Why are young "liberals" so depressed?

[C C]

Why are young liberals so depressed?
https://www.slowboring.com/p/why-are-you...medium=web

EXCERPTS: Earlier this month the CDC released the results of its Youth Risk Behavior Survey of American teenagers. The findings have been much discussed, with the focus largely and understandably on the fact that teenage girls are suffering from extraordinarily high levels of sadness and depression. But I think the conversation has overlooked a few things.

One possible culprit for this widespread sadness is that social media apps are especially damaging to girls’ psychological health, a thesis long championed by Jonathan Haidt. And even though on its face Haidt’s point seems left-wing (new technology has downside risks and big companies need to be regulated more), the idea has taken on a mostly right-wing inflection, with Josh Hawley as its most vocal champion in the Senate.

[...] But I want to talk about ... a 2021 paper by Catherine Gimbrone, Lisa Bates, Seth Prins, and Katherine Keyes titled “The politics of depression: Diverging trends in internalizing symptoms among US adolescents by political beliefs.”

The CDC survey doesn’t ask teens about their political beliefs, but Gimbrone et. al. find not only divergence by gender, but divergence by political ideology. Breaking things down by gender and ideology, they find that liberal girls have the highest increase in depressive affect and conservative boys have the least. But liberal boys are more depressed than conservative girls, suggesting an important independent role for political ideology.

[...] I think the discussion around gender and the role of social media is an important one. But I also don’t believe that liberal boys are experiencing more depression than conservative girls because they are disproportionately hung up on Instagram-induced body image issues — I think there’s also something specific to politics going on.

Some of it might be selection effect, with progressive politics becoming a more congenial home for people who are miserable. But I think some of it is poor behavior by adult progressives, many of whom now valorize depressive affect as a sign of political commitment. The thing about depression, though, is that it’s bad... (MORE - missing details)

[Syne]

Liberals view emotions as a feature of rationality, while conservatives view it as a bug, study finds
https://www.psypost.org/2023/02/liberals...inds-67609

INTRO: A series of three studies has found that political liberals tend to see emotions as more functional than more conservative people. This comes in spite of the fact that more liberal participants reported less emotional well-being. The research was published in Motivation and Emotion.

What is making young girls so psychologically vulnerable?

Not only does social media open up teens to more potential abuse, it also rewards victimhood. People tend to increase behaviors they are rewarded for. With victimhood, they are being rewarded for ever increasing mental illness.

The fact that leftist guys are bigger head cases, and likely pussies, than conservative girls, is hilarious.

Some of it might be selection effect, with progressive politics becoming a more congenial home for people who are miserable.

Yep, they're all pretty miserable. And they dream up new ways to be miserable all the time.

[Yazata]

Even left-leaning boys suffer more depression than right-leaning girls. So while depression does seem to be correlated with sex, it seems to be even more strongly correlated with political orientation.

It makes sense (to me anyway) when we think about what the democratic party is, here in the United States. Ever since the Civil War the democrats have been the party of the alienated, the party of the self-perceived outsiders. They were the party of the workers against the bosses. They were the party of (white) immigrants against the native born. They were the party of Jews and atheists against the Christians. And for several generations after the Civil War they were the party of white southerners against the victorious north.

During the twentieth century the democrats embraced racial minorities against the whites, dumping the white southerners. They became the party of a new aristocracy of celebrities, government bureaucrats, university professors and the mass media, against the general population perceived as too stupid to rule themselves democratically. The democrats' historic white working class base was unceremoniously dumped. They became the party of feminists, gay radicals and "gender" militants of all sorts, against the "cis-" majority.

The irony is that while today they control the bureaucratic "deep state" regardless of who is president, they control most of the media, they totally control education and are making inroads in big business... they still imagine themselves as rebel outsiders fighting against oppression. They still identify themselves 60's-style with demonstrators in the streets, fighting "the system" (which today is them). It doesn't have to make sense or be consistent, it's psychological.

The one thing that ties them all together, despite all of their different issues and interests, is their shared feeling of oppression. So popular culture, education and the mass media are all about stoking their sense of grievance, promoting the idea they are in mortal danger, at risk, and the constant victims of the evil MAGA majority's stupidity, bigotry and oppression. (That's the context for the 'zombie-apocalypse' movie genre.)

And it's the explanation for Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS). His election seemed to justify all their deepest fears. Their reaction was often hysterical and irrational. And thousands of university students flocked into student psychological counseling and into their protective "safe spaces".

It's almost the perfect recipe for increasing anxiety and depression. That's by design. Those promoting it hope that the resulting anxiety will win them votes in elections.

[stryder]

Misery loves company and the one thing the internet has brought too the world with social networks is "company".

Without the social networks, sufferage of any depressing ailment would of likely been bottled-up or shared with a smaller group of people rather than audience.

That being said, social networking can also be used to aid people in finding help when they are low or finding others to help them out of a jam. (pros vs cons)

I mention it because the youth of today is in a heightened connected state, which isn't necessarily healthy if everyone is trying to gain the attention of others by "+1ing" everyone else.

[Syne]

Yeah, depression has become performative online.

[RainbowUnicorn]

climate change
global rise in nationalism
more open access of hate speech
lack of vocational security
rising education costs
rising food costs
housing crisis

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Misery loves company and the one thing the internet has brought too the world with social networks is "company".

Without the social networks, sufferage of any depressing ailment would of likely been bottled-up or shared with a smaller group of people rather than audience.

That being said, social networking can also be used to aid people in finding help when they are low or finding others to help them out of a jam.  (pros vs cons)

I mention it because the youth of today is in a heightened connected state, which isn't necessarily healthy if everyone is trying to gain the attention of others by "+1ing" everyone else.

what age group are committing the epidemic of mass shootings in the usa  ?
what age group are committing the epidemic of suicides in the usa ?