Depression, Self-Identity and Reality: Living in a Story Created by Facebook

Re:Depression, Self-Identity and Reality: Living in a Story ... by bigbugbag on Sunday December 23, 2018 @07:19AM (#18745697)

Interesting thing is that antidepressant use rised despite antidepressant being mostly ineffective and their underlying principle of action being flawed.

This raises the question of why antidepressant use rised this way. Could it be that heavily medicated people are easier to manage and keep under control to prevent them from rebelling against the lives they're forced into by the societal system ? Could it be related to huge profits from pharmaceutical corporations ?

Then again Facebook and the computer as a machine middleman in human interaction is destroying social interaction and society fabric by replacing actual meaningful interaction that builds human ability to be human. Not the single cause but a recent and efficient accelerator of a trend that push us further apart from each other.

I recommend watching the following BBC documentaries by Adam Curtis:

  The Century of the Self[1]
  The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom[2]
  All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace[3]

  [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_Self
  [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trap_(TV_series)
  [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Watched_Over_by_Machines_of_Loving_Grace_(TV_series)

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Re:Depression, Self-Identity and Reality: Living in a Story ... by TomMarius on Sunday December 23, 2018 @07:40AM (#18745766)

I have a lot of friends that are significantly happier now on antidepressants than they were before. Maybe some are ineffective, I don't know, but when your first sentence completely contradicts experiences of my friends, I have to call bullshit.

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Re:Depression, Self-Identity and Reality: Living in a Story ... by blfr on Sunday December 23, 2018 @07:51AM (#18745801)

Interesting thing is that antidepressant use rised despite antidepressant being mostly ineffective

Except for antibiotics and simple surgeries, which are basically miracles on demand, most medical treatments don't offer great odds. Antidepressants do work, just not very well or reliably. We won't leave people to wallow or die though and have a need to do something for them. This is something.

However, it does indicate that people were battling depression before social media and its rates were increasing rather quickly.

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Re:Depression, Self-Identity and Reality: Living in a Story ... by Ardren on Sunday December 23, 2018 @08:15AM (#18745896)

> antidepressant being mostly ineffective

That needs a great big giant source. Because there are so many peer reviewed studies and meta-studies that show that they are effective.

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Re:Depression, Self-Identity and Reality: Living in a Story ... by 50656E6973 on Sunday December 23, 2018 @09:21AM (#18746194)

Antidepressants and the Placebo Effect

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4172306/

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Re:Depression, Self-Identity and Reality: Living in a Story ... by pizza on Sunday December 23, 2018 @07:33AM (#18745738)

It seems to me that mental health cannot be outsourced the same way that other services can be. Additionally, we probably individualize mental health treatment more than we should, neglecting what I would term mental ecology - how one survives/thrives/writhes in their environment.

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