down the giant double-lane roundabout of their thoughts.
  - Apocryphon 4y ago
    It precedes the 90s quite a bit. A “modern” form of the phenomenon was postwar America embracing self-medication: my U.S. history teacher pointed out in The Invasion of the Body-Snatchers the characters are constantly popping pills or swilling highballs offhandedly, as that was how it was done in the day.
  - mrguyorama 4y ago
    Meanwhile, in the 40s, it was normal to take actual meth as a "weight control supplement" in both the US and Germany. Arguably Germany AS A COUNTRY was addicted to meth during the second world war.
    - DocTomoe 4y ago
      Pervitin, essentially Amphetamine with a brand name, used to make people awake longer, walk longer, carry more, was called "Panzerschokolade" - "tank chocolate" by German troops. Today, psychoactive stimulants are marketed as "Provigil" and regularly used by US troops, which is made responsible for more than one friendly fire incident.
floren 4y ago
Well, good news, when you're in hour 5 of your Hulu binge-watch and feeling like maybe this is kind of pointless, you'll soon see an advertisement for "Hers", the Doctor Feelgood website that'll send you pills as long as you pinky-swear you're depressed.
- boppo1 4y ago
  Hmm. Hims sends penis pills. Interesting dichotomy.
  - floren 4y ago
    I think it's the same company and presumably they can prescribe all sorts of stuff, it's just that they advertise penis pills & hair loss treatments to men, and depression meds to women. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hims_%26_Hers_Health https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hims_%26_Hers_Health
bin_bash 4y ago
The very first paragraph: > If you’re wondering which pills and how many of them Americans have relied upon to make ourselves feel better since Covid-19 arrived, the answer, in short, is yes. Yeah I don't think I'm the target audience for this. Am I becoming an old man or has the NYTimes writing really dove off a cliff since ~2020?
- a9h74j 4y ago
  Are they still presenting anecdotes as established trends?
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
    > Antidepressants continue to be the most commonly prescribed of these medications in the United States, and their use has become only more widespread since the pandemic began, with an 8.7 percent rate of increase from 2019 to 2021, compared with 7.9 percent from 2017 to 2019, according to Express Scripts. They seem to use a pattern of introducing an idea with an anecdote and then providing more objective information that supports the idea. It makes the article longer and gives a human touch while still remaining factual. I don't see the issue.
    - karaterobot 4y ago
      I don't know if the information supports the idea. It increased from 8.7% rather than 7.9%? So the difference is .8%, and that's supposed to be meaningful enough to declare a trend and give it a brand name?
      - 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
        I picked one example of information that was not anecdotal.
      - asdff 4y ago
        This is how statistics are used in the press to sway opinion. Authority is granted for those who say things like 8.7% and call trends thusly without performing any tests to see if the findings are even significant. Most people don't know what the word significance means in terms of statistics; the press knows this and therefor doesn't bother reporting it or worse, touts insignificant results as significant by doing this 'eyeball' analysis versus real statistical analysis that can support findings.
zaphar 4y ago
It's hard to get good data on this stuff but the perception you get when doing a little digging is that we have somehow managed to produce a lot of mental health issues over the last decade. My pet, conspiracy?, theory is that the always online culture is perhaps to blame. We have a lot of anger, and depression out there and very little except for medication seems to be helping. There have always been anger and depression in society of course but the rate of increase in extreme outcomes from those is definitely rising. Mass shooting, teen suicide, online or real world mobs are all up everywhere. Something seems anecdotally to have shifted. The pandemic was an external stressor of course but it exacerbated something that seemed to already be building. I have resources and method to address this stuff for myself but I don't have any ideas to address it societally.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  Nobody can form their own argument or opinion that is longer than a tweet.
  - mgkimsal 4y ago
    Even if/when you can get longer than that, the majority of the intended audience probably doesn't have the patience for it.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - asdff 4y ago
      People don't want a comprehensive report, they want a headline. Then they become the most dangerous voter and consumer there is: the master of headlines, blind to all context and significance, swayed entirely by the people writing headlines.
- steveBK123 4y ago
  I think people under, say, 35? remember a time not being online.. and think of the world as "real world" and "online". Whereas those under-35? takes things online a bit more at face value, rather than what it tends to be - the loudest voices and most extreme ideas being amplified.
droopyEyelids 4y ago
Such shoddy writing to only mention the pandemic without mentioning how: 1 Congress relaxed rules on the Ryan Haight Act to allow online prescription of ADHD meds, 2 Telehealth Apps like Cerebral began to spend 10s of millions of dollars advertising on TikTok and instagram. 3 The apps would write new amphetamine prescriptions after 1/2 hour assessments, and from whistleblower data we know they didn't do any sort of identity verification and would write the same person multiple prescriptions. This has all the markings of another profit driven prescription drug boom, similar to Xanax and oxycontin https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-03-11/cerebral-app-over-prescribed-adhd-meds-ex-employees-say https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-03-11/cerebral-...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
yamrzou 4y ago
https://archive.ph/hsMk2 https://archive.ph/hsMk2
- sidcool 4y ago
  Thanks.

73 points by rzk 4y ago

"Sitting with her puppy helped, but her teachers told her it was too distracting onscreen. Ultimately her mother decided to try her on Paxil." Sad

DocTomoe 4y ago
One of the great tragedies of the time beginning in the 1990s is the massive abuse of medication to solve social problems, especially in the United States.
- emptyparadise 4y ago
  Unfortunately it's hardly a modern thing.
  - mkl95 4y ago
    She comes across as a hysterical lady. A few drops of laudanum would help.
    - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
      I'd take that over the ever so fashionable mid-century lobotomy.
  - autopilot23 4y ago
    The scale of the phenomenon is very much a modern thing
    - riversflow 4y ago
      Maybe in absolute terms, but only because there are so many more people now. You should read[1] about the way triangular trade in colonial America led to very low prices for rum creating and epidemic of alcoholism so bad it the social structure of the time and ultimately led to the rise of the Temperance movement and prohibition. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK216414/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK216414/
- cloudymeatballs 4y ago
  I sometimes wonder how much US tech productivity is built on a foundation of ADHD med over-prescription. Discussion of taking stimulants is pervasive among the tech Twitterati, to a really depressing extent. At this point though I'm not sure where the right balance is - the US healthcare model (you are a customer) probably drives excessive medication as much as cultural pressures, but at the same time the UK model (you are a patient, but not a paying customer) drives resistance to prescribing medication where it might actually be beneficial.
  - throw__away7391 4y ago
    > I sometimes wonder how much US tech productivity is built on a foundation of ADHD med over-prescription. Probably somewhere between zero and a negative impact. I tried this briefly some years ago after hearing so much about productivity gains, then tried again once or twice after that. I quickly realized that while in the initial afternoon of the first use you may see some benefits, this come at the expense of later productivity. I'd say it is not too different from the impact of caffeine on sleep in this regard. People just like taking these meds, they like the high it gives and the chemical induced "feeling productive" rush makes it easy to tell yourself a nice story about why you're taking them and what they're doing for you, but I don't think they're actually producing any real productivity gains.
    - chrisweekly 4y ago
      That's some broad brush of ignorance you're painting with; "they like the high it gives" is laughable.
      - hotpotamus 4y ago
        https://www.rxlist.com/desoxyn-drug.htm https://www.rxlist.com/desoxyn-drug.htm Take a look at the generic name for desoxyn. I mean, if I can get it from a doctor, I'll give it a shot.
      - brailsafe 4y ago
        That's why they used a throwaway. No doubt, some people will get adderall or w/e for that reason, perhaps, but all people like the feeling of being productive; people with a real issue just very rarely feel that unless they slow down the giant double-lane roundabout of their thoughts.
- Apocryphon 4y ago
  It precedes the 90s quite a bit. A “modern” form of the phenomenon was postwar America embracing self-medication: my U.S. history teacher pointed out in The Invasion of the Body-Snatchers the characters are constantly popping pills or swilling highballs offhandedly, as that was how it was done in the day.
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  Meanwhile, in the 40s, it was normal to take actual meth as a "weight control supplement" in both the US and Germany. Arguably Germany AS A COUNTRY was addicted to meth during the second world war.
  - DocTomoe 4y ago
    Pervitin, essentially Amphetamine with a brand name, used to make people awake longer, walk longer, carry more, was called "Panzerschokolade" - "tank chocolate" by German troops. Today, psychoactive stimulants are marketed as "Provigil" and regularly used by US troops, which is made responsible for more than one friendly fire incident.

floren 4y ago

Well, good news, when you're in hour 5 of your Hulu binge-watch and feeling like maybe this is kind of pointless, you'll soon see an advertisement for "Hers", the Doctor Feelgood website that'll send you pills as long as you pinky-swear you're depressed.

boppo1 4y ago
Hmm. Hims sends penis pills. Interesting dichotomy.
- floren 4y ago
  I think it's the same company and presumably they can prescribe all sorts of stuff, it's just that they advertise penis pills & hair loss treatments to men, and depression meds to women. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hims_%26_Hers_Health https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hims_%26_Hers_Health

bin_bash 4y ago

The very first paragraph: > If you’re wondering which pills and how many of them Americans have relied upon to make ourselves feel better since Covid-19 arrived, the answer, in short, is yes. Yeah I don't think I'm the target audience for this. Am I becoming an old man or has the NYTimes writing really dove off a cliff since ~2020?

a9h74j 4y ago
Are they still presenting anecdotes as established trends?
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  > Antidepressants continue to be the most commonly prescribed of these medications in the United States, and their use has become only more widespread since the pandemic began, with an 8.7 percent rate of increase from 2019 to 2021, compared with 7.9 percent from 2017 to 2019, according to Express Scripts. They seem to use a pattern of introducing an idea with an anecdote and then providing more objective information that supports the idea. It makes the article longer and gives a human touch while still remaining factual. I don't see the issue.
  - karaterobot 4y ago
    I don't know if the information supports the idea. It increased from 8.7% rather than 7.9%? So the difference is .8%, and that's supposed to be meaningful enough to declare a trend and give it a brand name?
    - 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
      I picked one example of information that was not anecdotal.
    - asdff 4y ago
      This is how statistics are used in the press to sway opinion. Authority is granted for those who say things like 8.7% and call trends thusly without performing any tests to see if the findings are even significant. Most people don't know what the word significance means in terms of statistics; the press knows this and therefor doesn't bother reporting it or worse, touts insignificant results as significant by doing this 'eyeball' analysis versus real statistical analysis that can support findings.

zaphar 4y ago

It's hard to get good data on this stuff but the perception you get when doing a little digging is that we have somehow managed to produce a lot of mental health issues over the last decade. My pet, conspiracy?, theory is that the always online culture is perhaps to blame. We have a lot of anger, and depression out there and very little except for medication seems to be helping. There have always been anger and depression in society of course but the rate of increase in extreme outcomes from those is definitely rising. Mass shooting, teen suicide, online or real world mobs are all up everywhere. Something seems anecdotally to have shifted. The pandemic was an external stressor of course but it exacerbated something that seemed to already be building. I have resources and method to address this stuff for myself but I don't have any ideas to address it societally.

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
Nobody can form their own argument or opinion that is longer than a tweet.
- mgkimsal 4y ago
  Even if/when you can get longer than that, the majority of the intended audience probably doesn't have the patience for it.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - asdff 4y ago
    People don't want a comprehensive report, they want a headline. Then they become the most dangerous voter and consumer there is: the master of headlines, blind to all context and significance, swayed entirely by the people writing headlines.
steveBK123 4y ago
I think people under, say, 35? remember a time not being online.. and think of the world as "real world" and "online". Whereas those under-35? takes things online a bit more at face value, rather than what it tends to be - the loudest voices and most extreme ideas being amplified.

droopyEyelids 4y ago

Such shoddy writing to only mention the pandemic without mentioning how: 1 Congress relaxed rules on the Ryan Haight Act to allow online prescription of ADHD meds, 2 Telehealth Apps like Cerebral began to spend 10s of millions of dollars advertising on TikTok and instagram. 3 The apps would write new amphetamine prescriptions after 1/2 hour assessments, and from whistleblower data we know they didn't do any sort of identity verification and would write the same person multiple prescriptions. This has all the markings of another profit driven prescription drug boom, similar to Xanax and oxycontin https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-03-11/cerebral-app-over-prescribed-adhd-meds-ex-employees-say https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-03-11/cerebral-...

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

yamrzou 4y ago

https://archive.ph/hsMk2 https://archive.ph/hsMk2

sidcool 4y ago
Thanks.