Peter Gray on the rise in childhood anxiety and depression (Teen Mental Health). Today five to eight times as many high school and college students meet the criteria for diagnosis of major depression and/or an anxiety disorder as was true half a century or more ago. This increased psychopathology is not the result of changed diagnostic criteria; it holds even when the measures and criteria are constant... In a research study published a few years ago, Twenge and her colleagues analyzed the results of many previous studies that had used Rotter's Scale with young people over the years from 1960 on through 2002.[3] They found that over this period average scores shifted dramatically--for children aged 9 to 14 as well as for college students--away from the Internal toward the External end of the scale. In fact, the shift was so great that the average young person in 2002 was more External than were 80% of young people in the 1960s. The rise in Externality on Rotter's scale over the 42-year period showed the same linear trend as did the rise in depression and anxiety... Twenge's own theory is that the generational increases in anxiety and depression are related to a shift from "IntrinsIc" to "ExtrinsIc" goals... My guess is that Twenge is at least partly correct on this, but I am going to suggest here a further cause, which I think is even more significant and basic. My hypothesis is that the generational increases in Externality, extrinsic goals, anxiety, and depression are all caused largely by the decline, over that same period, in opportunities for free play and the increased time and weight given to Schooling... By depriving children of opportunities to play on their own, away from direct adult supervision and control, we are depriving them of opportunities to learn how to take control of their own lives... Children today spend more hours per day, days per year, and years of their life in school than ever before. More weight is given to tests and grades than ever before. Outside of school children spend more time than ever before in settings where they are directed, protected, catered to, ranked, judged, and rewarded by adults. In all of these settings adults are in control, not children... School is also a place where children have little choice about with whom they can associate.

Factory Schooling is Prison

Peter Gray: “Why Don’t Students Like School?” Well, Duhhhh… (more)

According to the World Prison Brief the United States in 2021 had the sixth highest incarceration rate in the world, at 531 people per 100,000.[1][2] Between 2019 and 2020, the United States saw a significant drop in the total number of incarcerations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate (more)

Zvi Mowshowitz: The Kids are Not Okay. Teen Suicide attempts are up. Depressive episodes are way up... Spoiler alert, I’m going to blame the smartphones and social media. (more)

Jerry Coyne: Lots more debunking of the Turban et al. study on gender dysphoria. On Thursday I wrote a post about a new paper in the journal Pediatrics by Jack Turban et al., a paper arguing against “rapid onset gender dysphoria” in adolescents and the attendant view that transgender identity is often spread by “social contagion”. (more)

Lisa Littman, at the time an adjunct assistant professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, coined the term rapid-onset gender dysphoria for a 2016 online survey of parents on three anti-trans websites who believed that their teenage children had suddenly manifested symptoms of gender dysphoria and had begun identifying as transgender simultaneously with other children in their peer group. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid-onset_gender_dysphoria_controversy (teen mental health)

cf transgender, sex and gender; how distinguish from body dysmorphia esp for a teenager (teen mental health)?

Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), or body dysmorphia, is a mental health condition where a person spends a lot of time worrying about flaws in their appearance. These flaws are often unnoticeable to others. https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/body-dysmorphia see esp teen mental health (more)

Teenagers Say Depression and Anxiety Are Major Issues Among Their Peers. Most American teenagers — across demographic groups — see depression and anxiety as major problems among their peers, a new survey by the Pew Research Center found. The survey found that 70 percent of teenagers saw mental health as a big issue. Fewer teenagers cited bullying, drug addiction or gangs as major problems; those from low-income households were more likely to do so. (Teen Mental Health) (more)

Jesse Singal: The New, Highly Touted Study On Hormones For Transgender Teens Doesn’t Really Tell Us Much Of Anything. As I noted in that post, earlier this month The New England Journal of Medicine published a highly anticipated study called “Psychosocial Functioning in Transgender Youth after 2 Years of Hormones.” The research team has spent years following a cohort of kids who have been administered puberty blockers or hormones (hormone therapy) at four participating clinics (more)

Jamie Reed: I Thought I Was Saving Trans Kids. Now I’m Blowing the Whistle. I am a 42-year-old St. Louis native, a queer woman, and politically to the left of Bernie Sanders (more)

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death.[6] Mental disorders (mental illness), including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, and substance abuse—including alcoholism and the use of benzodiazepines—are risk factors.[2][4][7] Some suicides are impulsive acts due to stress, such as from financial difficulties, troubles with relationships, or bullying.[2][8] Those who have previously attempted suicide are at a higher risk for future attempts.[2] Effective suicide prevention efforts include limiting access to methods of suicide—such as firearms, drugs, and poisons; treating mental disorders and substance misuse; proper media reporting of suicide; and improving economic conditions.[2][9] Even though crisis hotlines are common, there is little evidence for their effectiveness. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide (more)

Suicide is the third leading cause of death for school-aged children over 10 years old, and the second leading cause (behind accidents and ahead of homicides) for those over 15... the sharp decline in such emergencies occurred not just during summer vacation, but also during school vacation weeks over the rest of the year. cf Teen Mental Health

Structured Query Language (more)

Open Source Relational Data Base. http://www.postgresql.org/ (more)

Mattermost is an open-source, self-hostable online live chat service with file sharing, search, and integrations. It is designed as an internal chat for organisations and companies, and mostly markets itself as an open-source alternative to Slack.com[9][10] and Microsoft Teams. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattermost (more)

Real Time Group Discussion, aka Group Chat (more)

Nextcloud is a suite of client-server software for creating and using file hosting services. Nextcloud provides functionality similar to Dropbox, Office 365 or Google Drive when used with integrated office suites Collabora Online or OnlyOffice. It can be hosted in the cloud or on-premises. (more)

Microsoft LiveChat system