To think we wouldn't have as many MH problems if we lived differently

[Ginlette]

Panic attacks, anxiety, depression...

How much of this is happening because of the way our society is set up?

If we all lived in fairly small communities and had good relationships with friends and family near by, would we have these issues? If we had stable work that didn't feel like an impossible workload and paid fairly?

I'm even beginning to wonder whether "positives" of modern living are actually subtly undermining our MH as a society.

• The obvious examples being the Internet and phones, but also..
• Mobility: looks good on paper, but maybe the idea of the world being your oyster subconsciously is anxiety inducing?
• Travel: fun but frequent travel again contributes
• Home ownership and improvements, style & beauty inprovements: again this idea of we have choice, but is it contributing to a low level sense of always chasing?
• More freedom of partner and freedom to have children or be childfree: but does it create a "What if?" sensation past generations wouldn't have had fluttering at the edges of their mind?
• Remote working/self employed: I have done this for over a decade but does it maybe contribute to a sense of no base, no community?

It's pandered to nowadays.

Yep, I totally agree.

I just get a bit fed up of people harking back to the "good old days" where we apparently all chatted nicely in person and nobody ever gossiped or spread rumours or said anything unkind

Rose tinted spectacles spring to mind.

Your post interests me. What made your small rural village so unpleasant? I also grew up in a small rural village but I loved it and, after years of living in towns and cities both here and abroad, have returned willingly to village life.

Also, who was pressuring you into having children you were unsuited to having? I don’t understand that part of your post. You also mention pressures from working, improving your home and carrying out beauty treatments (forgive me if I’ve misunderstood anything and please correct me) but I’m not sure who was applying the pressure?

I’ve no time for beauty rituals and wouldn’t tack a PVCu conservatory onto my house for any money but absolutely no-one’s pressuring me to do those things. I’ve got free choice and I exercise it.

Such a thought provoking thread. There have always been MH issues even going way back in time. Is it more prevalent now or just that it’s more diagnosed and talked about now and we are (mostly) more accepting of MH.

I agree that in many ways life was simpler when I was growing up (mid 70’s onwards) no SM, less TV channels, no internet, landlines only and people seemed happier but there was still crime, poverty, domestic violence etc etc

i think generations have changed - as a society I think j we are more demanding (because we have more than we did), inpatients (because things are quicker than they were anyone who remembers dial up internet connection will understand!!)

I long for a simpler and less stressed life but I think we are just too used to what we have now

You genuinely believe that a face to face conversation would deteriorate into the vile exchanges that are so common on SM when two people have a different opinion?

There's a lot of nuance to it. Some of the things you list e.g. remote working, freedom of lifestyle choice have been the very things that have saved many people's mental health struggles. I think what a lot of people struggle with is having access to everything all the time by virtue of smartphone technology but a lot of this can be self-inflicted - nobody is forced to spend the night awake scrolling through Twitter.

Of course. It happens every single day.

Children are bullied and ostracised, adults get into fights and on the extreme end, people are beaten up, injured and even killed because of their opinions, or because an argument has gone wrong.

I grew up before social media and saw it happen. Nasty people are nasty people regardless of how they're able to communicate.

Do you genuinely believe that such things didn’t happen before social media?

I used to pick my children up from activities 20-25 years ago and the parents would chat.

sitting in the smoking area at work so many people on their phones, otoh it was awkwardly positioned

dog walkers pass the time of day, and get exercise, i recommend becoming a dog owner

Do you genuinely believe that such things didn’t happen before social media?

Not nearly as much, no. People are a lot more likely to be confrontational and rude from the safety of their keyboard. I expect many of the MNers who make the nastiest comments on here are nice as pie to people's faces.

I'm not surprised people are on their phones in their break. You only have to walk into a cafe to see whole families on their phones, DH and I are sat on our phones as I type this! Technology isn't inferior or wrong in itself but our response to it can bring about less than healthy outcomes. If you google phone addiction and its impact on mental health it is indisputable and its comparable to even drug addiction. The saying all things are permissable but not all things are wise springs to mind...

I think it only appears to be more prevalent on social media because social media is worldwide. When you come across confrontational, rude, aggressive people in your surrounding community or place that you are in at the time (like a workplace or a school) then you are only exposed to the population size of that community or place. That is a much smaller demographic than the World Wide Web.

Not to mention that multiple nasty posts under different usernames could just be one nasty person rather than it being many nasty people.

There are plenty of people who are openly abusive, nasty, hostile and aggressive in public. That is why anti bullying initiatives were started such as zero tolerance for bullying in the workplace policies. (Though I rarely see them enacted upon). It is also why some organisations dealing with the public will have signs on the reception area saying that they will not tolerate abusive or aggressive behaviour.

It's also worth remembering that social media works to an algorithm, so if you watch or engage with lots of posts about cats, or gardening, or trekking in Nepal, that's what will get pushed and what you'll see more of.

TikTok especially works like that - as soon as I engage with any creator on there, their stuff is really heavily pushed for a few days.

I think it only appears to be more prevalent on social media because social media is worldwide.

I totally disagree. I think a high proportion of people interact quite differently online from in person, especially when they are anonymous. In a way it would be surprising if they didn't. I'm not suggesting they are all full-on trolls and bullies, but they are probably more forthright with their opinions and judgements, and possibly express views that they would not admit to irl. That then provokes more extreme reactions from other people, and you end up with very angry, polarised online spaces.

I'm neither a troll nor a bully, but I absolutely express views on MN that I wouldn't admit to in public, and engage in fairly robust debates about things I feel strongly about, which I would absolutely not enter into in person, especially with people I don't know. Part of the problem is that the people who are communicating with each other are often total strangers who know they will never meet irl, so they have no need to keep the peace.

This makes perfect sense to me.

Had it not been necessitated by the pandemic, which caused me huge anxiety, I would have loved lockdown. As a family we’re not massively sociable, and it was really lovely to spend all that time together without feeling like we were supposed to be out doing things and seeing people. My kids are always perfectly happy just about at home at weekends, but I always feel like I should be doing x activity with y people and that I’m a failure if I haven’t organised something - having calm and solitude forced on us, rather than it being my fault, was weirdly liberating.

I absolutely express views on MN that I wouldn't admit to in public, and engage in fairly robust debates about things I feel strongly about, which I would absolutely not enter into in person, especially with people I don't know.

I think this is true for most people, but I also think you can easily hide from that kind of stuff online too. You can block people who piss you off, or leave groups, or hide threads.

It's not as easy as that in real life and therefore the consequences and much more serious.

I think this is true for most people, but I also think you can easily hide from that kind of stuff online too. You can block people who piss you off, or leave groups, or hide threads.

It's not as easy as that in real life and therefore the consequences and much more serious.

I'm not sure it's always
quite that easy online though, especially for teens and younger adukts who are used to a lot of their peer interaction being online, particularly after covid. I teach teenage girls. For them, withdrawing from social media due to problematic comments might mean total isolation from their peer group.

As a mental health professional I wholeheartedly agree. The more simple you make your life and concentrate on those things that actually serve you the better off you are.

Life’s about choices? I didnt choose to be abused and years later lose my 18 year old son .
ive bipolar , anxiety and ptsd I don’t play it out on sm . I suffer in silence til I become so unwell I need extra help

But those problematic comments wouldn't stop if the internet disappeared overnight - bullying and unpleasantness existed way before the invention of the internet and the popularity of social media.

When I was in school, it was in the form of nasty notes being passed around, verbal rumours being spread, or even people being beaten up on the bus or while walking to/from school.

I get what you're saying about the majority of teen interaction happening online but it's not the online aspect that's causing the unpleasantness.

YANBU. I’ve thought this for several years. Also, I think debts and money problems contribute a lot to poor MH.

MH just as bad in the “good old days”, particularly for women with no choices. Just not talked about or recognised.
Lots of factors now. Social media addiction. Hopeless futures for YP. Debt. Crappy boring school curriculum. Run down public services. No family support. DV. Adverse childhood experiences.
I worry for the future of young people. 😭😭