Prevalence of mental health issues
I was talking to my mum the other day about mental health problems in my year at school. I told her that at least 10 girls have had problems with anorexia and/or bulimia, and at least 10 have self-harmed. I don't know the figures for other mental health issues, or how many of those overlap, but in a year of only 110 girls it seems like a lot. My mum told me that she doesn't remember anyone in her year at school ever having anorexia or self-harming, and it got me thinking: do you think mental health issues have become more common in the past few decades, or have we just started to notice them more as they've become more accepted? Or something else entirely?All thoughts welcome :)
This is a great question Georgie. I think we are actually bringing more light to certain topics nowadays. I think previously things like this were discussed very privately and not so much in the media. I think somewhere during the 80s and 90s (just a guess from watching movies and such) these issues became more publicized and we know a lot more about them. They are probably still underreported though even today.
I think there's definitely still a problem to do with not enough awareness of them, and the representations we do have often being negative - I know that stories about criminals with mental health problems, for example, are a lot more common than stories about successful businesspeople with mental health problems, and so on. But yeah, I think awareness has increased!
That's a really interesting question. Both my parents are psychologists, so even though I have no sources to support my opinions, I know a lot about their personal experience. Anyways, in my opinion, it's different because both the medical science and psychiatry have progressed a lot in the last couple decades, and so has society. I feel that doctors are more likely to recognize an eating disorder, and at the same time, young people tend to be more open about their issues. It'd be interesting to see some statistics about this, but I don't necessarily think the number of people with mental illness has increased exponentially. They're just more likely to seek out professional help and talk about it, imo.
I think you're probably right. At the same time, though, I do wonder if the actual number has increased just by a little, even. I've heard that stress levels in young people have risen, which could lead to mental health issues rising, too. I really would like to see figures on this, though, I think would be interesting! And could be valuable for assessing how awareness has changed over the years.
It's really hard to say anything about the statistics behind mental health issues without any actual numbers. However it does seem to be something that we hear about more often largely because of progresses made through awareness campaigns and education, and then spread through social media.
Prior to the dominating force of social media, most of the information we received likely came from people we know, or things published through the media. When published through the media, there's an inherent filtering of information with a bias towards sensationalism and profit. Mental illness probably wasn't high on the priority list. Social media may still be limited by these influences in many cases, but a lot of it is done by regular people like you or me, and we aren't nearly as influenced by those same forces. The increased prevalance of mental health awareness messages also means that those suffering from those issues might feel a sense of increasing social acceptance (though obviously the stigma still strongly exists).
Awareness campaigns that are being driven by social media docarry problems however, because social media has also helped to fostor a culture that gets its information in the form of "sound bites",140 characters, a gif, tumblr image, etc. When you have to condense your message to cater tosuch a short attention span, you're forced to simply the message, which in turn simplifies the problem. Unless the audience member cares to do a little research to learn more about the issue presented, it's likely that their impression of said problem will be limited to what they see in that condensed message. Sadly what a lot of people take away from these messages are limited to: said issue is a problem, said issue is bad, share this message to help spread awareness.
TLDR: Increased prevalence? Hard to say. Increased awareness? Yes. Is that a good thing? Not necessarily.
I have to disagree with you.I'm not sure that increased awareness can ever be a bad thing. You're right that social media can never deliver a complete, detailed account ofany issue, however, how can anyone do their own research on something if they don't know it exists in the first place? Yes, there will be people who will just hit retweet/reblog/share and won't care beyond that. But there will also be people who will read up on it and make their own mind. If someone is willing to educate themselves on something I'm suffering from/am passionate about, I don't care if they heard about it on twitter, tumblr, or facebook. It's still as valid as if they first read about the issue in a medical journal.
It sounds like I'm looking at this from a more pessimistic perspective, while you're looking at it more optimistically.
For me, a very concrete example off the top of my head would be the Kony 2012 fake issue that spread like wildfire all over the internet. The fact that the truth behind it was just a google search away and yet it dominated social media attention for so long tells me that most people won't look any further thanthe Like or Share button.
Well, I think we were talking about slightly different things, then. The original post was aboutillnesses, so that's what I had in mind. For example, the ice water bucket thing. Some people will do it only for fun or the hack of it, but I'm sure there are people who will actually go and research what ALS is. That is raising awareness, and it's a good thing.
However, politics, (like KONY, the crisis in Ukraine, Israel vs. Hamas), is a totally different thing and not what I was thinking about, really. Sadly, some people are gullible and will believe everything they read on the internet. But is that raising awareness? Or spreading hoaxes and misinformation? In my opinion, raising awareness about something means to tell people, "This thing exists, learn more about it if you want." Which doesn't really work for political conflicts, as those are never presented in a neutral, unbiased way.
(Btw I edited the typo in your post :))
Thanks forediting my typos!
I don't want to get too off-topic and go further into the nature of politics and social media, etc., so I'll leave those pointsat that.
HoweverAndiLovedid bring up the Ebola issue, which perhaps might be a better example of what I'm talking about. The Ebola scare shows how quickly awareness might not necessarily become a good thing. Most people heard about the news and thought, "Oh no! Ebola's back!" The word spread about this terrible disease making a return, but the fact that so many people are scaredis indicative that they didn't dig deeper into what Ebola is, and why they don't need to worry. Simply increasing awareness of therecurrence of Ebola cases did not necessarily mean that the public educated themselves on the disease.
Still, I understand that there will be some who do dig deeper into the story, especially to help debunk these fears, e.g. the social media group, "I [REALLY] Love Science" linked a lot of articles explaining why the Ebola scare is unnecessary.
I still think we're thinking about different things, but oh well :) The Ebola thing falls more under the "politics" umbrella, in my opinion. Same as bird flu, or anthrax, or things like that. There is a real danger of contracting those diseases (however tiny it might be), so it gives the media a great chance of creating fearand getting more clicks (and more money). I don't think that's raising awareness, but I realize I might be just arguing semantics now :) Imo, raising awareness would be saying, "Ebola exists, look it up." However, saying, "OmgEbola is here you're all going to die," is not raising awareness about an issue, but using scaring tactics for profit
ebola is a disease. not politics.
there is also a diffusion of responsibility. when people think a lot of people are aware of an issue they may be like oh others will take care of it so i don't have to and them sometimes no one takes care of it because they think the responsibility is shared and that takes the pressure off them.
I think Chester addressed this. Raising awareness and raising education about an issue can are different things in our world today.
I also am going to excuse myself because I don't want to take away from Georgie's original post. (sorry Georgie!)
Haha, don't worry about it! This is a very interesting discussion in its own right. I have to agree with Barushhere about raising awareness, though. Although raising awareness can be done negatively, or used to scare people, I think it still has a positive effect, as there will be people out there who take it upon themselves to do more research and find out the truth about these things, and that's actually really helpful. There's always a risk that raising awareness could lead to something negative, but I don't think that should lead to us avoiding trying to raise awareness or anything like that - which is why I don't think it can be a bad thing to raise awareness through things like the ice bucket challenge. Yes, maybe very few people donated, but that's still more people than would have donated if the challenge hadn't started. I would agree that raising education is a different thing, though. Raising awareness does not lead to raising education always, but it can do, which is why I think raising awareness is important. To link back to my original question, it has helped people with mental health issues feel more open about them, and possibly get the support they need, therefore. There is definitely still a stigma, and that could come from negative awareness raising (not sure that makes sense :P ) but that stigma has been there for years, and raising awareness and so education, if we can, seems like a great way to combat it.
If I had to guess, I would say mental illness is as prevalent now as it always has been. We're just noticing it more. Also, in the United States, there hasbeen a gradual movement since the 1950s to move people from institutions to community based care. The movement really took off in the 1970s and 80s. These changes have largely been a good thing, but there's been some negative side effects as well. For example, the severely mentally ill often end up incarcerated. The US Department of Justice recently released a statement regarding the problem of insufficient treatment for the mentally ill in the LA County Jail system:http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2014/June/14-crt-610.html
Well you don't need to go as far as your mom. My older sister says she doesn't understand the teens today. Meh
I feel every generation has its low and high points.
Back then people considered it weird and bad if you admitted you are depressed. But now many won't judge you and will show more empathy towards you.
Awareness about an issue can be good or bad depending on what you do with knowledge you have.
Each year, the demand for psychiatrists and psychologists keep getting higher since there'll be an expected 'boom' in mental health issues by 2020, amd the certain issue that will increase by 2020 is Depression. They are expecting that 50% of the entire population will have depressive disorders. I remember that fact quite well when I watched TV. Lol. There are many things that might contribute to the steady rise in mental health issues, actually. All across the web. Such are technology, evolution, socioeconomic factors to name a few.
I think you are correct about two points. Yes, psychology is becoming more and more accepted in comparison from the several past decades and that psychology is progressing more, in comparison from the previous century. There have been many breakthroughs in psychology, in different areas.
As for prevalence, hm, I guess it would actually differ on what kind/type of disorder an individual has.
Wish this provided a bit of an insight.
Cheerios!