4 ms·

I'm slightly confused because the chart shows a sharp decrease in suicides between 1994 and 2007 and then a gradual increase. But neither theory (bad social me

I'm slightly confused because the chart shows a sharp decrease in suicides between 1994 and 2007 and then a gradual increase. But neither theory (bad social media or helicopter parents) explains the curve. Did helicopter parenting get better between 1994 and 2007 and then get worse? Why did suicides increase between 1968 and 1994 and then start decreasing? AITA for expecting a theory to explain the observed curve?

readthenotes1 3y ago
That sudden drop in 2000 smells like redefinition so that the data before and after aren't measuring the same thing.
throwbadubadu 3y ago
Helicopter parenting was not (a very widespread?) thing til the age of smartphones (not meaning any causation), which started 2006, realistically for the masses 2010, or was it? Only learned or heard this term 2015-2020ish..
- vasco 3y ago
  You did not hear about it till 10-15 years after it got mainstream then: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Helicopter+parent&year_start=1975&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Helicopter+par...
  - throwbadubadu 3y ago
    Thanks for the reference - indeed no. But it is also totally not my focus/interest, so how I meant it actually there was that when that term reached me, it must have already been much spread and likely something 5-10 years after its creation ;)
jl6 3y ago
There is probably no single factor that totally explains the trend, but rather a multitude of contributing factors that will be extremely difficult to disentangle. Most of the world’s big headline problems are similar - most have no single smoking-gun root cause, but a whole bunch of factors that come together and interact in complex ways. We seek simple narratives, but that’s just not the way the world at large works. Accordingly, I think “social media causes depression” and “social media doesn’t cause depression” could be equally bogus takes.
captainmuon 3y ago
I think you have to look at the parents. Teenagers in 1990 were born around 1975, so their parents were born around 1945. (I'm not sure what the average age was when people had kids back then, but the ballpark should be right.) For 90s and early 2000 teenagers, the parents were born post WW2, and had their formative teen or twenties years in the very liberal late 60s and early 70s. They experienced the shift from black pedagogy and strict morals to anti-authoritarian and liberal norms. They grew up in an opening and progressing society. I could imagine they passed on a certain optimism and openness to their children. Contrast with the later generation, whose parents grew up in the Reagan and Thatcher times (keyword "no future"). I imagine those parents would be more pessimistic and protective on average. I was born in 1984 and certainly my parents had that optimistic outlook ("ones kids are going to have it at least 50% better as their parents" was a widespread idea at that time). And I had a lot of freedom growing up that kids in the 2000s didn't have. Growing up in the somewhat optimistic 90s, I hope that my generation is going to be a "good" parent generation again...

readthenotes1 3y ago

That sudden drop in 2000 smells like redefinition so that the data before and after aren't measuring the same thing.

throwbadubadu 3y ago

Helicopter parenting was not (a very widespread?) thing til the age of smartphones (not meaning any causation), which started 2006, realistically for the masses 2010, or was it? Only learned or heard this term 2015-2020ish..

vasco 3y ago
You did not hear about it till 10-15 years after it got mainstream then: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Helicopter+parent&year_start=1975&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Helicopter+par...
- throwbadubadu 3y ago
  Thanks for the reference - indeed no. But it is also totally not my focus/interest, so how I meant it actually there was that when that term reached me, it must have already been much spread and likely something 5-10 years after its creation ;)

jl6 3y ago

There is probably no single factor that totally explains the trend, but rather a multitude of contributing factors that will be extremely difficult to disentangle. Most of the world’s big headline problems are similar - most have no single smoking-gun root cause, but a whole bunch of factors that come together and interact in complex ways. We seek simple narratives, but that’s just not the way the world at large works. Accordingly, I think “social media causes depression” and “social media doesn’t cause depression” could be equally bogus takes.

captainmuon 3y ago

I think you have to look at the parents. Teenagers in 1990 were born around 1975, so their parents were born around 1945. (I'm not sure what the average age was when people had kids back then, but the ballpark should be right.) For 90s and early 2000 teenagers, the parents were born post WW2, and had their formative teen or twenties years in the very liberal late 60s and early 70s. They experienced the shift from black pedagogy and strict morals to anti-authoritarian and liberal norms. They grew up in an opening and progressing society. I could imagine they passed on a certain optimism and openness to their children. Contrast with the later generation, whose parents grew up in the Reagan and Thatcher times (keyword "no future"). I imagine those parents would be more pessimistic and protective on average. I was born in 1984 and certainly my parents had that optimistic outlook ("ones kids are going to have it at least 50% better as their parents" was a widespread idea at that time). And I had a lot of freedom growing up that kids in the 2000s didn't have. Growing up in the somewhat optimistic 90s, I hope that my generation is going to be a "good" parent generation again...