Why are we so depressed as a society?
As the most well-connected society in human history, why is depression such a big problem?
The best time to be alive is now — if you’re lucky.
Nowadays we can call a relative of ours from the opposite side of the world and, if he picks up, we will literally be face to face while standing hundreds of thousands of meters apart.
A study asked Americans how many close friends could they turn to in a crisis (meaning: close friends). Years ago, the most common answer was 5. Nowadays, the most common answer is 0.
Why is that?
What is making us depressed?
Is it videogames?
Many critics blame videogames for depression in today’s society, but many studies would say otherwise.
A study published this year, 2020, compiled and analysed 13 different studies about the effects Casual Videogames had on stress, anxiety and depression and found that games that are easy to comprehend (unlike gamer-type videogames like League of Legends, World of WarCraft and such) have a huge potential benefit to those with clinical depression (as shown in this single study) and help reduce all the symptoms above.
It also showed us that, in controlled doses, videogames help reduce depression, anxiety and stress symptoms more efficiently than the actual medication.
Controlled doses of videogames help us, but uncontrolled doses can be detrimental for our mental health.
The undisciplined use of videogames will cause addiction which is one of the biggest contributions to depression we have today.
Videogame addictions are probably the biggest reason why a lot of people isolate themselves so much from other people. They don’t need other people to stay entertained. Whether you want to admit it or not, if you self-isolate for long periods of time, sooner or later, you will get lonely and you won’t be able to cope with your loneliness.
Lost Connections
Have you ever asked yourself the question “Why are we alive? How are we alive?”? If you are reading this article, then you probably have and most likely have never found an answer to those questions but I’m not searching for the meaning of life with these questions. I’m legitimately asking “Why and how are we alive today?”.
Professor John T. Cacioppo, a distinguished professor at the University of Chicago answered this question for us.
We are alive because our ancestors in Africa were good at one thing. They weren’t stronger, faster nor bigger than the animals they would hunt. They were good at staying together and cooperating, as a tribe.
Just like bees evolved to live in a hive, humans evolved to live in a tribe.
“If you think about the circumstances where we evolved, if you were cut off from the tribe, you were depressed and anxious for really good reasons, you were in terrible danger, you were about to die. Those are still the impulses we have.” — Johann Hari
Can we treat this loneliness epidemic?
Dr Sam Everington was a pioneer in loneliness. One day, a woman called Lisa Cunningham came to see him. She had been shut away in her home with dreadful depression and anxiety for seven years.
Sam said to Lisa: “I’ll keep prescribing you these drugs, but I’m also going to suggest something else. There’s this area behind the doctors’ suite named ‘Dogshit alley’. I’d like you to turn out a few times a week. I’m gonna come too because I’ve been pretty anxious as well. We’re gonna meet with a group of other depressed and anxious people and we’re gonna find something to do as a group.”.
The first time the group met, Lisa was physically ill with anxiety.
The group started asking what they could do together. They landed on gardening. This “Dogshit Alley” was scrubland and by teaching themselves gardening by watching videos on youtube, they were turning it into a beautiful garden.
As they turned that alley upside down, they started doing something even more important. They started to form a tribe.
If a member of the group didn’t show up, they would look for them, they would check if they were okay. They started caring about each other.
They did what humans do when we are part of a tribe, they solved each other’s problems.
“As the garden began to bloom, we began to bloom” — Lisa Cunningham
Is this social media’s fault?
This is a complex question with a complex answer.
The simple answer would be “Yes, social media did this to us”. That would be too simplistic.
“Human beings have a need to be seen” — Johann Hari
What do young men (more men than women, so I’m going to generalize) get by playing and — sometimes — getting addicted to these multiplayer games like World of Warcraft, League of Legends, Dota, etcetera? They must be getting something out of it, right?
Correct, they are. Young men tend to get addicted to this type of games because they get a shallow version of what they instinctively need as a human being. They get the sense of a tribe like they are part of something greater than themselves. They get a sense of status and a sense of purpose, they believe their life has meaning because of these games.
Social media came at an interesting time in history. We’d been losing those psychological needs since the ’90s and when social media came, it gave us something that looked like the things we’d lost.
Did you lose some friends? Here are 250 Facebook friends.
Do you feel like no one sees you or listens to you? Here, write every thought of yours on Twitter.
Instagram is basically another outlet for us to show off the things we bought or did as a way of coping with our loneliness. We go on these trips to God-know-where and post everything on Instagram to see if anyone cares about our “incredible” life.
If social media is a way station for meeting people offline or staying in touch with people you meet offline, it’s a good thing. If it’s the last stop on the line, generally something’s gone wrong. — John Cacioppo
Conclusion
The capitalist world works in a way that makes us feel inadequate, makes us feel like we don’t fit in unless we have everything money can buy. It makes us materialistic and shallow.
We live in a machine that is designed to get us to neglect what is important about life” — Tim Kasser
Our values are shifted from what we need — our psychological needs — to what we believe we need, what is implanted in our brains by ads.
You don’t need that $150 jacket nor do you need that pizza with extra cheese, yet we still “indulge” with the BS that advertisements put in from of us.
It might be a cliché, but no one goes to bed thinking about how many likes they got on Instagram, or how many people retweeted something you said. You go to bed and reminisce the moments of true passion, moments of true emotional connection.
