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> 25% of US university students on antidepressants. Is it because they're emotionally worse off, or is it because pharma is advertising them more aggressively,

> 25% of US university students on antidepressants. Is it because they're emotionally worse off, or is it because pharma is advertising them more aggressively, kickbacks, etc

reducesuffering 2y ago
There are many studies showing US youth report feeling worse than previously. The CDC: "Youth in the U.S. are experiencing a mental health crisis." https://www.cdc.gov/healthy-youth/mental-health/mental-health-numbers.html https://www.cdc.gov/healthy-youth/mental-health/mental-healt... Increased pharma pushing is an easy scapegoat, but it would have to be making these youth more depressed before they were ever taking antidepressants. Social media and phones have been disconnecting real interactions and pushing people onto fake digital "connections." Then when people are more lonely than ever, we're now pushing them "AI bot connections" to help loneliness, purely because VC's see $ in it, basically giving desperate people soda to help their hunger.
dinkumthinkum 2y ago
I think social media even promotes this hyper therapy and medication seeking behavior. My guess it probably even creates a kind of Overton window sort of thing for physicians, big pharma notwithstanding. It’s very easy for people to get prescriptions for these drugs and a lot of doctors seem to think “patients reports depression so I prescribed SSRI” or whatever is popular.
- harvodex 2y ago
  When I was 20, no one my age had got incredibly wealthy or famous who wasn't an actor or musician. It is like a hyper version of de Tocqueville now. No matter how poor someone is, they still don't feel that far from being rich and famous in America. This creates enormous status anxiety coupled with the reality of student loans and inflation it is a really bad deal for young people's mental health.
- matrix87 2y ago
  yeah I see the same trend, at some point I just kinda decided to mentally slot all of those people into the stupid category, tune them out, and go on living

> 25% of US university students on antidepressants. Is it because they're emotionally worse off, or is it because pharma is advertising them more aggressively, kickbacks, etc

reducesuffering 2y ago

There are many studies showing US youth report feeling worse than previously. The CDC: "Youth in the U.S. are experiencing a mental health crisis." https://www.cdc.gov/healthy-youth/mental-health/mental-health-numbers.html https://www.cdc.gov/healthy-youth/mental-health/mental-healt... Increased pharma pushing is an easy scapegoat, but it would have to be making these youth more depressed before they were ever taking antidepressants. Social media and phones have been disconnecting real interactions and pushing people onto fake digital "connections." Then when people are more lonely than ever, we're now pushing them "AI bot connections" to help loneliness, purely because VC's see $ in it, basically giving desperate people soda to help their hunger.

dinkumthinkum 2y ago

I think social media even promotes this hyper therapy and medication seeking behavior. My guess it probably even creates a kind of Overton window sort of thing for physicians, big pharma notwithstanding. It’s very easy for people to get prescriptions for these drugs and a lot of doctors seem to think “patients reports depression so I prescribed SSRI” or whatever is popular.

harvodex 2y ago
When I was 20, no one my age had got incredibly wealthy or famous who wasn't an actor or musician. It is like a hyper version of de Tocqueville now. No matter how poor someone is, they still don't feel that far from being rich and famous in America. This creates enormous status anxiety coupled with the reality of student loans and inflation it is a really bad deal for young people's mental health.
matrix87 2y ago
yeah I see the same trend, at some point I just kinda decided to mentally slot all of those people into the stupid category, tune them out, and go on living