Joanthan Haidt article on why 'emotional thinking' causes depression in young women

Sensitive and thin-skinned are not the same thing. Many of the young people most vocally pro-trans seem very touchy but pretty insensitive.

People go into a lot of detail to justify and defend their SM usage, when no one attacked it.

It's just how smokers and alcoholics behave when you mention you don't smoke or say you think drinking causes a lot of problems.

The fact that liberal girls are most affected to me is about nature rather than nurture. By their very nature they are going to be the group most affected/damaged by what goes on on SM as they are likely to be more sensitive then their conservative peers

I’m not convinced that liberals are more sensitive than conservatives (or that being liberal is a nature thing). Conservatives are pretty sensitive too - just to different things and their responses might look different.

Social media usage varies - different people use it in different ways, and the content is consumed and processed within different social ecosystems. So the ways in which it is damaging might look different.

Jealous people seem to be quite limited in critical thinking skills in my experience.

The social media thing is interesting. I use instagram for my gymnastics hobby. I post videos of myself working on new moves, progress videos where I track improvement on a certain element over months/years, or ones where I'm bad at a movement because I don't have the strength and flexibility, do a particular exercise for a time period and then see if it's helped.

I use instagram for a few reasons. 1. tbh, I like seeing the progress I'm making and I wouldn't document it like this just for myself. 2. I have made a number of instagram "friends" who are at similar levels and it's been useful to see how we're progressing and/or what has or hasn't been working for us. And 3. I follow some really top level gymnasts/dancers both to get ideas and inspiration and just to admire their skill level. Many of them do things that I realistically, won't ever achieve because I started in middle-age and can't dedicate the same amount of time to my training as they do. But that's fine, I just like admiring their abilities and aiming for even 5% of their skill for me one day. It's a 100% positive experience for me. It helps me keep moving on a hobby I love, that not only makes me happy but improves my health and fitness as I age.

I'm also in a couple of whatsapp chat groups and a few are largely populated by women younger than me in their 20s and 30s. And an awful lot of them have started saying that following the hobby on instagram is destroying their mental health because they aren't as good as the people they follow. And it's just so insane to me. They have access to a tool that can help them to learn and provide camaraderie as they do so but they are leaning into the small moments of envy or insecurity that they can find in it. A friend who I train in real life with, went from less good than me to far better than me while I couldn't train for a few months. Did I love that? Nope! Part of me had a small sulk that she'd passed me out. But I also thought, actually, it's quite inspiring to see someone make that kind of progress, so I'm inspired to try harder and make that progress myself too. I can accept that other people will be better than me, will progress faster and that even though that makes me feel a bit bad, I can get over that. I'm a bit competitive, most people are, but I choose to focus more on my competitiveness with myself and my own desire to improve over getting bogged down by jealousy when other people are better.

I'm not sure it's entirely social media though, because this can and does happen in real life. I'm sure that the type of person to get frustrated by the progress of a practical stranger on instagram would get just as frustrated, if not more so, by the progress of someone they train with in real life. Social media just provides more new ways to let yourself get bogged down.

To me at the root of everything in this article is SM. SM is what is damaging kids.

The fact that liberal girls are most affected to me is about nature rather than nurture. By their very nature they are going to be the group most affected/damaged by what goes on on SM as they are likely to be more sensitive then their conservative peers.

I find there's often this idea though that people learn to cope by dropping them into situations, like 'I was left to roam the streets from the age of 4 so I learnt how to look after myself and that I was in control'. Whereas IMO you can't force healthy independence on people, it comes when they're ready and some are ready way before others. Coping skills for all sorts of situations can be taught and learnt by watching others though of course. Kids learning by themselves out roaming around or from their peers or on SM also happens but may not be the coping mechanisms you'd hope for - eating disorders and self harm are all over SM, smoking, drinking, drugs, unsafe sex were are more likely with teens that were just hanging around even back 30 years ago.

Feeling victimised/marginalised and bonding over it has always been a thing, from punks to goths to emo's and now gender nonsense. But SM allows the bonding/pressure to spread much faster and further and deeper, it's much more intense, and there's no getting away from it. Before SM you could come home from school and escape, now it's 24/7.

.I think it's important for students to know what they can and can't cope with though, 30 years ago a friend of mine chose not to study Peter Schaffer's Equus because she didn't think she could cope with it, it was actually a bold move IMO as she then had to study a different book in her own time with support from the teacher where possible. The difference was she didn't say the book shouldn't be on the curriculum or no one should study it, she didn't organise a protest or think she needed to get it banned, she just quietly got on with doing what worked for her.

In conclusion I'd say that SM isn't suitable for under 18's and that sensitive girls are the most negatively affected by it. That we need to stop groups of emotionally riled up young people banning things and cancelling things and put a stop to the walking on eggshells around them - but allow them not to participate and to find their own suitable alternative if they are struggling to cope with a particular aspect.

Outstanding essay thank you so much for sharing. And I agree, it is exacerbated by the competition for most oppressed.

I think this is insightful and it resonates with my experience of support groups/communities in various ways.

I’ve got an autoimmune condition and a neurodiversity condition. One of the bits of advice everyone gives you when you are diagnosed and at any point where you try to resolve any problems you might be having is to direct you at groups for people with those conditions. Or social media materials produced by the ‘community’ for the ‘community’.

But my experience is that these kind of groups (however well intentioned) very easily fall into a kind of reverse CBT dynamic, an us and them mindset and a kind of victimhood narrative. As a result I’ve always found that engaging with any of this stuff tends to make things harder for me - it actually exacerbates my symptoms and the problems I might be trying to resolve in various ways.

The objection that tends to be raised if you discuss this psychological effect is that you are dismissing the reality of the condition. My autoimmune condition is painful, does affect what I can do, and so on. But considering how a focus on this and how the world doesn’t understand/care/makes things harder - even just a focus on the need to compensate for it all the time - might actually exacerbate this too easily is cast aside as dismissing the experiences of /people with these conditions.

But what I find most useful is things that help me to function in a society that’s composed of all kinds of people. Viewing myself as separate from that and victimised by it really doesn’t help
me.

As I said, mostly the people in these communities are well meaning and trying to do their best/support each other. This article is helpful to me in thinking through why I find that this makes things harder for me.

Absolutely right. Genderism is an ideology, nothing else.

Wow, this has been a wonderful thread to read.

This sentence jumped out at me as being very sad: “People like me don’t have much of a chance at a successful life.” It's long bothered me that in teaching people about sexism, racism etc (which we do need to do) we also feed the message that you are a victim because of you innate characteristics and the world is unfair to you. And that seems like a horrible view to go through life with.

It's not that I think it's an untrue statement, but if it assumes too much significance in your life it's unhealthy. I'm actually really glad that I grew up with a message of mostly, 'Sexism is shit, but it's not pervasive any more.' I didn't have my identity built around the fact I was female too, because I thought it didn't matter that much.

As I've got older I've come to see it as a little optimistic, but I don't think it was a bad attitude to grow up with.

What the article doesn’t do is explore the link between the high status of marginalised identities in this cohort and the reverse CBT effect. It’s not just that people divide the world into good/bad oppressed/oppressors it’s that they develop personalities around traits which allow them access to the more highly prized Good/oppressed categories. But whether or not your feelings are justified, feeling oppressed is pretty miserable so we have the bizarre situation that something that is harmful is simultaneously recognised as such and also desired, a form of self-harm.

I think that's very insightful and I haven't seen it articulated so clearly before. But I think it's true. I can remember, as a younger person, the temptation to fall into that kind of thinking and perceptual reality. And I've seen a lot of other people almost force themselves into it, I think for the reason you say, it's a way to claim a higher spot in the power hierarchy.

I read it at the weekend too in I think the Free Press and thought it was very good. And while I’m sure it’s not quite as simple as “reverse CBT” it’s a good model to explain what we are seeing.

As others said the 3 untruths are spot on.

What the article doesn’t do is explore the link between the high status of marginalised identities in this cohort and the reverse CBT effect. It’s not just that people divide the world into good/bad oppressed/oppressors it’s that they develop personalities around traits which allow them access to the more highly prized Good/oppressed categories. But whether or not your feelings are justified, feeling oppressed is pretty miserable so we have the bizarre situation that something that is harmful is simultaneously recognised as such and also desired, a form of self-harm.

(I am also interested in the role of tumblr. I was too old when it was big to pay any attention even though I was aware of it, so the impact on teenage girls completely passed me by.)

I'm extremely extremely sceptical of the majority of the mental health field. I saw firsthand how very simple it was (and still is) for my XH to manipulate the vast majority of the therapists, psychologists and psychiatrists he saw. And how easy it was for him to move on to another one as soon as they started to see through him. I saw him get addicted to supposedly non addictive SSRIs, get prescribed benzos which he became highly addicted to. I saw how he'd cycle through drug assisted functional states which he'd inevitably crash out of. I saw him absolutely coddled.

After I left him I had his then psychiatrist call me (despite me making it clear I had no more interest in engaging in his treatment) to tell me I was wrong about what I'd experienced with him. That his relapses were inevitable and I should just accept that. It wasn't until I outright asked him why, if he was telling me that he'd never be sober long-term that I should spend my life and raise my DS with him, that he didn't have a smooth answer for me.

I've seen soooo many friends end up in clearly worse places after starting therapy and/or antidepressants. I'm not saying that either of those things are never good or necessary but too often they are applied in a way that is utterly disempowering. When people generally need to feel empowered to improve their situations. Sometimes that empowerment means making radical changes like leaving a partner/job/country. At other times that empowerment comes from learning to live through a situation you can't change. But way, way too often mental health treatment encourages people to do the opposite of what they should be doing.

When someone is in an abusive situation. Being told by the people that you have gone to for help ia that your own reaction to the abuse is what is making you unhappy as opposed to the abuse is extremely dangerous. That's what I experienced for years. The control I had to leave could only be exercised by understanding that someone else was actually responsible for my unhappiness. It was only my fault in that I stayed with him. But "just leaving" is incredibly difficult and is something that should be supported as opposed to carefully encouraged.

But one of the things you could control was whether you stayed. Whether you prioritised him above yourself.
It's not just about feelings. How we feel is one thing, what we do about a second.

What have all these support groups, therapists and MH services achieved?

I don't know anyone they have actually helped, I have seen some drugged zombies and some brain damaged from Electric shock treatment even worse than had they not visited.

I seriously thinks all these theories, attachment, Queer, Freud, AlAnon stc have some elements that may be slightly helpful to a few, none are the answer to life or for everyone, yet their cult members get angry at blasphemy and non believes.

I read somewhere that 2/3 of Mother's would prefer to stay economically inactive and stay at home with their children, for whatever reasons they don't. Guilt can so strange things to patents.

Al-anon and a number of other support groups and therapists I went to that used the Al-anon/AA model as the basis of their treatment. The only people who ever told me he was making me unhappy and that I should consider leaving him were my parents. And they did that very, very carefully as they were worried about pushing me away if they were too forthright.

(It's not really the topic of their thread but I've since looked a lot into the roots of al-anon and it was founded based off Bill Wilson's (creator of AA) chapter in The Big Book that he wrote as if written by his wife Lois, to essentially tell women to stay in their marriages and leave their husband's to it.)

Telling children that they need other people not to recognize what sex they are, and that if other people do recognize their sex, they will feel terrible, has to be the ultimate externalisation of that locus of control.

It places them as tiny boats adrift in the ocean of other people's reactions.

I don't think Haidt is arguing that it's all in your head. Of course our circumstances affect us. But we have to take personal responsibility for changing those circumstances when we can.

I agree with the vast majority of this however there are also some dangers in teaching people that external factors aren't what drives your emotional responses. I was married to an alcoholic and most of the advice given to someone who loves an alcoholic is very much along those lines. Ie, you need to control how their behaviour affects you. Their actions don't make you sad, your reactions to their actions make you sad. I'm someone who has always had a strong internal locus of control, so I went along with that for years. Finding my own ways to be happy in that marriage.

Yet the simple fact of the matter is that was bullshit. My husband's actions were making me extremely unhappy. So unhappy that I had forgotten what normal feels like. And the happiness and contentment I'd taught myself to feel within that marriage was keeping me in a state of deep overall misery. Someone was very much making me unhappy and acknowledging that and walking away from it made me very, very happy.

So it's a situation that is often extremely complicated. I was being told to take control of the situation by being responsible for my own happiness because my husband wasn't responsible for my misery. Where as the reality is that I needed to take control of the situation by recognising that someone outside of my was making me miserable and removing myself from the situation. So there are plenty of situations where it's actually very, very helpful to realise that an external factor is causing you misery. Because that's essential to taking control.

Brilliant article expressing much of what I've observed in students over the past few years. I have a lot of compassion for young people as many of them have zero social skills, resilience, courage etc. They have indeed been coddled.