[HN Gopher] CDC warns of a steep decline in teen mental health
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       CDC warns of a steep decline in teen mental health
        
       Author : walterbell
       Score  : 169 points
       Date   : 2022-04-03 08:11 UTC (14 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.washingtonpost.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.washingtonpost.com)
        
       | WaxedChewbacca wrote:
        
       | Lammy wrote:
       | > "When you make schools less toxic for the most vulnerable
       | students, all students benefit -- and the converse is also true,"
       | Ethier said.
       | 
       | Who is making schools more toxic for the least vulnerable
       | students? I need a hit, baby, give me it.
        
       | eganist wrote:
       | I'm not sure the pandemic is solely or even largely responsible.
       | 
       | Zoomers are the first generation with nearly unrestricted access
       | to social media essentially from birth (access that probably
       | should've been restricted early on, but that's water under the
       | bridge). Couple that early and frequent exposure with artificial
       | echo chambers created by apps to boost engagement, and
       | impressionable minds end up soaked in endlessly-amplified
       | negative perspectives.
       | 
       | The test case for this was 4chan incubating incel/redpill culture
       | and Reddit later amplifying it among late-millennials. Today,
       | EDs, ideation of self harm, etc are all mercilessly reflected
       | back at people on just about every social media platform rather
       | than just the niche ones. The pandemic only made it worse by
       | preventing people from spending time with each other in person,
       | but kids are glued to their phones anyway.
       | 
       | $1 Bet: millennial parents will probably learn from this with
       | their own kids. Or if not, legislators probably will. Late Gen-a
       | and the generation that follows will hopefully see a rebound from
       | these trends with parenting habits that benefit from these
       | learnings.
        
         | ClumsyPilot wrote:
         | Kids have less freedom today than they eve did - my parents
         | roamed the city freely, i only walked to school by myself, kids
         | today hardly leave the house alone
        
           | a9h74j wrote:
           | I can't find a contour plot to reference, but I saw one once
           | to this effect:
           | 
           | Every few decades in the US, the roaming range for kids
           | decreasing by a factor of three or more IIRC -- over
           | generations.
           | 
           | My father as a kid was setting animal traps all over the
           | county, and for him a rifle, technologically speaking, was
           | his PC.
        
         | spookthesunset wrote:
         | > kids are glued to their phones anyway.
         | 
         | In many places this was actively encouraged during the last two
         | years. Virtually every other activity was banished.
         | Playgrounds, schools, extracurricular activities, pools,
         | museums, you name it... closed. In many places you literally
         | couldn't go outside without some kind of government issued
         | hall-pass.
         | 
         | We absolutely, shamefully fucked over kids the last two years.
         | And so many people cheered it on despite kids being the lowest
         | risk group out there.
        
         | version_five wrote:
         | > I'm not sure the pandemic is solely or even largely
         | responsible
         | 
         | I agree that the pandemic is probably not a root cause: I think
         | the global reaction to the pandemic could have a related root
         | cause (social media, outrage / attention culture, the breakdown
         | of normal human discourse, polarization) as the mental health
         | problems. Blaming "the pandemic" fails to acknowledge that
         | covid was as much or more about our collective reaction as it
         | was about the actual virus. It's the "powder keg" thing - the
         | conditions were there, and inevitably something would come
         | along to set it off.
        
           | quickthrowman wrote:
           | > I agree that the pandemic is probably not a root cause: I
           | think the global reaction to the pandemic could have a
           | related root cause
           | 
           | I keep seeing the argument that the pandemic and the response
           | to it are distinctly separate phenomenon. They are not.
           | 
           | The pandemic response is explicitly part and parcel of the
           | pandemic, you don't have a pandemic without a response, and
           | there's no response without a pandemic.
           | 
           | This is not hard to grasp.
        
             | version_five wrote:
             | > This is not hard to grasp
             | 
             | It must be for me, can you rephrase your point please, I
             | can't understand what your comment means
        
           | briHass wrote:
           | I'd add 'collective overreaction', at least from a fear
           | perspective. I know plenty of adults that lost their rational
           | minds during the pandemic: believing all the media-driven
           | fear porn that never once honestly explained the true risk to
           | the < 70 year-old crowd. Older children/teens watched those
           | same news programs and also picked up on their parents' fear,
           | and they had even less wisdom and ability to think clearly
           | than the parents.
        
         | throw93232 wrote:
         | Most kids I know, think social media are lame. They use it
         | complement for their hobbies and activities. It was pandemic
         | that glued them to their phones, not the other way around.
         | 
         | But _must protect meh narrative_!!
        
           | easrng wrote:
           | Here, have an anecdote: I always spent a lot of my time
           | online (I got Discord at 12 or 13 I think, I never got
           | Twitter or any FB/Meta apps, but now I'm on the fediverse
           | which is nice) and the pandemic didn't really change much
           | other than me not having to leave the house to go to school.
        
           | bee_rider wrote:
           | The undergrads I work with don't seem to ever mention
           | Facebook, but Discord seems pretty popular. Social media is
           | like everything else: There's the "bad" product which has
           | been ruined by old people and the "good" product that the hip
           | young crowd likes. This treadmill will continue as people
           | join networks, settle in to their preferences, and then age.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | twoxproblematic wrote:
        
         | akira2501 wrote:
         | I'm always entertained by the idea that 4chan did something to
         | people as opposed to it revealing what was always there. We're
         | social animals, we're more defined by our environment than we'd
         | like to believe; but similarly, we have the capability to
         | generate and manipulate that environment ourselves.
         | 
         | I would suggest that the basic human feedback loop just got
         | more tightly coupled and that mass personal communication was
         | always going to lead to this.
        
           | MisterBastahrd wrote:
           | It gave them a positive feedback loop and gave them a safe
           | space to become more extreme and weaponize their own
           | stupidity.
           | 
           | You can easily see this to a lesser extend by going to any
           | sports team subreddit and then going to the subreddit of the
           | league that team plays in. The voices will be much more
           | uniform and arguments more minor in the team subreddit for
           | the most part... and views that are freely expressed and
           | thought to be factual in the team subreddit may not be at all
           | popular in the league subreddit.
        
         | csallen wrote:
         | Kids have been exposed to multiple consecutive years of social
         | isolation due to the pandemic. They haven't been going to
         | school or seeing their peers in person. That's kind of the
         | obvious hypothesis. To just completely write that off, you
         | _really_ have to have axe to grind against social media.
         | 
         | As you said, "kids are glued to their phones anyway." That was
         | already true before the pandemic. Which, again, suggests to me
         | that the extreme factor here is the isolation, not the phones.
         | 
         | Not that social media is good or healthy. But the way it's
         | scapegoated reminds me of the way television and video games
         | were demonized when I was a child growing up in the 90s. It was
         | over the top.
        
           | vkou wrote:
           | > They haven't been going to school or seeing their peers in
           | person.
           | 
           | I'm not sure there's a single family in the continental
           | United States that has spent the entirety of the past two
           | years keeping their children locked up in their basement.
           | 
           | Even when school is closed, nobody has been stopping children
           | from seeing their peers in person outside of school.
           | 
           | And if our society can't figure out a way to make that a
           | priority, then _that_ may be the problem with it, not the
           | school closures.
        
             | formerkrogeremp wrote:
             | Anecdotally, yes, some children do get abused and
             | neglected. Some are still locked up for years.
        
             | Aerroon wrote:
             | > _Even when school is closed, nobody has been stopping
             | children from seeing their peers in person outside of
             | school._
             | 
             | Why do people always treat friction as something that is
             | irrelevant?
             | 
             | Shutdowns and kids being unable to hang out when they
             | choose to creates a situation where they just lose touch
             | with one another. You can't just deliberately flip a switch
             | to turn it all back on. Social connections don't work like
             | that. Social connections involve a whole series of
             | spontaneous events. If those events don't happen, then
             | social connections fall away. Adults have a hard time
             | making friends, because they have a lot fewer opportunities
             | for those spontaneous events that create friendships.
             | 
             | Rolling the dice less often will give you fewer successes.
             | Some amount of those successes is required for upkeep of a
             | friendship.
        
               | throwaway0a5e wrote:
        
               | ericd wrote:
               | Well that's an extreme overreaction to human nature.
        
             | jimmydorry wrote:
             | You may have missed the fact that many countries /
             | localities in fact did do lockdowns on and off for the last
             | two years that did prevent childrend from seeing their
             | peers in person outside of school. Couple that with the
             | non-stop fearmongering by the media, and it's not an
             | unreasonable assumption to make that many kids were
             | probably kept at home and away from their peers, even
             | between lockdowns.
        
               | spookthesunset wrote:
               | I dunno why this is downvoted. I know several people who
               | intentionally isolated their kids for at least a year.
               | These kids couldn't even go outside...
               | 
               | Instead of telling people to remain calm, these fucking
               | "experts" intentionally scared the living daylights out
               | of people. And for many people in my particularly liberal
               | region, they took it all to heart and went well above and
               | beyond what these "experts" were demanding.
        
               | vkou wrote:
               | In the US, those on and off lockdowns[1] lasted for about
               | a month per locale, and weren't even enforced during that
               | time.
               | 
               | What about the other 23 months?
               | 
               | [1] 'Lockdown' is a completely inappropriate word to
               | describe a world where the greatest practical impediment
               | to your freedom is that you can't go to the theatre, the
               | bar, or to Hawai'i. Or host a wedding.
        
               | ryandrake wrote:
               | Everything is exaggerated nowadays. "Unenforced
               | suggestions to stay at home" = lockdown. "A minor
               | inconvenience" = torture. "Sensible public health policy"
               | = tyranny.
               | 
               | No US state implemented anything close to what a
               | reasonable, sane person could describe as lockdown.
               | Nobody was locked into their homes. Stay at home was
               | routinely broken with zero consequences. Business
               | closures went unenforced outside of a handful of urban
               | areas. Calling it "lockdown" is clown world logic.
        
           | germinalphrase wrote:
           | I'm a high school English teacher. What you're saying seems
           | mostly right - but, anecdotally of course, the trend has been
           | made more severe. Their ability to engage with in-person
           | socialization is very obviously impaired, and their pre-
           | existing tendency to snack on social media is compulsive for
           | a whole bunch of them.
           | 
           | At a much higher level than I've ever seen, kids will choose
           | swiping over talking with their friends _who are sitting
           | right next to them_.
           | 
           | It's getting better, but - man - it was _bad_ when we first
           | returned from distance learning.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | ccbccccbbcccbb wrote:
       | When CDC warns about society as a whole being subjected to total
       | and deliberate menticide and discloses all means towards that
       | end, it is only then that there will finally arrive some
       | substance to discuss.
       | 
       | Otherwise it sounds like researching the swaying of trees without
       | ever mentioning the wind.
        
       | barry-cotter wrote:
       | > Regardless of any internet-level understanding or resentment,
       | the millennial/zoomer understanding of mental health is
       | completely destroying people's lives.
       | 
       | > I work and have worked in mental health for my entire adult
       | life (late 20s now). I have my own mental health diagnoses. I was
       | diagnosed with severe OCD when I was 11. Since then I've gone
       | through periods of generalized anxiety, agoraphobia, panic
       | disorder, you name it. It has destroyed my life once every three
       | or four years without fail. Losing jobs, friendships, my grades
       | in college, everything. Just utter ineptitude and catatonic
       | inability to take care of myself. I have been blessed with the
       | most supportive family anyone could ask for. I do not fail to see
       | the differences between myself and those who I now serve. But
       | there is an intense illness that is permeating through our
       | younger generations that is destroying the possibility of
       | recovery for these people suffering through legitimate mental
       | health issues.
       | 
       | > I have met and helped and treated numerous individuals now who
       | are my peers in age - anything from 18-early 30s. And so many
       | have internalized a generational "understanding" of mental
       | illness that is toxic and worthless beyond condemnation. Our
       | youngest generations' understanding of mental health enables,
       | encourages, and at worst glorifies mental illness. I can not
       | understate the number of times I've met a young woman who has
       | made being mentally ill, and polysexual, and queer, and autistic,
       | et cetera, their identity.
       | 
       | https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/a-broken-model-of-broke...
        
         | gilrain wrote:
         | Whoa, I was with that until the huge hit of bigotry at the end.
         | Being queer or polysex is not at all a mental illness.
        
           | replygirl wrote:
        
             | gilrain wrote:
             | > Queer is an identity for diletantes who want to be
             | treated like they're gay without being gay
             | 
             | I'll thank you not to insult my partner to my face. The
             | rules of this forum prevent me from saying what I think of
             | bigots like you.
        
               | replygirl wrote:
               | This is a really personal opinion that comes based on a
               | decade of life as gay and trans so if emotivism is your
               | moral framework you really shouldn't try to tell me
               | anything on this
               | 
               | Best to just make statements instead of validating mine
               | against your power ranking
        
               | throwanem wrote:
        
               | replygirl wrote:
        
               | throwanem wrote:
               | You're adorable, is what you are. Try not to embarrass
               | yourself too much before you grow out of it - no one else
               | will remember, but maybe you can save yourself a little
               | cringe five years or so from now.
        
               | replygirl wrote:
               | my woke era was the embarrassing one
        
           | p10_user wrote:
           | Not sure what OPs original meaning was, but I think a
           | legitimate statement can be made stating that being
           | queer/polysex (or any other non "standard" sexual identity)
           | comes with a higher probability for mental illness due to
           | discrimination.
        
             | coolso wrote:
             | Or, at least, perceived discrimination via an ever present
             | victim mentality.
        
               | JaimeThompson wrote:
               | A major political part in the US at the time I write this
               | has had in their national platform the removal of rights
               | from such people including, but not limited to, the
               | removal of their ability to marry who they want to so it
               | is a bit more than "perceived discrimination".
        
               | coolso wrote:
               | Yes but gay marriage has been legal for a while, and so
               | now we see the invention of new things to be offended
               | about, like they/them pronouns, and pretending that we
               | don't actually know the definition of a man or a woman or
               | that all that makes a man or a woman is which one they'd
               | like to "present" as that day.
               | 
               | I do recall one of the arguments against gay marriage
               | being that once gay marriage was allowed, they'd move to
               | something else. "They literally just want to get married"
               | was the common retort to that argument, but lo and
               | behold, it is becoming clearer day by day that the "give
               | them an inch" slippery slope argument may have applied
               | here. (I support gay marriage, FWIW.)
               | 
               | Regardless, everyone has been discriminated against at
               | some point in their lives, but evidently, certain groups
               | handle it differently than others.
        
               | JaimeThompson wrote:
               | Said political party is fighting to get that reversed and
               | has begun to make noise that states should be able to ban
               | birth control because they think that Griswold v.
               | Connecticut was wrongly decided [1]
               | 
               | [1] https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/columnists/nancy-
               | kaffer/...
        
         | germinalphrase wrote:
         | "I can not understate the number of times I've met a young
         | woman who has made being mentally ill, and polysexual, and
         | queer, and autistic, et cetera, their identity."
         | 
         | One of these is not like the others.
        
         | alexb_ wrote:
         | Can we stop pretending like being fashionably ill is a new
         | problem plaguing our youth? This is a phenomenon that has
         | happened before in history - Tuberculosis was seen as crazy
         | fashionable during the romantic period, and could be part of
         | the reason that things like pale skin, thin bodies, and
         | fragility are STILL seen as fashionable to this day[1]. Maybe
         | we're seeing something similar happen here?
         | 
         | [1] https://blog.sciencemuseum.org.uk/tuberculosis-a-
         | fashionable...
        
       | jt2190 wrote:
       | The data for the CDC Adolescent Behaviors and Experiences Survey
       | (ABES) are here:
       | 
       | https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/abes/tables/index.htm
       | 
       | The survey was conducted in the first half of 2021
        
       | dadjoker wrote:
       | I'm not sure what you expect when you instill constant fear of
       | simply getting sick, take away all of their social structure, and
       | isolate them in front of a screen, all for a virus that doesn't
       | affect kids barely at all. Per the CDC there is a 0.003% chance
       | of someone under age 20 dying from COVID; they have greater risk
       | driving to school.
       | 
       | It's no wonder their mental health is so poor, even if the trend
       | was starting before the pandemic.
        
         | aedocw wrote:
         | The point was to limit the spread of the virus throughout the
         | entire population, and an attempt to prevent hospitals from
         | being overwhelmed by the infected.
        
           | vinyl7 wrote:
           | Whatever helps you rationalize that we basically destroyed
           | the younger generation in hopes of saving the old/dying
           | generation
        
           | spookthesunset wrote:
           | Too bad you'll never really know if any of it worked. Kinda
           | would have been nice to stick with proven mitigations we had
           | planned out for decades instead of chuck it all out of the
           | window in search of a miracle cure. If you read pre-covid
           | pandemic planning, virtually everything they suggestion you
           | _dont do_ society decided to do. Everything they suggested
           | you should do, we ignored.
        
             | Apocryphon wrote:
             | Sweden's low-restrictions approach exists as an alternative
             | case study:
             | 
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Sweden
        
         | spookthesunset wrote:
         | It disgusts me to see this downvoted. There isn't anything
         | false about what you said. What we have done to children the
         | last two years is absolutely disgusting. The fact so many
         | people seem to cheer it on makes it even worse--especially how
         | so many of the "pro-education" crowd cheers it on too.
         | 
         | We _fucked_ kids the last two years and it requires some
         | serious mental gymnastics to rationalize it away.
        
           | standardUser wrote:
           | "all for a virus that doesn't affect kids barely at all"
           | 
           | It's downvoted because the above line is either a willful
           | misrepresentation in service of a political gripe or, less
           | likely, a genuine ignorance that should not be promoted.
        
             | spookthesunset wrote:
             | In what way are kids at risk? We have two years of data to
             | show otherwise.
        
       | kurofune wrote:
       | Blaming it all on the pandemic is an absolutely hilarious
       | misdiagnosis. Everything seems to be on the brink of collapse all
       | the time, housing prices are absolutely bonkers in most cities
       | and wages are, in the best scenario imaginable, same they were 20
       | years ago for your average professional who lives paycheck to
       | paycheck. Politicians have no vision, they are just parasitic
       | entities that benefit electorally from violent asinine
       | confrontation between voters on pointless cultural issues that
       | never find any satisfactory or permanent resolution. Mass media
       | are fully immersed in a two decades long psychic war against the
       | general public that only seems to be accelerating.
       | 
       | There are too many structural weakness in our society to point
       | out without having to write a full essay, but this mental health
       | decline is the direct result of our failing political and
       | economic systems and our apparent impossibility to challenge them
       | in any productive way.
        
         | onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
         | > Everything seems to be on the brink of collapse all the time,
         | housing prices are absolutely bonkers in most cities and wages
         | are, in the best scenario imaginable, same they were 20 years
         | ago for your average professional who lives paycheck to
         | paycheck.
         | 
         | Personal income per Capita went from ~$30k to ~$63k in the last
         | 20 years [1]. REAL weekly earnings are at an all time high [2].
         | 
         | Debt service reached an all-time low during the pandemic [3].
         | Even for new buyers with house prices at their peak, with
         | interest rates where they WERE, mortgage payments were
         | historically quite low.
         | 
         | Now that interest rates have gone up, payments are ~20% higher.
         | But unsurprisingly, the insatiable demand has also dried up.
         | 
         | [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A792RC0A052NBEA
         | 
         | [2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
         | 
         | [3] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TDSP
         | 
         | I honestly feel sorry for all the people like you who can't see
         | how manipulated prices are and realize that it's a good deal.
         | The market shouldn't be this manipulated (by our government)
         | and confusing. It's screwing over so many people who think
         | common sense still applies.
        
           | yobbo wrote:
           | You yourself actually linked to the relevant plot "Employed
           | full time: Median usual weekly real earnings". If you want to
           | make credible arguments, look for _median_ income.
           | 
           | Q3 2001: $338, Q3 2021: $367, so that's an 8% increase,
           | claimed to be CPI adjusted.
           | 
           | CPI measures price changes for things such as flip flops,
           | snickers bars, and TVs - things you find in Walmarts. What
           | people complain about is the price of housing.
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
             | The price of housing is irrelevant. It's a debt market. The
             | debt service of housing (and property tax and insurance) is
             | what matters.
        
           | Aeolun wrote:
           | I really don't understand what you are trying to say.
           | 
           | Are you arguing the buying a home is within reach of the
           | average man anywhere outside of the middle of nowhere?
        
             | onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
             | It WAS within reach everywhere beside the most desirable
             | parts of the most desirable cities.
             | 
             | You only need to put 3.5% down. When interest rates were at
             | 2.75% and PMI is only .5% for 3 years - the median HH could
             | EASILY afford the median house.
             | 
             | At 2.75% - almost 40% of your mortgage payment is principal
             | - even in the first year.
             | 
             | This made the true cost of your housing absurdly cheaper
             | than rent.
        
               | sjg007 wrote:
               | Uh no, not in the Bay Area... or any place that requires
               | a jumbo loan.
        
               | Der_Einzige wrote:
               | Owning a house is so much better than renting in Portland
               | and you need jumbo loans here.
               | 
               | It's only places like the bay and other ultra hcol
               | locations where renting is cheaper. I specifically bought
               | my house to escape renting in the bay area when my job
               | went remote. I do not want to rent anywhere near
               | Portland. More than Half the rent price for a third of
               | the home prices...
        
               | sjg007 wrote:
               | Right but you can't do that with 3.5% down.
        
           | disambiguation wrote:
           | > Personal income per Capita went from ~$30k to ~$63k in the
           | last 20 years
           | 
           | At an inflation rate of 3%, the value of money decreases by
           | half every 25 years.
        
         | notacoward wrote:
         | It depends on what you count as part of the pandemic. At its
         | core there's just the disease itself and the risk of catching
         | it. Then there's the chance of knowing someone who has been
         | severely ill from it, and the precautions taken to mitigate
         | that risk. A few kids were fine with remote learning; for many
         | more it _absolutely sucked_. Then there 's the fact that those
         | precautions have precluded many other activities, leaving even
         | more time to read all the doom and gloom online. For high-
         | school seniors (like my daughter) there's the college-admission
         | situation which is an absolute mess right now due to two years
         | of pandemic-related issues. Stressed out parents, cabin fever,
         | contentious battles with friends and neighbors over vaccines
         | and masks ... the list goes on and on.
         | 
         | If you interpret "the pandemic" as just that core, maybe it's a
         | misdiagnosis. If you include all of the secondary and tertiary
         | effects, the case is much stronger.
        
         | missedthecue wrote:
         | Why would the price of a single family home make a 13 year old
         | depressed? They've easily got a decade and a half until they
         | need to worry about that.
        
           | disambiguation wrote:
           | because it makes the future seem hopeless
           | 
           | "if the adults can't figure it out, what chance do i have?"
        
           | manuelabeledo wrote:
           | Because the pressure it puts on their parents and the
           | consequences of it? I think this one is pretty obvious.
        
             | kurofune wrote:
             | Off-topic, but love to see a galician surname. Greetings
             | from an asturian neighbour.
        
               | manuelabeledo wrote:
               | We are everywhere, brother :)
        
           | Valgrim wrote:
           | Because even if it's their parents that pay for the mortgage,
           | they are still affected by the consequences of high housing
           | prices (longer travel times, less disposable income, lack of
           | space, bad neighborhood, lack of social mobility, etc...)
        
           | mescaline wrote:
           | 13 year olds don't worry about houses, they worry about
           | things shared online by their peers. That's on Silicon
           | Valley, folks. Denial of our own hand in this is real.
        
           | kurofune wrote:
           | Are you sure you can't imagine why the terrible economic
           | situation a family is living in could impact the mental
           | health of a 13yo? We love problem solvers in this site.
        
             | missedthecue wrote:
             | The economy is not in terrible shape though. And even in
             | horrible economies like Venezuela, we don't see a teenage
             | depression trend that follows GDP chart. I just don't think
             | there is a meaningful correlation.
             | 
             | As a matter of fact, I would hazard a guess that there is
             | _more_ teenage depression in America 's wealthiest suburb
             | (Loudoun County, VA) than in inner-city Detroit.
        
               | infiniteL0Op wrote:
        
               | cudgy wrote:
               | True. The economy is great ... if your wealthy and
               | own/trade bubbling assets. The other 80-90% of people are
               | not fairing better given the scenario described so aptly
               | by an above post. Flat real wages (adjusted for
               | inflation) and soaring fundamental expenses like housing,
               | medical care, education, and now everything else
               | including food and transportation do not bode well for
               | most people. Basic math.
        
       | lumb63 wrote:
       | It astonishes me to see people defending the idea that the
       | pandemic is not a notable component of this. I agree that social
       | media, internet porn, competitive school environment, economic
       | conditions, etc., are all negative influences on teenage mental
       | health. However, to propose that forcing (or, at the least, very
       | strongly encouraging) an entire populace into self-isolation
       | would not have negative impacts for a group in one of the most
       | social and formative times of life, is absurd.
       | 
       | Imagine you spent half the time you were in high school, alone. I
       | cannot imagine any rational person is capable of believing this
       | to not be a major factor to their mental health.
       | 
       | Anecdotally, I am a reasonably strong introvert, and I switched
       | teams at my job during the pandemic after nine months of work
       | from home because it did not feel healthy to my mental state to
       | not have interacted with anyone in so long. I felt that my social
       | abilities had atrophied, and that I had lost sight of a lot of
       | the important things in life that derive from social interaction.
       | I can only imagine that the impact is far greater to someone who
       | can't choose to change their life to obtain the social
       | interaction they are missing, and who (I am generalizing a bit
       | here) probably requires mental/emotional guidance and support
       | from their peers, elders, etc.
        
         | tablespoon wrote:
         | > It astonishes me to see people defending the idea that the
         | pandemic is not a notable component of this. I agree that
         | social media, internet porn, competitive school environment,
         | economic conditions, etc., are all negative influences on
         | teenage mental health. However, to propose that forcing (or, at
         | the least, very strongly encouraging) an entire populace into
         | self-isolation would not have negative impacts for a group in
         | one of the most social and formative times of life, is absurd.
         | 
         | It shouldn't be so astonishing. People who wanted to take a
         | laissez faire approach to COVID (especially pre-vaccine) would
         | often _incoherently_ throw literally every idea they could
         | think of against all the mitigation measures, including various
         | mental health arguments. Of course, that approach didn 't
         | change a thing except 1) lead to more polarization, 2) harden
         | people against those arguments forever.
         | 
         | COVID was a serious problem, and it's rare that serious
         | problems can be addressed without cost.
        
         | mindslight wrote:
         | Does it make sense to specifically focus on Covid response
         | here? By which I mean, is this not really just the same problem
         | of an overbearing system continuing to turn the screws, and now
         | the system input contains the additional stressor of Covid?
         | Some of the response is seemingly necessary, and ignoring the
         | issue is certainly not the answer. But administrators craft
         | obtuse top-down policies, announce "Mission Accomplished", and
         | don't particularly examine their effectiveness from the
         | perspective of those on the receiving end of their blunt tools.
         | 
         | It's the same exact dynamic as how the media scares everyone
         | with sensationalized school shootings, and then schools respond
         | by making kids go through metal detectors and draconian zero
         | tolerance policies and the like (also horrible for kids' mental
         | health). We've built this no-win bureaucracy where the primary
         | dynamic is avoiding any blame. Because if the blame does come,
         | it will itself be merciless and unempathetic, despite how
         | reasonable or well-intentioned an administrator's motive was.
        
         | henrikschroder wrote:
         | Not just the isolation, there are so many crazy covidian rules
         | that some schools have pushed on the kids to uphold the safety
         | theatre.
         | 
         | In California, it was absolutely forbidden for anyone to be
         | indoors without a mask for more than 15 minutes, but you still
         | have to serve school lunch to kids.
         | 
         | Some schools solved this by moving lunch outside. No matter the
         | temperature.
         | 
         | Some schools solved this by giving the kids a 14 minute lunch
         | break.
         | 
         | No talking, no socializing, no enjoying the meal together in
         | peace. This is how you give kids eating disorders.
        
         | legulere wrote:
         | It also astonishes me that people put all blame of the
         | pandemic's effects on the counter-measures and none on the
         | pandemic itself. Having seen the situation in Wuhan or Bergamo,
         | fearing about loved ones also puts a lot of stress on kids.
        
           | onos wrote:
           | I agree with you: fundamentally a bad thing happened.
           | Mitigating the harm may have been possible to some degree but
           | perhaps a more significant degree of freedom was simply
           | choosing which form the negative consequences would take:
           | more deaths or more isolation / economic problems. Since they
           | are in different units, I'd say it's subjective how to decide
           | what's optimal there.
        
         | ranger_danger wrote:
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30895642
        
         | PathOfEclipse wrote:
         | People may rationalize these things because the alternative is
         | to admit that one may have been wrong and/or caused harm to
         | others in the process. People would rather downplay the harms
         | caused by the pandemic to avoid guilt.
        
           | giraffe_lady wrote:
           | Acknowledging the damage done by isolation doesn't mean you
           | have to believe it was the wrong choice. In my country _a
           | million people_ have died of covid even with the isolations.
           | 
           | Was it "worth it"? I don't fucking know and I don't believe
           | anyone else does either. Would it have been better to just
           | let it rip and hope for the best? How many more would have
           | died that way, and would our mental health be better for it?
           | If it was, could we even live with that? If there was a
           | button that would cure my depression and kill a stranger, I
           | wouldn't push it.
           | 
           | EDIT: ok yeah I get it consensus is we should have pushed the
           | button you can stop telling me now.
        
             | laurent92 wrote:
             | Would they have died anyway, or did they die _with_ Covid?
             | It's the repeated question, together with "Didn't the flu
             | cause as many deaths", and even if it was actual death,
             | it's a transfer of years of life from the young to the
             | elderly.
        
               | lumost wrote:
               | Curiously the elderly seem to feel the most robbed. In my
               | family, the young locked down while the elderly went
               | about as normal.
               | 
               | Discussing this today, the predominant feeling amongst
               | the over 70 cohort was that they had at best a few more
               | years of health with everyone and didn't want to spend
               | that in lockdown.
        
             | incrudible wrote:
             | In the beginning, it was widely accepted that the virus
             | would spread and ultimately infect most people. Yet, two
             | weeks to flatten the curve somehow turned into two years of
             | flailing about aimlessly with ineffective measures.
        
               | tablespoon wrote:
               | > Yet, two weeks to flatten the curve somehow turned into
               | two years of flailing about aimlessly with ineffective
               | measures.
               | 
               | 1) Whenever someone mentions "flatten the curve" in that
               | way, the implication always seems to be the CDC et. al
               | should have had this _novel_ disease figured out from day
               | one, but that 's an unreasonable expectation.
               | 
               | 2) A big reason those measures were as not as effective
               | as they could have been was that people were actively
               | undermining them pretty much from day one.
        
               | tylersmith wrote:
               | They didn't need to have it figured it out, just
               | recognized that they didn't know what they're doing, were
               | unable of being any help, and stayed quiet instead of
               | blindly making things up.
        
               | spookthesunset wrote:
               | > people were actively undermining them pretty much from
               | day one.
               | 
               | As they should. I didn't sign up for two years of this
               | nonsense. We didn't know any of it would work but we knew
               | it could cause serious harm to society yet we choose to
               | it anyway. I'm not some lab-rat who is forced into
               | participating in an uncontrolled experiment performed by
               | a few cherry picked "experts" and their political
               | backers.
               | 
               | Most people are absolutely not at risk of serious covid
               | issues. We knew this even in the first month or two of
               | this adventure but it was taboo to discuss. You'd
               | actively be shamed, mocked and humiliated if you ever
               | discussed actual public data showing covid isn't the
               | monster the media and self-appointed "experts" made it
               | out to be.
               | 
               | It scares the crap out of me how many people willingly
               | played along for two years. Do people not question
               | anything?
        
               | tablespoon wrote:
               | >> people were actively undermining them pretty much from
               | day one.
               | 
               | > As they should.
               | 
               | And we can thank _those people_ for giving us one of the
               | worse outcomes.
               | 
               | > I didn't sign up for two years of this nonsense.
               | 
               | Hate to break it to you, but that's just not how the
               | world works. You don't get to chose if you participate or
               | not.
        
               | spookthesunset wrote:
               | > And we can thank those people for giving us one of the
               | worse outcomes.
               | 
               | It takes a lot of hubris to suggest these mitigations did
               | a damn thing. And it takes a lot of mental gymnastics and
               | rationalization to completely ignore their very
               | significant costs to society. We fucked kids, fucked
               | small business owners, fucked hospitals, fucked the poor
               | and working class, enriched the wealthy and old while
               | stealing from the poor and young.
               | 
               | Life is too short to obey the orders of a handful of
               | unelected, cherry-picked "experts". None of them could
               | ever say the crap they had us do would work. We still
               | can't say any of it worked in a meaningful way.
               | 
               | People flushed two years of their short fucking lives
               | down the toilet to participate in an uncontrolled
               | experiment... naw... I'll opt out, thanks.
        
               | giraffe_lady wrote:
               | No they are right, you can't opt out. You can only act.
               | And others are free to label your actions selfish, cruel,
               | or evil as they judge them.
        
               | dahfizz wrote:
               | > Whenever someone mentions "flatten the curve" in that
               | way, the implication always seems to be the CDC et. al
               | should have had this novel disease figured out from day
               | one, but that's an unreasonable expectation.
               | 
               | Then they shouldn't act like they have all the answers if
               | they have no idea what is going on. This is exactly what
               | all the "conspiracy theorists" expected, and it's exactly
               | how it played out.
               | 
               | The CDC has seriously destroyed public faith in the
               | government generally by pushing "two weeks to flatten the
               | curve" and "100% effective vaccines" when, in reality,
               | they did not have a handle on the situation.
        
               | detaro wrote:
               | Health authorities pretty much everywhere have been quite
               | clear about data and conclusions constantly evolving, but
               | people just don't read or process that far. Or only read
               | the "CDC recommends XYZ" headline and then complain that
               | nobody told them that this isn't 100% valid-forever
               | fundamental laws. It's been staggering to see how many
               | people will claim "but they never said this might change"
               | while you can just go back and look at what actually was
               | written at the time and see that it was of course said
               | that things can and will be adjusted as the situation
               | changes.
        
               | incrudible wrote:
               | I am not implying that. The expectation was that there
               | would be a pandemic and that, unfortunately, a lot of
               | people would die. The idea was to avoid preventable
               | deaths stemming from an overwhelmed healthcare system. It
               | then somehow turned into full blown moral panic,
               | attempting to minimize deaths from _infections_ at almost
               | any cost - something that we never did, and still do not
               | do, with any other disease.
        
               | giraffe_lady wrote:
               | > attempting to minimize deaths from infections at almost
               | any cost - something that we never did, and still do not
               | do, with any other disease.
               | 
               | So first off no, not "at almost any cost." The largest,
               | most effective mitigations were never on the table: wind
               | down the entire global economy into "safe mode" and focus
               | only on life-making activities; send all workers home
               | except the _truly_ necessary. Instead we sent home office
               | workers while labeling as essential the food, delivery,
               | and retail workers we forced to continue to serve them.
               | 
               | Second, "we never did, and still do not do, with any
               | other disease" well we fucking should. Every single
               | preventable death is a tragedy of cosmic magnitude, and
               | much disruption is justified in avoiding even one.
        
               | erdos4d wrote:
               | > people were actively undermining them pretty much from
               | day one.
               | 
               | This is what actually fucked the US and led to the
               | million deaths there. I live in Ecuador and we had a bad
               | go in the first few months of the pandemic, with near
               | total lockdown and many deaths. Afterwards though, we
               | went very hard with masks and reasonable restrictions on
               | numbers of people in buildings at once and the
               | cases/deaths have been very steady and controlled since
               | then. Yes, masks really do work, if everyone actually
               | wears them, our numbers have proven this. The biggest
               | restriction has been that schools have shut or gone
               | remote during the entire pandemic and only recently have
               | in-person classes started back up. The US seems to have
               | had it much much worse and it seems to be entirely self
               | inflicted. I personally don't understand why the US
               | didn't just give up after a few months once it was
               | obvious that people wouldn't really do what it takes for
               | success. It looks like the US has stayed on a path that
               | everyone hates, but keeps getting no benefit from.
        
           | spookthesunset wrote:
           | > People would rather downplay the harms caused by the
           | pandemic to avoid guilt.
           | 
           | The pandemic had nothing to do with keeping kids out of
           | school for more than a year. That was all humans doing. The
           | virus didn't wake up some morning and tell us to shut down
           | down schools.
           | 
           | Lockdowns and government caused virtually all of the lasting
           | side-effects from the last two years.
           | 
           | It is my strong opinion that history will not look kindly to
           | almost every single thing humanity did the last two years.
           | They were humans at their absolute worst... Making knee jerk
           | decisions based on fear and panic never end up well...
        
             | Gigachad wrote:
             | My state in Australia had a lockdown where for a while it
             | was not permitted to go outside for fitness by yourself. I
             | can't imagine the physical and mental health damage this
             | caused.
        
           | onphonenow wrote:
           | What a load of crock. My elderly father, terminal illness,
           | was hit by the lockdown days before coming to visit us. He
           | DOES NOT CARE about covid. He is dying anyways.
           | 
           | Then they wouldn't let our young son go play with friends or
           | play on beach. This is lifetime impact stuff at 2-3.
           | 
           | When I wore an N95 mask I was told over and over it didn't
           | help. Hello, it's an airborne disease, why wouldn't my mask
           | help?
           | 
           | So we can't wear an N95, we CAN go to crowded grocery stores,
           | we CAN'T go outside to the beach (huge volume of onshore
           | fresh air and sunshine) and school is remote only (for a 2
           | year old this is TERRIBLE).
           | 
           | Worst of all, despite the talk of being "science driven" they
           | have not been releasing age banded fatality rates by variant
           | and a timely basis so folks can make informed decisions.
           | 
           | That makes me wonder, what IS the fatality rate for 5 year
           | olds. Seriously give me a table. Is it lower than just random
           | accidents per 100?
        
           | rjh29 wrote:
           | I've used that argument and the counter is: depression due to
           | lockdown can heal once lockdown is over. People dying because
           | hospitals filled up and cases climbed is permanent.
        
             | henrikschroder wrote:
             | Suicidal ideation among kids in the US is up 100%, suicide
             | attempts are up 50%, actual suicides are up 20%.
             | 
             | Dead kids are also pretty &$?#&%#!" permanent.
             | 
             | And this is the thing that's been missing for the past two
             | years: A sensible cost/benefit discussion. Hell, we haven't
             | even acknowledged that every single pandemic rule and
             | restriction and measure has a cost in human life. Instead,
             | we've been getting shitty platitudes about how "kids are
             | resilient", or "it's just two weeks", or "your surgery is
             | non-essential and therefore postponed".
        
               | tablespoon wrote:
               | >> [Column A] People dying because hospitals filled up
               | and cases climbed is permanent.
               | 
               | > [Column B] Dead kids are also pretty &$?#&%#!"
               | permanent.
               | 
               | > And this is the thing that's been missing for the past
               | two years: A sensible cost/benefit discussion.
               | 
               | So, which is higher: Column A or Column B? I haven't
               | checked the numbers, but I'd be astounded if there wasn't
               | at least and order of magnitude more COVID deaths during
               | this pandemic than _total_ number of teen suicides (i.e.
               | all of them, not just the increase due to the pandemic).
        
             | incrudible wrote:
             | These children will never fully recover their formative
             | years. Also, what impact, if any, did the treatment of
             | young people have on the ultimate death toll from this
             | virus? We will never know, but I am afraid if we could, we
             | would not like the answer.
        
               | ravel-bar-foo wrote:
               | Closig schools has been the core of the US pandemic
               | influenza control strategy since the second Bush
               | administration. There were detailed simulations showing
               | that shutting schools is the only single intervention
               | that can significantly affect R: schools are the best
               | place for spreading influenza due to the very small
               | spacing between seats in classrooms, the number of
               | students who pack into schoolbusses daily, etc. (However,
               | the studies were done before masking everyone was a
               | possibility.)
        
         | sillysaurusx wrote:
         | _Imagine you spent half the time you were in high school,
         | alone._
         | 
         | I don't speak for anyone but myself, and I am an extreme
         | outlier. But I would have been delighted. Alone, I could spend
         | my time how I want, learn what I want, and associate with who I
         | wish. There is also a much larger pool of love interests online
         | than offline, especially in small town Missouri.
         | 
         | People just feel differently.
        
         | sva_ wrote:
         | There was a discussion on here, about how the Covid pandemic
         | may have been one of the, or even _the_ biggest transfers of
         | wealth from  "the poor" to "the rich" in the history of our
         | civilization. Somebody remarked, that it has also been the
         | biggest transfer of lifetime from the young to the old, as the
         | lockdowns were mostly to protect the old. The measures taken
         | against the pandemic undoubtedly had a huge impact on young
         | people's mental health, but the effects of it will only really
         | unfold in the coming years, and are probably not measurable.
         | People who deny this must be willfully ignorant.
        
           | radicalbyte wrote:
           | If we didn't do the lockdowns then we would have seen a huge
           | increase in mortality over all age groups as hospitals where
           | overwhelmed.
           | 
           | Also, Long Covid is very much a thing.
           | 
           | I get it though: teenagers are growing up during a once in a
           | century pandemic in the middle of an existential climate
           | crisis which the old leaders (all 70+ in the US!) are not
           | addressing.
        
             | spookthesunset wrote:
             | > If we didn't do the lockdowns then we would have seen a
             | huge increase in mortality over all age groups as hospitals
             | where overwhelmed.
             | 
             | This is just wishful thinking. There is no real way to know
             | if lockdowns had any material impact on hospital capacity.
             | And besides, we had field hospitals set up in the early
             | days... though they were all closed because they didn't get
             | used. Hmmmmm....
        
               | jeromegv wrote:
               | Canada had field hospitals. And they were used.
               | 
               | Here's an example. Sunnybrook hospital in toronto. One of
               | the leading trauma hospital in the country. They also
               | brought military to help.
               | 
               | https://beta.ctvnews.ca/local/toronto/2021/4/30/1_5409214
               | .ht...
               | 
               | Just one example among many.
        
               | spookthesunset wrote:
               | "That happened on Monday when the first patient arrived.
               | There are now six patients there and another two are
               | expected by the end of Friday."
               | 
               | In a province with 14.7 million people... Society has to
               | grind to a halt for a few hundred people... how does that
               | make any sense?
        
             | Lammy wrote:
             | > as hospitals where overwhelmed.
             | 
             | Nobody seemed to mind very much during all those other
             | years:
             | 
             | https://www.google.com/search?q=intitle:hospitals+intitle:o
             | v...
             | 
             | https://www.google.com/search?q=intitle:hospitals+intitle:%
             | 2...
        
             | sva_ wrote:
             | > once in a century pandemic
             | 
             | That's pretty optimistic. I hope you're right.
        
               | dgeiser13 wrote:
               | We will have another one within 10 years.
        
           | alsetmusic wrote:
           | > [...] but the effects of it will only really unfold in the
           | coming years[...]
           | 
           | I believe that we'll see studies for the rest of our lives on
           | the effects of the pandemic / lockdown among different age
           | groups. Young people will likely be the most affected
           | longterm. This will be the new "lead paint" for a generation.
        
           | lumb63 wrote:
           | It's certainly a difficult cost/benefit analysis, preserving
           | the lives of the elderly, at the expense of quality of life
           | for a younger generation, versus the opposite. The effects
           | are, as you said, probably not measurable, and so the
           | calculus is near-impossible. However, the answer has
           | seemingly been to not even try, and to "stop covid" at all
           | costs, laying waste to any holistic arguments that perhaps
           | prioritizing societal wellbeing was a better route than
           | declaring war against a virus.
           | 
           | In my opinion, the vast majority of the world lost its cool
           | in the pandemic, and in our panic, we may have made mistakes.
           | Or maybe not. The long term results remain to be seen.
           | Certainly, however, we as a society did not act with a level
           | head and think things through rationally before acting.
        
             | phkahler wrote:
             | >> However, the answer has seemingly been to not even try,
             | and to "stop covid" at all costs, laying waste to any
             | holistic arguments that perhaps prioritizing societal
             | wellbeing was a better route than declaring war against a
             | virus.
             | 
             | Stop Covid at all costs is what they said, but not what
             | they did. HCQ was shot down without investigation even as
             | doctors were reporting success. Most things were simply
             | shot down as "not an FDA approved treatment for covid19"
             | even though there were no such treatments for the first
             | year. I had covid so my immunity is better than the
             | vaccinated, but I was still supposed to get vaxed because
             | it helps a bit more and we needed to do everything
             | possible. OK vitamins D was thought to help and has since
             | been proven to help, so why are there not ads pushing that?
             | It's never been about doing (certainly not trying)
             | everything possible. Its always been "do as I say" from the
             | government.
        
             | hotpotamus wrote:
             | When you try to mix human morbidity and mortality with
             | market economics, basically you just piss everyone off. I
             | mean, if I want to be crass about it, I could ask you who's
             | life you value more - your father or your son, your aunt or
             | your niece? And how much money are you willing to pay to
             | extend the life of any of these people. We are hesitant to
             | ask these questions for good reason.
        
               | CWuestefeld wrote:
               | As the song goes, "if you choose not to decide, you still
               | have made a choice". The fact that we've steadfastly
               | refused to verbalize the implicit choices that have been
               | made doesn't change anything about what was actually
               | done.
        
               | makomk wrote:
               | The NHS in the UK - whose low, low costs certain US
               | political activists point to as proof public healthcare
               | is not just better but cheaper - literally does this.
               | There's a fixed amount they're willing to spend per
               | expected year of healthy life saved, adjusted for quality
               | of life during that time, and treatments that are
               | expected to cost more than that aren't available on the
               | NHS. This is surprisingly uncontroversial, possibly
               | because the NHS as an institution is basically beyond
               | questioning. However, the same reasoning was not applied
               | in the UK over Covid; the mainstream consensus was that
               | anyone who prioritised the economy over stopping Covid
               | was an evil murderer, and every single Covid death that
               | happened was caused by our government not stopping it.
        
               | david38 wrote:
               | This is the way. Hand waving morality and preciousness of
               | life leads to a very few getting all the treatment. (The
               | first part)
        
               | hotpotamus wrote:
               | Yes, any public healthcare system will obviously make
               | these calculations. Private insurers also do this in the
               | US however they are more limited in what they can do to
               | control costs.
               | 
               | I suspect that because there is one universal system,
               | people accept that they're all more or less bound by the
               | same rules (I'm aware there is private care in the UK
               | too), whereas in the US it can be pretty arbitrary as to
               | who gets healthcare; obviously money helps but there are
               | multiple single payer systems (lol) that some belong to
               | also.
        
               | Gigachad wrote:
               | The government already has these answers. There is a
               | value assigned to life per year it could be extended. For
               | some reason that was thrown out the window for covid.
        
               | hotpotamus wrote:
               | Where do they publish the numbers? I'm curious what I'm
               | worth.
        
               | 317070 wrote:
               | In the UK, this might be a good place to start:
               | https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/valuation-of-
               | risk...
               | 
               | https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/valuation-of-
               | risk...
               | 
               | tl;dr, if memory serves correctly, it's about 60k GBP per
               | full health year left. So 2 years at 50% health is 1 full
               | health year, with formulas to tell you what 50% health
               | means exactly.
               | 
               | I don't know of other countries that make this
               | calculation so explicitly.
        
               | phkahler wrote:
               | Google for SVM statistical value of human life. If I
               | recall correctly.
        
           | moralestapia wrote:
           | >that it has also been the biggest transfer of lifetime from
           | the young to the old, as the lockdowns were mostly to protect
           | the old
           | 
           | Holy crap, never thought about it that way. Add to the
           | equation that it was the generation that gave us climate
           | abuse, debt and pretty much loaned themselves out of our
           | future (I'm in my 30s ...) and I don't think that's fair, at
           | all.
        
             | Gigachad wrote:
             | Few major effects. Young people mostly work service or part
             | time jobs which were completely destroyed. Very few were
             | able to work from home. Property values across the planet
             | exploded, further benefiting those who already had them.
             | Cost of living and inflation exploded without any bump to
             | wages on these low end jobs.
             | 
             | If you don't work in tech, are an exec, or own significant
             | assets, your life has been ruined by covid restrictions.
        
               | moralestapia wrote:
               | Absolutely agree, I am lucky enough to own an apartment,
               | have plenty of disposable income, and I was working from
               | home already, so COVID was meh for me. But, I am not
               | indifferent to my peers, and
               | 
               | >life has been ruined by covid restrictions
               | 
               | this is completely true for a large swath of people, and
               | it wasn't fair for them.
        
           | after_care wrote:
           | From my perspective in the US the lockdowns were about
           | managing hospital capacity. While this might
           | disproportionally benefited older folks, hospitals are a
           | service anyone could need at any time for a wide range of
           | reasons.
        
             | spookthesunset wrote:
             | > From my perspective in the US the lockdowns were about
             | managing hospital capacity
             | 
             | And yet there is scant evidence hospitals ever were at
             | risk. We should have relaxed our approach to all this when
             | cities across the country were closing their unused field
             | hospitals. Instead of celebrating the fact that covid
             | wasn't nearly as lethal as the earliest models predicted,
             | governors across the country doubled down on their covid
             | restrictions. Two years later, they are finally almost
             | gone.
             | 
             | Did any of these restrictions provide enough benefit to
             | justify their immense social cost? It will probably take
             | much cooler heads to find out. It troubles me that we went
             | into this mess with little understanding if the measures
             | even worked. In effect, we took millions and millions of
             | people and had them partake in a massive uncontrolled
             | experiment without anybody's consent.
        
               | kevinventullo wrote:
               | _there is scant evidence hospitals ever were at risk_
               | 
               | I know several people who had to delay surgeries and
               | other medical procedures because of hospital capacity due
               | to COVID.
        
               | treeman79 wrote:
               | I had to delay and miss many appointments because
               | everything was shutdown due to pandemic. Nearly died from
               | it. Many others did die because they stopped getting
               | routine care.
        
               | spookthesunset wrote:
               | Nope. It was due to hospitals being on edge and delaying
               | elective surgery "just in case". COVID didn't cause
               | capacity issues at hospitals, humans reaction to covid
               | did.
        
               | clysm wrote:
               | Do you have a source on that?
               | 
               | I know multiple nurses and doctors who were re-assigned
               | to help with COVID patients, or came out of retirement to
               | help with staffing shortages.
        
               | Lammy wrote:
               | A person in my family had to delay a major procedure too,
               | but the excuse was that it "wasn't safe" like they were
               | being done a favor :/
        
               | CWuestefeld wrote:
               | AFAIK, this happened, but was consistently due to
               | proactive closures in expectation of overcrowding that
               | nearly ever came to pass. Although a lot of ink was
               | spilled on the potential for hospitals being overrun,
               | there were vanishingly few cases in which it actually
               | happened.
        
               | hh3k0 wrote:
               | > And yet there is scant evidence hospitals ever were at
               | risk.
               | 
               | What? Omicron absolutely crushed U.S. hospitals -- with
               | some having to set up temporary emergency rooms in their
               | parking structures. Many U.S. hospitals had to put off
               | essential procedures and ran out of practically
               | _everything_ (syringes, saline products, blood, etc.)
               | during the last wave.
        
               | theli0nheart wrote:
               | > _Omicron absolutely crushed U.S. hospitals -- with some
               | having to set up temporary emergency rooms in their
               | parking structures. Many U.S. hospitals had to put off
               | essential procedures and ran out of practically
               | _everything_ (syringes, saline products, blood, etc.)
               | during the last wave._
               | 
               | I don't recall this happening. Can you provide a source
               | for this?
        
               | spookthesunset wrote:
               | They can't. You'll just get links to some NYT article
               | whose main content suggests "we are preparing for a
               | surge" or something of that nature.
               | 
               | I've yet to see any kind of actual study that compares
               | hospital capacity during these "surges" vs hospital
               | capacity in the "before times". Also I strongly suspect
               | future research will show that most of the hospital
               | issues were self-inflicted wounds. We tested everybody
               | who came into the hospital and invoked crazy high-
               | overhead processes for positive results irregardless of
               | symptoms.
               | 
               | The entire two years of this I've been waiting for a
               | single instance of an overflowing hospital with
               | stretchers of people out the door... never seen one yet.
               | There has never been a real issue of hospital capacity--
               | at least in the US anyway.
        
               | hh3k0 wrote:
               | > The entire two years of this I've been waiting for a
               | single instance of an overflowing hospital with
               | stretchers of people out the door... never seen one yet.
               | 
               | I mean, I don't know about you but I certainly do not
               | consider this normal:
               | https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2022/01/13/er_slammed-
               | getty...
               | 
               | Image caption is: "A nurse walks inside a temporary
               | emergency room, built into a parking garage at Providence
               | Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center in Tarzana, Calif.,
               | on Jan. 3, 2021. Since Thanksgiving, cases have risen to
               | the point where 80% of the hospital is filled with
               | patients with COVID-19 and 90% of the ICU is filled with
               | COVID-19."
               | 
               | Taken from: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-
               | shots/2022/01/13/1072902...
        
               | theli0nheart wrote:
               | > _Since Thanksgiving, cases have risen to the point
               | where 80% of the hospital is filled with patients with
               | COVID-19 and 90% of the ICU is filled with COVID-19. "_
               | 
               | The confounding factor here is that this includes
               | patients hospitalized for reasons other than COVID. A
               | patient that had a positive test might not be in the
               | hospital _because_ of COVID, but good luck to anyone
               | trying to tease out that data.
        
               | Apocryphon wrote:
               | > The entire two years of this I've been waiting for a
               | single instance of an overflowing hospital with
               | stretchers of people out the door... never seen one yet.
               | 
               | Your following sentence refers to the U.S., but as for
               | this one- this is exactly what's happening in Hong Kong
               | right now:
               | 
               | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/09/hong-
               | kong-co...
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | alsetmusic wrote:
               | My father was taken to a hospital for a broken hip in
               | December. There were no beds available. He had a
               | procedure and was sent home. I have no news article to
               | provide, only this anecdotal account. This is something
               | that I can't imagine happening prior to 2020 unless a
               | natural disaster (hurricane, flood, tornado) had
               | occurred.
        
               | Jon_Lowtek wrote:
               | >> (January 13th) _" We are being absolutely crushed,"
               | says Dr. Gabor Kelen, chair of emergency medicine at the
               | Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Maryland._
               | 
               | https://knpr.org/npr/2022-01/ers-are-overwhelmed-omicron-
               | con...
        
               | theli0nheart wrote:
               | Thanks. This supports that there were some hospitals that
               | ran out of beds but not that any ran out of supplies.
        
               | Apocryphon wrote:
               | Story on supply shortages
               | 
               | https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/public-global-
               | health/5...
        
               | 30367286 wrote:
               | >I don't recall this happening. Can you provide a source
               | for this?
               | 
               | https://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/amphtml/USA/2020/111
               | 9/O...
        
               | hh3k0 wrote:
               | Here you go:
               | 
               | > Omicron absolutely crushed U.S. hospitals -- with some
               | having to set up temporary emergency rooms in their
               | parking structures.
               | 
               | ERs are overwhelmed as omicron continues to flood them
               | with patients: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-
               | shots/2022/01/13/1072902...
               | 
               | Why omicron is crushing hospitals -- even though cases
               | are often milder than delta:
               | https://www.npr.org/sections/health-
               | shots/2022/01/29/1075871...
               | 
               | > Many U.S. hospitals had to put off essential procedures
               | and ran out of practically _everything_ (syringes, saline
               | products, blood, etc.) during the last wave.
               | 
               | Americans get sicker as omicron stalls everything from
               | heart surgeries to cancer care:
               | https://www.npr.org/sections/health-
               | shots/2022/02/04/1078029...
               | 
               | US hospitals struggle as Omicron Covid surge delays other
               | treatments:
               | https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/22/us-
               | hospitals-o...
        
               | ravel-bar-foo wrote:
               | Korea is currently rationing hospital care in the middle
               | of an Omicron wave. Covid-related patient care
               | (previously unlimited, with a small fraction of patients
               | hospitalized for four to six weeks) is now provided on
               | NHS for only seven days, after which point the patient
               | must pay out-of-pocket and/or find their own hospital
               | bed. When this policy was introduced (the limit used to
               | be two weeks), there was a minor uproar, with doctors
               | accusing the government of killing patients.
        
               | 30367286 wrote:
               | > And yet there is scant evidence hospitals ever were at
               | risk
               | 
               | Are you suggesting that this story is inaccurate? Your
               | claim is baffling in the face of... well, all the stories
               | I've been reading the past two years.
               | 
               | https://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/ct-nw-
               | coronavirus...
        
               | tallytarik wrote:
               | > In effect, we took millions and millions of people and
               | had them partake in a massive uncontrolled experiment
               | without anybody's consent.
               | 
               | But then... doesn't this cover all government decisions
               | and legislation?
               | 
               | If presented with this hypothetical situation in advance,
               | perhaps we'd have preferred our governments did X, Y and
               | Z differently.
               | 
               | But the 'consent' was given when our generation, or our
               | parents' or grandparents', voted in the governments which
               | passed the laws to allow for this.
               | 
               | With hindsight, I suspect many will not vote for the same
               | governments again. But some will. Perhaps even the
               | majority will.
               | 
               | In fact, during the pandemic, many governments who
               | enacted what you call 'experiments' were re-elected in
               | landslides.
               | 
               | In that case, I'd say that many people have given
               | consent.
               | 
               | That said, I agree with your suggestion that we should
               | try to figure out the cost/benefit of these measures. I
               | think that's a critical step over the next few years.
        
         | joaogui1 wrote:
         | Wasn't there a reduction in suicides? Not that that's the only
         | factor when it comes to mental health, but it's probably
         | something to take into account when you talk about the mental
         | health toll of the past 2 years
        
         | thr0wawayf00 wrote:
         | You're absolutely right, and I've heard firsthand accounts of
         | this.
         | 
         | My sister-in-law is a middle school counselor at a large
         | midwest US public school system and her stories about kids
         | dealing with the pandemic are heartbreaking, the mental health
         | support system in some US schools is completely falling apart
         | due to the workload.
         | 
         | She's never seen a mental health crisis on this scale in
         | schools in her entire career. She remarks that kids really
         | weren't able to learn much during the pandemic due to remote
         | learning and in many cases are now playing catch-up to get back
         | on track. The school system she works for basically didn't hold
         | anyone back for a year because they had no real way of knowing
         | who progressed as her school district cancelled standardized
         | testing.
         | 
         | Anyone who believes that the pandemic wasn't a serious setback
         | for many kids developmentally is woefully out of touch with
         | reality.
        
           | WalterBright wrote:
           | > they had no real way of knowing who progressed as her
           | school district cancelled standardized testing.
           | 
           | The schools want to remove all evidence that would contradict
           | their claims of doing a great job.
        
             | thr0wawayf00 wrote:
             | ...or they lacked the resources and infrastructure to
             | accurately assess students as nobody had been prepared to
             | move the entire public education system online for an
             | extended period of time.
        
               | WalterBright wrote:
               | The drive to eliminate all standardized testing has been
               | going on for many years.
        
       | mensetmanusman wrote:
       | These trends have been happening for decades and it tracks quite
       | well the gradual breakdown of stable family structures.
       | Psychologically for example, kids experience their parent's
       | divorce as worse than a parent's death.
        
         | barry-cotter wrote:
         | If you compare children of divorce with children who have a
         | parent die the children of divorce look worse on basically
         | every measure, sure. That doesn't mean divorce is worse for
         | children than the death of a parent. Divorce is a choice. The
         | king of person who gets divorced is different from the kind who
         | doesn't. By way of example Asian-Americanc college graduates
         | who get married in their 30s have a divorce rate around ~2%.
         | Most people who get divorced remarry. The kind of person who
         | marries a divorcee is not the same king of person as those who
         | don't.
         | 
         | Correlation isn't causation.
        
         | Cpoll wrote:
         | I've read some takes that divorce can be positive for a child.
         | The theory was: parents having time away from their child gave
         | them a break, and also helped them value their time with the
         | child more. There are also theories that living in a divorced
         | family is better than living in an unhappily married one.
         | 
         | AFAIR there are studies looking at families with different
         | cultural stances on divorce (but good luck controlling for
         | other factors there). Also they tend to measure more easily
         | measurable outcomes in the child than mental health, such as
         | grades, which don't necessarily correlate.
        
         | SalmoShalazar wrote:
         | Do you have a source for that claim? It sounds like nonsense.
         | My parents divorced when I was 6 or 7 years old, and I'm pretty
         | sure it would be unimaginably more traumatic if one of them had
         | died instead.
        
           | replygirl wrote:
           | Just anecdotally, my parents divorced and one of my parents
           | took their own life, the divorce was harder
        
       | h2odragon wrote:
       | Surely this can be fixed by lowering the standards, like for
       | speech development, right?
        
       | Friday_ wrote:
        
       | sdoering wrote:
       | The quality of the discussion is in parts abysmal. Assertions are
       | thrown into the world without even mentioning a source.
       | 
       | A substantive discussion is therefore not possible. It is just
       | 'opinion porn' imho.
       | 
       | Regardless of whether the pandemic, social media, (real) porn,
       | industrial food, excessive demands at school, any combination
       | thereof or other anecdotes are used as the cause. Nothing is
       | substantiated by linking sources. Or at least naming them.
       | 
       | Whatever is claimed can only be questioned, not refuted, as there
       | is no substantive point of attack.
       | 
       | Thus, in the end, everyone feels good because they were able to
       | express an opinion. But unfortunately we have learned nothing.
        
         | mlyle wrote:
         | You know, opinions are valuable here for hypothesis generation.
         | 
         | No one knows and there is no consensus why this is happening. I
         | have a few opinions as a middle-and-high school teacher. But
         | talking about this is important to help wrap our heads around
         | it.
         | 
         | If a definitive understanding or reason were easy to acquire,
         | we'd have done it already. So, the toil continues: for
         | researchers, policymakers, laymen... and those of us in the
         | trenches trying to do something about it with not enough
         | information.
        
           | sdoering wrote:
           | There are for quite some time already studies happening so I
           | doubt that random people on the internet sharing opinions
           | help much in generating valid (or interesting) hypotheses.
           | Also how would you validate those?
           | 
           | Just examples:
           | 
           | - https://www.cmaj.ca/content/192/6/E136.short -
           | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34406494/ -
           | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34333404/
        
             | mlyle wrote:
             | A few observational studies are fairly meaningless-- they
             | don't establish causation, etc. Your meta-analysis
             | highlights as such.
             | 
             | Discussion, speculation, and reasoning about problems are
             | valuable-- even if the process does often lead us astray.
             | 
             | Do you ever talk about things that you are not an expert on
             | or that aren't settled? E.g. You made some comments about
             | team culture a few days ago-- ignoring the massive body of
             | literature about conflict in teams and engaging in
             | speculation based upon personal opinion.
             | 
             | I'm a teacher at a school where neither COVID "lockdown"
             | nor excessive social media use would be a great explanation
             | for poor student mental health, but still there has been a
             | significant increase in problems in the past few years.
             | Should I just ignore the problem and hope research pins it
             | down and solves it? I need to make reasonable guesses and
             | act upon them.
        
         | paulcole wrote:
         | > It is just 'opinion porn' imho
         | 
         | Leader in the clubhouse for the 2022 Accidental HN Slogan
         | Contest.
        
       | juanani wrote:
        
       | ck2 wrote:
       | Before 2000 or so, every stupid thing you did as a kid wasn't
       | recorded on a phone or online somewhere permanently that you
       | could forget it.
       | 
       | Maybe at school but bullying wasn't possible 24/7 online like
       | now.
       | 
       | You had no idea what the latest news or political drama was as a
       | kid before 2000 because it wasn't in your hand 12+ hours a day.
       | No twitter/facebook or whatever they are using now.
       | 
       | Now being a kid is as depressing as being an adult and you are
       | wired-in to a world that's overwhelming you. Sure they don't have
       | jobs or rents to pay but everything still feels fatalistic to
       | them, like they can't escape the world defines them, not the
       | other way around.
        
         | tsoukase wrote:
         | Solid and deep points. At era around 2000 things-culture
         | started to decline. No coincidence global IQ and many qualities
         | (eg music, education, human relations) started to decline at
         | that time too
        
       | frankohn wrote:
       | This situation if the result of the destruction of the social
       | network of relations due to the modern lifestyle. To have
       | meaningful social relations with our peers is extremely important
       | for humans and even more so for teenagers I guess.
       | 
       | First the modern lifestyle mostly destroyed the small communities
       | where people know each other and spend a lot of time together.
       | People began to stay in their house all the time with no contacts
       | with a community.
       | 
       | At this first stage, as the local community was eliminated, the
       | remaining pillars of social relations were school, for young
       | people, and work for adults. I some case adults were able to
       | maintain some degree of additional social life by having some
       | friends and inviting them regularly to create the opportunity to
       | meet.
       | 
       | Later it come all the smartphones, tablets, computers, social
       | networks that captivated all the attention, especially of young
       | people so even more so people were pushed to stay more at home
       | and meet less people further increasing the social isolation.
       | 
       | The final blow came from the COVID-19 confinement were people
       | were forced to stay at home reducing social contacts only to the
       | close family members. This situation created an unsustainable
       | isolation raising serious mental health problem especially for
       | teenagers but also for adult people.
       | 
       | Modern society got it all wrong. We think having more goods and
       | entertainment to consume make us happier but this is not how it
       | works. Not if the social life and the social network around us is
       | poor or non-existent.
       | 
       | Scientific thought that they know all and can say people what to
       | do and they give us instruction just to avoid that people dies.
       | The problem is that people doesn't just need to stay physically
       | alive, we need to be also happy and fulfilled by our life.
       | 
       | We need to radically change modern lifestyle and stop with all
       | the bullshit coming from politicians.
        
         | everforward wrote:
         | I agree with a lot of this, but I think the effect has more
         | complex roots.
         | 
         | I think there's an economic component to this as well. Housing
         | prices are rising, meaning a lot of people are pushed out of
         | their existing community, or that they perceive their community
         | is temporary (until they all get pushed out). It starts to feel
         | pointless to build a community of renters when you don't think
         | it will exist in 5 years.
         | 
         | A lot of local shops have been overtaken by corporations, who
         | exist in the community but aren't really part of it.
         | Walmart/Target/Dick's/etc isn't sponsoring the local little
         | league, or throwing a potluck, or creating any kind of space or
         | events to build a community around.
         | 
         | Religious service attendance is also down, which is another way
         | people used to build communities, and I haven't seen a lot of
         | secular replacements (not a criticism of anyone, I don't attend
         | myself). I think a lot of people replaced religion with
         | politics, which has created communities more focused on things
         | outside themselves (laws and public opinion) than within
         | themselves.
         | 
         | I don't even know that social media is the cause of loss of
         | community. It seems to me that social media was the market
         | responding to the loss of in-person communities; it was
         | responding to an already-established need. It might have
         | accelerated the decline, but I think healthy communities could
         | have withstood social media. We just didn't have many healthy
         | communities left.
        
           | rakejake wrote:
           | The problem with community is everyone (or at least most
           | people in the sample space) has to buy-in for it to work.
           | Sometime in the last 15 years, it slowly started shifting
           | online and then beyond a critical threshold, it began to
           | snowball. And now you have generations that play together on
           | minecraft and roblox. And how exactly do you fight that when
           | it is mostly frictionless and requires much less social
           | energy? You can't.
           | 
           | Hmm, when we decided religion was bad and decided to phase it
           | out of our lives, did we perhaps throw the baby out with the
           | bathwater?
        
         | tsol wrote:
         | Anecdotally I've seen much less damage among those who are
         | deeply religious that I know(Muslims). Social networks are
         | strong so they were preserved even among the pandemic. Say what
         | you want about the problems that come with religion, but it is
         | great at solving a lot of the issues that humans have dealt
         | with for thousands of years. Those problems are ones modern
         | society has done little to solve
        
         | Aeolun wrote:
         | Not sure I agree with everything you say, but having social
         | contact is absolutely gratifying.
         | 
         | The lack of community in current times is absolutely a
         | negative.
        
           | t0bia_s wrote:
           | Yet we still collectively prefer conformity behavior shaped
           | by media and politics.
           | 
           | Decentralisation and community is future.
        
       | hammyhavoc wrote:
       | Not like the adults are doing much better.
        
         | sebow wrote:
         | "We" as adults at least have the mostly-capable ability to
         | discern good from bad, whereas a child until the age of 14-18
         | (depending on the topic at hand) does not have the sense of
         | responsibility, especially about the crucial aspect which is
         | his/her own health. Therefore you could expect an adult to be
         | able to take care of him/her-self after the ~age of adulthood,
         | whereas a children is very rarely expected to do so, because
         | most of the times they're not even fully aware of it
         | (consciously speaking, not talking about almost instinctive
         | reactions).
        
           | manuelabeledo wrote:
           | > "We" as adults at least have the mostly-capable ability to
           | discern good from bad
           | 
           | Do we?
           | 
           | Suicide rate among adults in all age ranges is way higher
           | than in teens and pre-teens.
           | 
           | Anecdotally, there are plenty of day to day examples of
           | adults not having their crap together. The historical state
           | of the world is one of them.
        
           | bawolff wrote:
           | > Therefore you could expect an adult to be able to take care
           | of him/her-self after the ~age of adulthood
           | 
           | I used to believe that as a kid... then i became an adult and
           | met other adults who do not remotely have their shit
           | together.
        
           | CPLX wrote:
           | > "We" as adults at least have the mostly-capable ability to
           | discern good from bad
           | 
           | You're going to be shocked when you find out what Facebook
           | did to the Boomer generation.
        
       | Animats wrote:
       | Note the date: "survey of a nationally representative sample of
       | 7,700 teens conducted in the first six months of 2021."
        
       | evocatus wrote:
       | I've already walked this path of self-isolation. The pandemic,
       | quarantine, none of it are new to me. This was my life for years.
       | 
       | I feel for this upcoming generation, in the most real way
       | possible.
       | 
       | They are fucked.
        
       | aaomidi wrote:
       | Global warming
       | 
       | Economic forecasts being shit
       | 
       | Social media
       | 
       | Realizing the injustice in the world and seeing adults do nothing
       | about it
       | 
       | Hyper competitive schooling
       | 
       | Lack of support during the pandemic
       | 
       | Yeah all of this has an impact.
        
         | oh_sigh wrote:
         | I think the biggest problem with these things is not that they
         | are actually shit, but some section of adults have convinced
         | kids that these problems will be the death of everyone. I'm
         | thinking of Greta Thunberg crying about not being able to have
         | a family or kids of her own because of global warming. That's a
         | bit melodramatic, especially for someone coming from Europe.
        
         | prepend wrote:
         | > Economic forecasts being shit
         | 
         | Aren't we in the longest economic boon ever? This might be the
         | first bear market in over 10 years.
         | 
         | Schools didn't require sats and other exams and were actually
         | easier to get into during the pandemic. The past two years were
         | like a glorious time for school admission.
        
           | JaimeThompson wrote:
           | The distribution of "rewards" from this economic boom has
           | been a bit one sided taking all factors into account.
        
             | prepend wrote:
             | I don't think so. Low home interest rates have helped first
             | time home buyers.
             | 
             | Stocks benefit pensions and 401k.
             | 
             | Low interest rates help for credit card debt, auto loans,
             | etc.
             | 
             | Lowest unemployment in the history of the stat helps with
             | all job seekers.
             | 
             | Of course it helps billionaires more because they have more
             | stocks. But bull economies are pretty good for everyone and
             | there's a whole generation pretty much that's never
             | experienced a down year of s&p.
        
               | mellavora wrote:
               | > Low home interest rates have helped first time home
               | buyers.
               | 
               | I hear it is almost impossible to buy a house in the US
               | these days, what with private equity firms bidding cash
               | for everything.
               | 
               | > Stocks benefit pensions and 401k.
               | 
               | nice if you have them, but it is hard to invest if rent
               | is 50% of your take-home (and not because you are living
               | large, but because that's all that was available)
        
           | beeboop wrote:
           | Food and housing and education and healthcare are all more
           | expensive than ever. I work in tech making six figures and
           | can't afford a single family home. My employer pays $700 a
           | month for my insurance. I spent $1000 a month on groceries.
        
       | thenerdhead wrote:
       | Sure the pandemic may have accelerated or been the catalyst, but
       | let's be honest here. TV/Internet/Video game addiction is a
       | serious thing that nobody is paying attention to. I struggled
       | with this personally for the last 25 years of my life and I'm 30.
       | I now have two kids and have to ensure I moderate their usage in
       | responsible ways as they grow up.
       | 
       | I was a generation before the iPad, but the current teenagers
       | struggling have likely had a smart device from as early as 2. My
       | smart device was a TV and nintendo. The guidelines the CDC even
       | has for responsible device usage is reasonable, but nobody
       | follows it. Most people are picking up their devices up to a
       | hundred times a day or every 10 minutes. The average screen time
       | is close to 3 hours. That's an average by the way...
       | 
       | We need to bring awareness to this problem like Nicholas Carr did
       | over a decade ago. We can't let big tech companies convince us
       | this isn't a problem with their sponsored studies to control a
       | narrative.
        
       | pcarolan wrote:
       | I am helping a family member recently diagnosed with ADHD during
       | the pandemic. I looked up this google trend and my jaw dropped.
       | Clearly the world has yet to come to terms with the social,
       | emotional and psychological effects of this pandemic. If anyone
       | here knows anything about what's causing the rise in adhd
       | specifically, I'd love to hear about it:
       | https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&ge...
        
         | elcritch wrote:
         | You don't really "get" ADHD as it's generally lifelong.
         | Symptoms can wax and wane over time though and can be
         | exacerbated. Combine that with diagnosis getting better,
         | especially for women and non-hyperactive subtypes.
        
           | pcarolan wrote:
           | Right, so why did the trend explode during the pandemic?
        
         | superfrank wrote:
         | I don't have an answer or even a guess really, but I want to
         | bring up that "autism" shows a strikingly similar trend in
         | google searches and searches for "depression" kind of go down
         | starting at the same time.
        
         | Apocryphon wrote:
         | Search terms for ADHD doesn't necessarily mean that ADHD
         | prevalence is increasing. ADHD awareness is increasing, which
         | can be anecdotally observed everywhere from HN to TikTok.
        
       | Thorentis wrote:
       | Social media and pornography are the two biggest enemies of
       | teenage mental health, and both of them have been available for
       | almost the entire Gen-Z person's life, delivered straight to
       | their bedroom via high speed internet, and follows them
       | everywhere they go on their smartphones.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | infiniteL0Op wrote:
        
         | yobbo wrote:
         | It's not smartphones or "straight to the bedroom". Online
         | communities for teenagers have been around in some form since
         | the 80s.
         | 
         | Now everyone is expected to be on social media and it is _the
         | main_ community for a teenager, not an escape for nerds. If you
         | 're not successful there, you're also an outcast in reality.
        
           | prepend wrote:
           | This exposure wasn't mainstream until the early-mid 10s when
           | every high schooler got a phone and social media. Before
           | then, it was computer and game system based and that changes.
           | 
           | I don't know real screen time data, but the use of phones
           | probably added an extra 4-10 hours of screentime per day. And
           | the type of activity is very different with notifications and
           | pickups being top of mind.
        
         | sdoering wrote:
         | Do you have any scientific sources for those claims? Any
         | qualitative good studies?
        
         | mensetmanusman wrote:
         | This is according to the teens themselves, but people still are
         | hesitant to listen...
        
         | kar5pt wrote:
         | Porn was around long before 2009 so this doesn't make sense.
        
         | jeltz wrote:
         | Social media has been around since the early 2000s, over 20
         | years, and easily accessible porn has been around slightly
         | longer. So, no, I am not convinced this is it. Smartphones on
         | the other hand is a possible culprit.
        
           | treis wrote:
           | Social media wasn't ubiquitous and certainly not mobile. What
           | was there was an extension of your meat space life. It wasn't
           | until the late 00s early 10s that social media blew up and
           | took on a life of it's own.
        
         | Aerroon wrote:
         | I don't see how you can blame this on porn.
         | 
         | The people who grew up with east to access online porn are now
         | in their 30s. In the early 2000s it was harder to escape porn
         | online, because you'd see it in ads and people would trick each
         | other with (eg the content of downloads were swapped out).
         | 
         | > _Between 2009 and 2019, the percentage of teens who reported
         | having "persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness" rose
         | from 26 percent to 37 percent._
         | 
         | The starting figure from 2009 would consider teens who grew up
         | with easy access to porn. But it fell from there.
        
         | trinovantes wrote:
         | It makes me feel pretty lucky to be born in the last generation
         | where those aren't part of my life till I'm almost out of my
         | teenage years. I didn't even get a smartphone until I started
         | university and that was considered early adopter for my group
         | of friends.
        
           | sylens wrote:
           | I wish tech had frozen at like the 2005-2006 era; good enough
           | for wireless routers in homes and some Web 2.0 capabilities
           | but before everything was aggressively targeted towards an
           | always connected phone in your pocket at all times
        
         | loceng wrote:
         | Add very unhealthy inflammatory diets/low quality food
         | (processed etc), pharmaceuticals, and multi-generational dis-
         | ease progression to that list; your parents' health, society's
         | health as a whole and how they interact with you, much more
         | greatly affects a culture than is talked about - most of
         | society has lost the ancient traditions and understanding of
         | health, and the body-mind-spirit.
        
         | dijonman2 wrote:
         | Where did pornography come from?
         | 
         | I'd argue social media is far more damaging, especially Twitter
         | and the advent of outrage culture. It breeds hatred and
         | intolerance, two thought patterns that will send us back 30
         | years.
        
         | marginalia_nu wrote:
         | Both social media (in some form) and porn has been around for
         | far longer than this has been a problem. I'm a card carrying
         | "Starcraft and DeusEx defined my teenage years"-millennial, and
         | these things have been around most of my formative years as
         | well. I think I was like ten when a friend showed me you could
         | type "boobs" into altavista and get whitehouse.com, which back
         | then was a porn site alluding to Clinton's affair with Monica
         | Lewinsky.
         | 
         | I think the big difference now is smartphones, and being always
         | online. It's much easier to have your entire world view
         | informed by the Internet now than it was twenty years ago. It's
         | a stark contrast. If you look on twitter and reddit, everything
         | is always burning, the sky is falling every day for a hundred
         | different reasons, the bees are dying, the Russians are about
         | to trigger a nuclear apocalypse, there's indignant outrage and
         | injustice everywhere.
         | 
         | If you look out the window, there's literally none of that
         | going on. Like it's almost all speculation, or happening
         | somewhere else. Twenty years ago, a lot of bad things were
         | happening as well, but they weren't up in your face in nearly
         | the same way. For some things, you had the dotcom bubble, 9/11,
         | the invasion of Iraq. While they made a prominent impact on the
         | news, the news was only on while you watched them. They didn't
         | follow you around everywhere you went like they do today.
        
           | riedel wrote:
           | The problem is IMHO not that things change, but that parents
           | and teachers have difficulty adapting to that change and
           | prepare their offspring for life. We are trying to establish
           | a protected physical world that does not really teach you
           | much about that "other" life and helps kids to develop
           | resilience.
        
             | marginalia_nu wrote:
             | Maybe. I do think this parallel reality you get from
             | primarily interacting with the world through social media
             | is deeply problematic. It may not be a learning-to-relate
             | issue as much as needing-to-change-the-medium issue.
             | 
             | Social media is probably the 2000s' tobacco industry. The
             | are likewise big vested interests pushing back against any
             | report that it's harmful.
        
               | riedel wrote:
               | I guess the point about the tabacco industry is really
               | resonating with me in the sense that the possibility to
               | generate life long revenue by advertising to minors
               | really is a problem. In the end it is about getting
               | children to use drugs.
        
           | CPLX wrote:
           | Arguable. I'm in my mid 40s and the internet as we know it
           | didn't really exist at all until I was a college graduate.
           | 
           | The speed with which things have changed is staggering on a
           | cultural and generational timescale.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | wedn3sday wrote:
           | I strongly agree with you. Social media, if it was used
           | through a computer, isnt the problem, its instant access to
           | everything all the time via smartphones. I feel like Bo
           | Burnams "Inside" struck a chord with me and has been living
           | in the back of my head for a year and a half now as I slowly
           | digest it.
           | 
           | See a man beheaded, Get offended, see a shrink, Show us
           | pictures of your children, Tell us every thought you think,
           | Start a rumor, buy a broom, Or send a death threat to a
           | boomer, Or DM a girl and groom her, Do a Zoom or find a
           | tumor, Here's a healthy breakfast option, You should kill
           | your mom, Here's why women never fuck you, Here's how you can
           | build a bomb, Which Power Ranger are you? Take this quirky
           | quiz, Obama sent the immigrants to vaccinate your kids,
           | 
           | Could I interest you in everything? All of the time? A little
           | bit of everything, All of the time, Apathy's a tragedy, And
           | boredom is a crime, Anything and everything, All of the time
        
             | sylens wrote:
             | That song is a masterpiece
        
       | rossdavidh wrote:
       | 1) how am I missing the link to the actual CDC study? or did WaPo
       | not even post the link to the survey results they were
       | discussing?
       | 
       | 2) disappointing not to see any comparison to other advanced
       | economies. Is this happening everywhere with high internet usage?
       | Did the severity correlate at all to how severe the pandemic was
       | or what the responses were? Does it correlate to income levels or
       | political polarization or religiosity or any of the other things
       | that vary (at least somewhat) between different advanced
       | economies? Maybe the CDC study looked at this, but if so WaPo
       | said nothing about it. Hard to know what to do with this
       | information with nothing but a WaPo text wall talking about it.
        
         | rossdavidh wrote:
         | Found the CDC link, at least:
         | https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/mental-health/index.htm
        
           | tzs wrote:
           | That seems to just cover 2009-2019. The article is talking
           | about a study from a survey conducted in the first half of
           | 2021.
        
       | indymike wrote:
       | This coincides with about seven months of going back to school.
       | 
       | My kids did so much better when they were not in school. They got
       | plenty of time with other kids, but none of the toxic middle
       | school culture.
        
       | sammalloy wrote:
       | > Although young people were spared the brunt of the virus --
       | falling ill and dying at much lower rates than older people --
       | they might still pay a steep price for the pandemic, having come
       | of age while weathering isolation, uncertainty, economic turmoil
       | and, for many, grief.
       | 
       | The honest truth that most people don't want to face is that
       | there is a direct relationship between economic turmoil and
       | mental health. Instead, we will get politicians and community
       | leaders blaming everything else for the problem, when all you
       | have to do to address it is to pay people a living wage and
       | provide an adequate social net to fall back upon. Our leaders
       | will never admit this.
        
       | notacoward wrote:
       | If you really want to see how bad it has gotten, try finding a
       | therapist for a teen. Even in communities where supply is high
       | and demand is (relatively) low, they're all absolutely
       | overwhelmed. When I went looking, ~75% of them were explicitly
       | not taking new clients. Working through the rest, through
       | multiple directories and services, I was denied or simply ghosted
       | ~20 times before I finally found someone. Naturally it was the
       | newest, youngest member of a large practice. She has been great,
       | but the struggle to find her was a real eye opener.
        
       | xwdv wrote:
       | Another factor may be that many people that teens look up to
       | today talk openly about mental health problems, to the point that
       | now it seems almost trendy to struggle with mental health.
       | Perhaps this encourages teens to let their mental health
       | deteriorate for attention, which is the social currency of
       | today's society. Remember they are not entirely rational beings.
        
         | standardUser wrote:
         | Or if we want to be less mind-blowingly cynical about it, we
         | could simply assume that the increased openness to discussing
         | mental health is itself helping previously unnoticed mental
         | health issues to come to light.
        
       | johnold wrote:
       | As a high school teacher(14-18 year olds) who actually spends a
       | lot of time trying to interact with students and get to know
       | them, I keep hearing this kind of statement:
       | 
       | There is no room for mistakes.
       | 
       | Students cannot miss a homework assignment, fail an exam, not
       | achieve an A, make any kind of faux pax on social media, etc...
       | 
       | And then you combine this with many adults in their lives telling
       | them, I got into UCLA, why can't you? Just work harder, or just
       | not caring about their mental health.
       | 
       | They see this never ending cycle of
       | 
       | turn the assignments in and then go to sports practice(where
       | again the competition is at such a high level) and also, get a
       | job, because they want or need money.
       | 
       | Many are going to bed after midnight every night.
       | 
       | Something has to give.
       | 
       | This is really disturbing to me.
       | 
       | How are they doing living up to this? Many are living up to it
       | but the cost is substantial, and the others that have no hope of
       | being this are giving up.
        
         | holoduke wrote:
         | I am glad this is not the case in Europe (with the exception of
         | the UK). Here we do not only look to performance and pride and
         | you need to win everything. Individual development is very
         | important. Hope it will remain like that.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | chrisseaton wrote:
           | > Individual development is very important.
           | 
           | Not sure if you've misread the thread - the whole problem is
           | too much importance on individual development and the
           | pressure this brings.
        
             | toxik wrote:
             | This is a funny reply because "individual development"
             | isn't something you schedule in European eyes. You just
             | hang around with friends and learn to be a good person, and
             | specifically not a tight wound asshole.
        
               | chrisseaton wrote:
               | Nobody does anything like learn an instrument or play a
               | sport in Europe? That's what we're talking about.
        
               | vladvasiliu wrote:
               | They do, but the point is that you don't have to be
               | better than everybody else at it to get into university.
               | You just do it for yourself.
               | 
               | I'm not the in US, so my knowledge of the educational
               | system comes only from what I read, but it's my
               | understanding that "extracurriculars" are an important
               | part of college admissions, which is different from
               | Europe.
        
               | blahyawnblah wrote:
               | > I'm not the in US, so my knowledge of the educational
               | system comes only from what I read, but it's my
               | understanding that "extracurriculars" are an important
               | part of college admissions, which is different from
               | Europe.
               | 
               | That's really only a thing for the private universities
               | and those don't make up a large percentage
        
               | chrisseaton wrote:
               | > the point is that you don't have to be better than
               | everybody else
               | 
               | The person I was replying to was saying how they're 'very
               | important' in Europe though.
        
               | vladvasiliu wrote:
               | I think it's a question of "important for what" and how
               | society goes about teaching kids those things. As in:
               | 
               | In Europe, it's important that kids learn self-
               | development, so we let them do it. And they do it by
               | hanging out with friends, learning an instrument, etc.
               | They're not pushed to do those things because colleges
               | don't take these into account for admissions.
               | 
               | In the US, it's important that kids learn self-
               | development, so we have them learn an instrument, or
               | participate in sports. They are pushed to do those things
               | because colleges take those into account for admissions.
        
         | nynx wrote:
         | I'm a senior in university now, but it did really feel like
         | this when I was in high-school. And it still feels like this in
         | university, though I'm now much more capable of reasoning of
         | whether it's true or if I just feel that it's true.
         | 
         | I think this is a consistent theme throughout the entirety of
         | the United States. There's so little leeway. Fail a class ->
         | you might have to go into an extra 20k of debt. Lose your job
         | -> Homeless, foodless, insuranceless.
         | 
         | Something will eventually give.
        
           | ZhangSWEFAANG wrote:
           | There are homeless shelters and food stamps.
        
             | JaimeThompson wrote:
             | You haven't every been poor in the US have you? If you had
             | then you would know that those services aren't the best and
             | border on the useless.
        
             | giraffe_lady wrote:
             | you know those two are mostly incompatible? snap won't get
             | you ready to eat food and homeless shelters won't give you
             | access to a kitchen.
             | 
             | just as like, a small minor indicator of how poorly you
             | understand these systems and how cruel suggesting this is
             | in that context.
        
           | Animats wrote:
           | Flunking out today doesn't mean being drafted into the Army.
           | That may come back, especially in Europe. It's shaping up to
           | be a long war.
        
             | thr0wawayf00 wrote:
             | Flunking out wouldn't mean getting drafted into the army in
             | the US anyway, the waiting list to join has been setting
             | records for a few years now[0]
             | 
             | https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-army-waiting-list-
             | record-...
        
               | Animats wrote:
               | (2010)
        
               | Lammy wrote:
               | It's even worse if you look at what types of recruits
               | they target
               | https://newrepublic.com/article/156131/military-views-
               | poor-k... (https://archive.ph/9lYDQ) (2020)
               | 
               | > This week, Anthony Clark, an Air Force veteran and
               | Democratic congressional candidate in Illinois, noted how
               | deeply embedded this trend is in American military
               | service, detailing how he, his brother, father, and
               | grandfather were all drafted or enlisted because "poverty
               | is the draft."
        
               | after_care wrote:
               | Flunking out of college did mean getting drafted during
               | the Vietnam and Korea wars.
        
               | thr0wawayf00 wrote:
               | ...which were 50+ years ago. Much of the world was very
               | different back then.
        
             | oneoff786 wrote:
             | I don't see any evidence it's shaping up to be a long war.
             | Russia has effectively abandoned their western front.
             | They're focusing on the east and somewhat the south.
             | 
             | The Russian army's performance has been pathetic and
             | wouldn't last long at all vs. nato. Nukes are a thing, but
             | not a long war thing.
        
               | supercanuck wrote:
               | This isn't true. There is evidence they are regrouping
               | and the approval rating of Putin in Russia is increasing.
        
               | JaimeThompson wrote:
               | >the approval rating of Putin in Russia is increasing
               | 
               | If you lived in Russia would you give an honest answer to
               | those running the polls not knowing if they would report
               | you to the government?
        
               | oneoff786 wrote:
               | There is no evidence they are regrouping. There is strong
               | evidence of vehicles being trained back out of Ukraine
               | via Belorussian rail. To attack kyiv again would be
               | starting from scratch.
               | 
               | Putin's approval rating is irrelevant.
               | 
               | Russia has managed to lose the battle of kyiv, and among
               | other blundering failures, has repeatedly failed to
               | establish air superiority. The extent to which they would
               | be utterly slaughtered given actual western air support
               | is hard to exaggerate.
               | 
               | At least to the extent of arbitrary Europeans needing to
               | worry about a draft.
        
         | jseliger wrote:
         | _Many are going to bed after midnight every night._
         | 
         | Tell them to look at their Screen Time or Digital Life
         | applications: https://jakeseliger.com/2020/05/26/why-
         | technology-will-never... and ask about their weekly time usage.
         | It's often over four hours a day. I commonly see six and seven
         | hours a day.
         | 
         | That observation doesn't obviate some of the other points--
         | there seems to be an "excellent sheep" problem:
         | https://jakeseliger.com/2015/11/30/briefly-noted-excellent-s...
         | most people who claim to be busy, but show many hours a day on
         | their phones, will privately admit that perhaps there's
         | something else going on than purely being "busy."
        
           | hettygreen wrote:
           | It's like you're completely ignoring the fact that phones and
           | apps are designed to be addictive.
           | 
           | Growing up in a world where tech companies have been given
           | free reign to psychologically manipulate users to increase
           | screen time is yet another pressure facing that generation,
           | it shouldn't be thrown in their face.
        
             | [deleted]
        
           | laurent92 wrote:
           | > admit that perhaps there's something else going on than
           | purely being "busy."
           | 
           | - Snapchat is essential to some youth friendships nowadays,
           | unfortunately,
           | 
           | - People dwell in dopamine hits, notably because their social
           | life is broken. It's a self-reinforcing problem, true, but
           | initially their social life was broken. You don't get into
           | drugs when all is good, or at least you can resist.
        
           | ben_w wrote:
           | Second link is broken.
           | 
           | School pupils having even 8 hours a day of screen time would
           | not even remotely surprising during the pandemic -- what else
           | are they going to be doing? My (UK) school day routine was
           | get up at 07:30, breakfast, leave the house at about 08:00
           | either for the bus or just (once I realised I could do the
           | 3-ish mile walk fast enough) go direct on foot, 09:00-15:30
           | was the actual school day.
           | 
           | Initially I got home by 16:15, then watched a lot of TV;
           | later, the school got an ISDN line and I stayed until 16:30
           | -- memories of downloading and printing pictures from an
           | artist called The Werewolf and getting home at 17:30 -- but
           | again followed by TV. Possibly video games on a Commodore 64,
           | followed by a BBC model B, followed by a Performa 5200.
           | 
           | Actual homework? Bus, lunchtime, whenever; I had no interest
           | in the tasks we had to do.
           | 
           | Of course, now I'm a "responsible adult" or something. Screen
           | Time is reporting 6h 28m average per day over the last week,
           | yet despite that, this is what I get done in a typical week:
           | 
           | * Normal office job
           | 
           | * 49 Duolingo lessons covering German, Esperanto, Greek,
           | Dutch, Spanish, and Arabic
           | 
           | * 7-14k XP on Clozemaster (for learning German)
           | 
           | * Daily practice in at least one other German language app
           | 
           | * A complete audiobook
           | 
           | * A bunch of educational, technical, or popsci podcasts,
           | YouTube vids, WWDC, etc.
           | 
           | * 7 quizzes from Brilliant.org
           | 
           | * I cook almost all the meals in our household
        
         | notacoward wrote:
         | > adults in their lives telling them, I got into UCLA, why
         | can't you
         | 
         | Not just adults. This is a difference even compared to students
         | who graduated in 2019, which would include siblings and other
         | near-peers. We're in the middle of the college selection
         | process for the HS class of 2022 right now. Many colleges are
         | getting record numbers of applications, because of all the
         | deferrals and transfers from the last two years. That
         | intensifies the competition for this year's kids, leading to a
         | lot of waitlisting and outright denials even from schools that
         | would have been fairly safe bets any other year. Just about
         | every kid has had to lower their sights an extra notch, and
         | some who didn't apply to enough safeties are facing unexpected
         | gap years.
         | 
         | > Many are going to bed after midnight every night.
         | 
         | Some aren't? Between extracurriculars and homework loads for
         | the more advanced classes, any kid who hopes to get into a
         | first- or even second-tier college doesn't have much time to
         | socialize or play games etc. any earlier.
        
           | ceeplusplus wrote:
           | Don't forget affirmative action (sorry, reverse racism). If
           | you are Asian (or for some schools, male), the standards are
           | substantially higher than if you are black or Latino.
        
         | Animats wrote:
         | That's the super high achieving group. I saw that some decades
         | back when I kept a horse at the barn on the Stanford campus and
         | met some of the local teens. These were kids with very high
         | powered parents, and were pressured to keep up. These teens
         | knew the ones who committed suicide at Gunn and Paly high
         | schools.[1]
         | 
         | Notes from then:
         | 
         | - Saw a group of high-schoolers discussing grades. Asked
         | "What's considered a good grade point average today?" Reply, in
         | a bleak voice, "4.5".
         | 
         | - Teen shows up at the barn with her arm in a sling. Asked
         | "What happened, did you get dumped?" (Meaning, off a horse.)
         | "No, I fell off the cheerleader pyramid. And now I'm letting
         | the swim team down."
         | 
         | - One of the less bright ones, worried that she can't keep up,
         | saying how hard it was. "Less bright" here means "can't get
         | into Stanford/Harvard, will do fine at a lower tier college.
         | 
         | This is real, but it's not the typical teen experience.
         | 
         | [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/12/the-
         | sil...
        
         | nvarsj wrote:
         | It's because, fundamentally, the middle class is shrinking. The
         | barrier for staying in the middle class is getting higher and
         | higher every day. And this is happening before our eyes at a
         | rapid pace over the last 10-20 years.
         | 
         | Who knows what will happen. I think the mass control of people
         | has basically been perfected, so revolution feels really
         | unlikely. Instead we'll see a police state and quality of life
         | continues to go down for the plebs. Throw global warming on top
         | of that and I think 50 years from now is going to be a pretty
         | dire time. Better get that job at Evil Corp.
        
         | prepend wrote:
         | > Students cannot miss a homework assignment, fail an exam, not
         | achieve an A, make any kind of faux pax on social media, etc...
         | 
         | As someone close to a high school student, I'm actually
         | surprised how much "make up" is allowed. All missed assignments
         | can be done any time during a semester for no penalty. Two
         | exams can be retaken for a max grade of 80.
         | 
         | When I was in high school there were no retakes at all.
        
           | HollywoodZero wrote:
           | +1. My oldest is in high school now and even in her honors
           | classes there's the ability to turn on some things late and
           | even some re-takes are allowed.
           | 
           | I don't know where these ZERO mistakes-type of mentality is
           | coming from.
        
             | prepend wrote:
             | These are honors and ap classes. There's also unlimited
             | turins for higher grades. Each class is 20-50% assignments
             | so if you just turn in your homework you're kind of
             | guaranteed a B.
             | 
             | I think this is because of hyper competitive college prep
             | where everyone wants to get straight As.
        
           | alphakilo wrote:
           | not my experience... is this a board/school policy or a
           | specific teacher?
           | 
           | never seen teaches let exams be retaken
        
             | after_care wrote:
             | I think it's more common than you would expect. It's a
             | configurable option in many online learning solutions
             | (Canvas, BlackBoard). InQuisitive allows you to keep
             | answering questions until you reach 100% grade, and often
             | represent 10%-30% of a course's entire grade.
        
             | prepend wrote:
             | It seems the district or at least the school because it's
             | every class and was similar in middle school.
        
             | karmanyaahm wrote:
             | Most of my school's core subjects allow retakes for a
             | limited grade (not in AP classes though). Just one data
             | point fwiw
        
           | armchairhacker wrote:
           | Back in the day, getting a C was fine but getting an A was
           | really hard, most students got Bs or Cs.
           | 
           | Now, getting an A isn't so hard but a C is seen as a
           | terrible, because most students are getting As.
           | 
           | Lots of schools have policies like yours but they're not
           | removing the pressure, they're just shifting what's
           | "acceptable". Sometimes they actually make it worse because
           | now near-perfect scores are the norm, and if you mess up
           | there's no way to do extra somewhere else to bring you back
           | to average.
        
           | sudosysgen wrote:
           | There were none of these when I was in high school only a few
           | years ago, and they still aren't a thing from the high
           | schoolers I know.
           | 
           | The system is still the same - every day you miss the
           | assignment is one fewer grade, except for some, where you
           | automatically get zero. You cannot retake an exam without
           | cause.
           | 
           | It's just selection bias.
        
         | ryandrake wrote:
         | I mean, all these things are true. The middle class is
         | disappearing, and society is quickly bifurcating into a few
         | haves and the rest have-nots. When I was a kid, you could get
         | B's or C's and have a good job after high school. Now you're
         | competing with the smartest of the ~50M other kids your age
         | globally for one of the few tickets out of poverty. And you can
         | bet if you miss that one homework assignment or get that one B,
         | you're way behind the kids who are doing everything to 100%
         | perfection. I can understand how it is a pressure cooker of
         | stress!
        
           | lordloki wrote:
           | globalization doing it's thing, equalizing to the mean.
        
       | refurb wrote:
       | "Idle hands are the devil's workshop"
       | 
       | I couldn't think of a worse situation than being isolated from
       | classmates and friends, cooped up at home, having extra time on
       | my hands and unlimited access to social media.
        
         | wccrawford wrote:
         | And parents that think it's someone else's job to raise their
         | kids.
        
           | lookalike74 wrote:
           | The influence of this cannot be overstated. George Carlin
           | said it best... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u-ryuJDTpEc
        
           | vkou wrote:
           | It's always been someone else's job, it's just that 'someone
           | else' used to be called 'grandma'.
           | 
           | In the nuclear family of 2022, grandma no longer lives with
           | you - or within half a mile of you - so she's no longer an
           | option.
           | 
           | We've built our society such that it's impossible to go
           | anywhere without a car, and then we wonder why children don't
           | get enough socialization, or why the only caretakers they
           | have access to are their direct parents, and their teachers.
        
             | refurb wrote:
             | We haven't really built that society, that was just the
             | trade off people made.
             | 
             | I have several friends who made the trade off the other
             | way. They live with extended family, kids can wonder around
             | and explore the neighborhood on their own.
        
           | spookthesunset wrote:
           | It takes more than somebody's parents to raise a kid. It
           | takes a community to raise a kid.
        
       | drno123 wrote:
       | CDC isolates teens for two years, CDC keeps them in fear for two
       | years, and CDC is now surprised.
        
         | ImaCake wrote:
         | A lot of people would, and did, isolate even without being told
         | too until they were vaccinated. They would have done so out of
         | fear. All that governments really did by mandating lockdowns
         | was enforce it on the part of the population that wouldn't do
         | it with the hope that it would stop the spread of COVID. In
         | some countries it worked, in others it didn't.
         | 
         | All this is to say there is no causal relationship between the
         | government lockdowns (mandated at the state level in the USA,
         | no?) and the CDC reporting on mental health. Both occured
         | independently. There are however plenty of plausible arguments
         | to make for lockdowns being causal on mental health though.
        
           | spookthesunset wrote:
           | > In some countries it worked, in others it didn't.
           | 
           | You cannot say this for certain. It will take much calmer
           | heads before anybody can say these restrictions were worth
           | their incredible costs.
           | 
           | > Both occured independently. There are however plenty of
           | plausible arguments to make for lockdowns being causal on
           | mental health though.
           | 
           | Kids were not allowed to go to school for more than a year.
           | You don't need any research to suggest that isn't good for
           | kids. Seriously. Claiming these lockdowns and restrictions
           | didn't have a significant impact on children is being
           | willfully ignorant.
        
         | standardUser wrote:
         | The only teens who have been "isolated" for two years are maybe
         | some of those at very high risk (or the unfortunate children of
         | hyper-paranoid parents). No need to exaggerate.
        
         | qiskit wrote:
         | Makes me wonder what the CDC's recommendation will be. More
         | medication? More pills? Isn't that their answer for everything.
         | We are already the most medicated society on earth. I guess a
         | little bit more won't hurt.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | trhway wrote:
       | As I said to my psychologist at the beginning of the pandemic -
       | what is done to the children as supposed pandemic fighting
       | measures will generate as much work for him for many decades to
       | come as he can take as naturally nobody cares about long term.
        
       | stakkur wrote:
       | My wife's a middle school teacher for over 22 years. If you want
       | an unvarnished view into just how bad things have gotten since
       | the pandemic begain--for mental health, school engagement, and
       | all things related--talk to a teacher. It's unprecedented, and
       | the long tail of the damage will take decades to understand.
        
       | tomohawk wrote:
       | It's not like the CDC wasn't warned that their policies would be
       | harmful. Oh, wait, they were!
       | 
       | Unfortunately, the CDC policies were captive to the teacher's
       | unions, who are anti-child and anti-parent.
       | 
       | https://nypost.com/2021/05/01/teachers-union-collaborated-wi...
        
         | JaimeThompson wrote:
         | How are they "anti-parent"?
        
           | manuelabeledo wrote:
           | They are "anti-parent" only if they are viewed as
           | babysitters.
           | 
           | I think that this idea has been pushed by right wing media as
           | part of their "open for business" rhetoric. They claim to be
           | concerned about children wellbeing, when the actual goal is
           | to get kids out of their homes and parents back to the
           | offices.
        
         | manuelabeledo wrote:
         | So a teacher's union pushed to protect teachers during a
         | pandemic. Shocking, especially after ~1000 teachers died from
         | COVID-19.
        
           | tomohawk wrote:
           | Thanks for agreeing that the teacher's union pursued an
           | agenda contrary to the needs of our children.
           | 
           | It won't be shocking given this activity to undermine our
           | children's health that parents will work to re-orient the
           | teacher's union to a mission that is actually useful to
           | society.
        
             | manuelabeledo wrote:
             | > Thanks for agreeing that the teacher's union pursued an
             | agenda contrary to the needs of our children.
             | 
             | That's the (far) reaching conclusion from the NYP, that not
             | going to school made kids depressed.
             | 
             | The reality is that the only obvious consequence was that
             | schools were closed during the pandemic for health reasons.
             | 
             | Now, children mental health treatment have been on the rise
             | for the past 30 years or so. Teen suicide grew by 60%
             | between 2007 and 2018. I doubt that you can blame that to
             | the pandemic too.
             | 
             | > It won't be shocking given this activity to undermine our
             | children's health that parents will work to re-orient the
             | teacher's union to a mission that is actually useful to
             | society.
             | 
             | Here's the thing: teachers didn't sign up to be expendable
             | babysitters. They are supposed to teach, not to risk their
             | lives or keep your kids under supervision. If you would
             | like that, schools may be as well served by the National
             | Guard.
        
             | hotpotamus wrote:
             | Perhaps we should have a children's union. Maybe then
             | someone will think of the children.
        
           | spookthesunset wrote:
           | Somehow grocery stores managed to stay open. So did tire
           | repair centers, auto shops, home depots, uber drivers, pot
           | shop employees, pharmacy employees... what makes teachers so
           | damn special?
           | 
           | Adults sacrifice for children. Asking children, none of whom
           | are at risk, to sacrifice for more than a year for a bunch of
           | frightened adults... it is so disgustingly immoral I can't
           | even.
           | 
           | If teachers were scared, they should have quit and let
           | somebody else teach the kids. Covid isn't and never was some
           | modern black plague. The median age of death was higher than
           | the average life expectancy of a human.
        
             | manuelabeledo wrote:
             | > what makes teachers so damn special?
             | 
             | Ridiculous. None of those jobs can be performed remotely.
             | 
             | > Adults sacrifice for children [...] If teachers were
             | scared, they should have quit and let somebody else teach
             | the kids.
             | 
             | So you recognise the need for teachers, but not their right
             | to live? Laughable. Also, there is a teacher shortage in
             | the US. It's not like there are people queuing up to become
             | teachers, so your point is moot.
             | 
             | > The median age of death was higher than the average life
             | expectancy of a human.
             | 
             | Disregarding the fact that comparing medians and averages
             | makes no sense, what does this matter? Lung cancer
             | disproportionally kills more old than young people, does
             | that mean that youngsters should be allowed to work in an
             | asbestos infested environment?
             | 
             | Regardless, the average age of teachers in the US is 42
             | years, and ~20% of them are 55 years or older [1]. COVID-19
             | deaths are 4% in the 40-49 age range, and 19% in the 50-64
             | age range [2]. On top of that, 60% of Americans have one or
             | more comorbidities that increase COVID-19 risk [3], and
             | long term COVID-19 is definitely a thing [4]. In
             | comparison, if we were to accept that not going to school
             | made children suicidal, which is quite a leap, still puts
             | suicide rates hundreds of times below COVID-19 mortality
             | rate.
             | 
             | So what exactly is your standing here? That we need
             | healthier teachers? More reckless ones? That teachers
             | should be trained to disregard their own safety in order to
             | satisfy your demands? What exactly are the risks in
             | children development that would justify all this, by the
             | way?
             | 
             | [1] https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/ntps/tables/ntps1718_fltabl
             | e02_t...
             | 
             | [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-
             | deaths-...
             | 
             | [3] https://www.healthline.com/health-news/60-percent-of-
             | america...
             | 
             | [4] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-
             | conditions/coronavirus/i...
        
               | spookthesunset wrote:
               | Your own data doesn't say Covid deaths are 4% for that
               | age bracket. The IFR for that bracket is orders of
               | magnitude better.
               | 
               | That research says that 4% of all deaths came out of that
               | age bracket...
               | 
               | Your own data says teachers aren't the largest risk
               | group.
               | 
               | Do any of all the pro-lockdown people even look at the
               | data?
        
       | Proven wrote:
        
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