One other thing that might cause this, discussed a bit by Singal and Hertzog, is that there is a glorification of being sad or depressed. Depression is seen as evidence of deepness. The destigmatization of mental illness has, perhaps, gone too far to the point of valorization.
I think there needs to be studies forthat control for what people follow/watch/read on social media. Have a group that follows news accounts and a group that follows meme accounts and family/friends and compare their happiness afterwards.
Wokeness confers status on self determined victimhood, the believers who collect the biggest intersection of oppressions are the most revered, and since being a victim is not concomitant with being happy, it’s not surprising that wokies feel sadder than people who reject that cult.
The connection between sex and trait neuroticism, which you mentioned, is important. I'd bet the early wave of increasingly depressed, anxious girls were largely represented by a subset of women who, at the time, were the least psychologically resilient and/or were in precarious positions in life (men in similar positions have their own problems but it often manifests differently). They were the most susceptible to the harms of social media, compounding whatever problems were already going on, like loneliness, fewer eligible and appealing men on the dating scene, etc.
They were like canaries in the coal mine—the more vulnerable subset of a group telling us something bigger and deeper is wrong. I still see this kind of thing in my practice today.
One other thing that might cause this, discussed a bit by Singal and Hertzog, is that there is a glorification of being sad or depressed. Depression is seen as evidence of deepness. The destigmatization of mental illness has, perhaps, gone too far to the point of valorization.
I think there needs to be studies forthat control for what people follow/watch/read on social media. Have a group that follows news accounts and a group that follows meme accounts and family/friends and compare their happiness afterwards.
I think this is right.
Wokeness confers status on self determined victimhood, the believers who collect the biggest intersection of oppressions are the most revered, and since being a victim is not concomitant with being happy, it’s not surprising that wokies feel sadder than people who reject that cult.
The connection between sex and trait neuroticism, which you mentioned, is important. I'd bet the early wave of increasingly depressed, anxious girls were largely represented by a subset of women who, at the time, were the least psychologically resilient and/or were in precarious positions in life (men in similar positions have their own problems but it often manifests differently). They were the most susceptible to the harms of social media, compounding whatever problems were already going on, like loneliness, fewer eligible and appealing men on the dating scene, etc.
They were like canaries in the coal mine—the more vulnerable subset of a group telling us something bigger and deeper is wrong. I still see this kind of thing in my practice today.