Harriet Carroll
Peter CohenWhy is it that we keep blaming our kids' depression and anxiety on social media and smartphones instead of the fact that we've turned the entire planet into a burning dumpster fire for them to deal with
Paul McO'Smith III@flargh i will reiterate my position on this. sometimes depression and anxiety are not based on things that are happening. this upsets people who have long term mental, untreatable, issues. please be nice.
betalars 
@home@pavsmith yeah, but when numbers of depression and anxiety are on a steady increase, it's very important to look at causes.
Devin@pavsmith @flargh Rising rates of anxiety and depression correlate with the exacerbation of neoliberal capitalism. While there will always be people who struggle more than others, it is crucial to accept that living in a poisoned society is the seedbed that breeds mental health problems with such frequency as we are seeing.
Morgan ⚧️@pavsmith @flargh as one of those people I still think it's better to say that the world being on fire is probably contributing more to poor mental health than social media and smartphones
and as one of those people, with a better world where I didn't have to struggle to survive with little hope of my planet being livable for the rest of my natural lifespan, I'd still be fucked in the head but my mental health would probably be doing better too
and as one of those people, with a better world where I didn't have to struggle to survive with little hope of my planet being livable for the rest of my natural lifespan, I'd still be fucked in the head but my mental health would probably be doing better too
Ken Brucker@flargh without social media and their smart phones they (and we) wouldn’t know about the worldwide dumpster fire? 🤷♂️
Jonathan 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️🇨🇦🇲🇽
Casper 👻@flargh no, no, no it’s those damned video games …
@caspercdn I blame heavy metal and D&D.
@flargh Rock and Roll is just a fad …
James Baker 🍁
Heavy Metal Poisoning - Styx
Ugly Bag of Mostly Water@flargh it's easier to point fingers than to lift them in the work required to fix the real problems.
justicesandwich@flargh we've also removed all publicly accessible social services
Lightning Bjornsson* 
@justicesandwich @flargh and filled the biosphere with glyphosate
Lars Marowsky-Brée 😷@flargh Thanks for making me feel like a kid again 😬
Shar(yna)Tran/Shark(aeopteryx)@flargh at this point I think it's because social media and pocket internet is how most of the kids are finding out about the burning dumpster fire we're leaving for them and pundits just wish they could go back to uninformed kids they could lie to without consequences
Violet MadderIt's weird how people talk about how strange and mysterious this mental health crisis is, with THIS DAMNED ELEPHANT in the room crushing civilization...
rlm@flargh Thank you. As a parent and a teacher, I am constantly trying to make this point.
Patsy@flargh my take is that their anxiety and depression is from a combination of several factors and heavily connected to diet. A high inflammatory diet (fast and processed foods) can lead to an inflamed body and brain. Top that off with exceedingly high expectations on our youth with less support and resources while they’re being targeted by marketing and social media companies to be consumers. That scheme includes being told they’re less than they are and consuming solves the problem.
Darrell Bowles@flargh I have no idea. But I do think that social media and the wide spread use of devices are at least in part to blame.
Sane Thinker@flargh Our depression runs far deeper than that. We are barely tethered to reality anymore. Living as a human has been stolen from us. https://geoffreydeihl.substack.com/p/the-illusions-of-fossil-fuels
@gdeihl @flargh “Our humanity has been stolen. If we’re lucky, or ruthless, we live in gilded cages.” Yes! We’ll said and great piece of writing. Thank you for sharing! Have you read Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau? He’s definitely onto something and we’re going have to make some hard choices and organized defiance inorder to reclaim our individual and collective humanity.
@macnchez @flargh I have a copy of Walden around here somewhere. Thoreau saw and felt the disconnection when it was far less disconnected than it is now. Sadly, we don't learn from the great writers and artists. Generally, they are the best of us. Glad you liked my essay. I can't get my mind off of the human condition anymore. It feels a little harder every day to bear witness.
@macnchez @flargh I believe in this, but the conversation isn't even on the table. https://geoffreydeihl.substack.com/p/degrowth-the-vision-we-must-demand
@gdeihl @flargh you’re unfortunately correct about that. We are far from challenging capitalism and it’s impact on humanity. So long as society is measured by its wealth we are in big trouble. I sense with some strong movements we could at the very least undo citizens United and that starts the butterfly effect. Lots of great work is being done to counter the abuse on our planet and I believe it will emerge when the time is right and the people will be there to back it.
Darwin Woodka
Thorsten Nesch@flargh because that's just what conservatives do.
House Panther 
@flargh We are trying to find a root cause for their depression and anxiety. If we were serious about it, we'd look #capitalism in the face. Capitalism, in my humble opinion, is responsible for exacerbating, if not an outright cause, of some forms of mental illness.
Adlangx@flargh I think part of it is that social media and the general media reward doom and gloom and rarely offers solutions or actions that can be taken for the problems we face.
That is not by accident, my friend.
Scary as that thought is, it also brings me comfort.
@violetmadder @flargh It's profit seeking.
Aprettyture! [0172]@flargh id also like to posit that car based infrastructure and systems designed explicitly to keep kids out of places where theyd normally be (such as malls) has forced many children to NEED social media to get any kind of interaction
Vincarsi@flargh yesterday, I spoke to a boomer who got under my skin cause I was sincerely trying to communicate. She said they're tired of fighting, I told her we need their support if we're going to win this, she said I'm "falling for divide and conquer" because she thinks I'm rude. I told her that denying support to the people fighting and tone policing us instead is actually falling for divide and conquer. Then she blocked me.
They're too set on seeing us as beneath them. Idk how to get through
They're too set on seeing us as beneath them. Idk how to get through
Jane Shull@flargh Wow. Thanks for making that point clear!
@flargh My kid's principal chided us for telling her about an incident that happened in our neighborhood. She said that knowing about such things might cause anxiety. Cue flashback to little me drenched in anxiety because I knew something bad had happened and no one would tell me what was going on so my extremely vivid imagination tried to fill in the blanks.
If the world is too scary to raise your kids in, the solution is to work at solving the problems, not leaving your kids in the dark.
If the world is too scary to raise your kids in, the solution is to work at solving the problems, not leaving your kids in the dark.
Marco van der Heide
Panix@flargh The world has always been a garbage dump. The tools they've been given are crap. The prevailing ideologies make them weak.
Cutts@flargh it's easier to blame folk devils than the generational trauma the parents inflict on their kids, intended or not.
I'm 34 and still working through the shit my stepdad put me through.
therieau@flargh Because the tech sector doesn't contribute as much to campaigns and spend the ad dollars media and politicians think they deserve.
Dave Wakeman@flargh tough, but fair.
Jeff ♨️ Darcy@flargh Aren't there two schools of "social media causes depression" though? One says that it's social media *Itself*, while the other says that social media amplify the psychological impact of the other problems you mention. "Instead of" only applies to the first.
hapbt@flargh also the fact that their generation didn’t invent these things, previous generations created the technology and own all these companies
John Quiggin@flargh And why is it all about kids? I'm 67 and I'm super-depressed about this
Ms. Peg@flargh Why can't it be both?
Lynda 🇳🇬@flargh
I'm stressed and depressed; that's the main reason I don't feel comfortable bringing a child into this world. I feel choked, and my biggest fear is what if I'm unable to protect my child? It is better not to start what I cannot finish.
I'm stressed and depressed; that's the main reason I don't feel comfortable bringing a child into this world. I feel choked, and my biggest fear is what if I'm unable to protect my child? It is better not to start what I cannot finish.
Simo@flargh And the smartphone makes them hyperaware of this reality and keeps them ho0elessly addicted to it.
Ann Lipton@flargh because their social media and smartphones is how they found out about it
@annmlipton @flargh because not knowing about a problem so no one ever does anything about it is the best way to solve it!
SearingTruth"In a world where all were meant to be blind I longed only for my vision to cease."
SearingTruth
ottawasteph 🕊️@flargh Mental health diseases are neurological brain disorders, not individual emotions.
M. Fioretti@flargh who is to blame for what, is another issue. But I'd say that smartphones greatly contribute to make /prime many kids depressed or anxious BEFORE they start to realize we've turned the planet into a dumpster etc (which we have)
kb@flargh also covid
Adara Astin@flargh Because the first puts the blame on them but the second on us?
Mori@flargh To be fair, these are not mutually exclusive and I’m pretty sure it’ll be a bit of both those things.
Kristin Davidson {kxd}@flargh The people who blame them for that are the same people who deny they've turned the entire planet into a burning dumpster fire.