It's probably not helpful to point out that boys are depressed too. I think with the loss of interpersonal connections with people spending so much time on the internet, in vague but unsatisfying online "social connections", & then COVID cutting further ties that connect us, there's a widespread loss of our crucial human connections. I have no solution. Young girls and women face particular pressure from a focus on their appearance and attractiveness of course.

Becky has made a choice for the best and keeps getting messages that she should not settle for less. She waits for mr right and turns away everyone else and gets sad no one matching comes.

All young guys have to do is buy followers and likes on social media and generate a few lifestyle photos the illusion is preserved. Like spending money on rims for your car.

At a fancy breakfast restaurant this morning, HGTV was on the TV (as opposed to say sports). I watched for a while as family after family looked forward to their remodeling and buying their homes, in the range of $579k - $989k. I thought about how I was almost able to afford a house until the great interest rate hikes of 2023. Now I'm on the sidelines for a long time to save up... and I'm a middle-aged person. Think about this from a young adult's perspective:

Not only are they so much less likely to remodel and buy at a home under these circumstances, but their own plight, which is other lucky peoples' success, is a form of entertainment. Meanwhile they have been informed that short of great technical mistakes or a miracle, they and any offspring they might create will be subject to environmental collapse.

But of the three: social media, economic inequality, and environmental collapse, which are we going to focus on? Would it be the ones that the Boomer generation created? or the scapegoat that we don't even have a good theory to explain.

Articles like thisare a good example of "Manufacturing Consent." Chomsky states that consent is obtained by narrowing the scope of the discussion. In this, we will constrain the discussion to social values and social media without venturing into areas such as environment and economics.

I've read almost every one of these interesting articles that have come up on this site over the past year or two regarding teenage depression. My own step kids are morbidly depressed, with my step daughter of 14 having attempted suicide and my stepson of 17 becoming a racist incel.

My own observations compared to my depression free childhood, which was not a happy one, is simply one of exposure. When I was young I had both online and offline communities, but the point is that they were my age, and my culture. I had no idea what was going on in the greater world, the scandals of the 90s being mere background noise to my Pokemon and Zelda and WWE. I could never remember who was president even in high school, and kids were more concerned with social drama rather than being socially correct.

Kids these days grow up in the adult world. You can blame social media or the Internet but the result is the same- kids share their space with adults, they have opinions on politics, they joke about economics and social issues, they bemoan capitalism without having ever participated in the system.

I think children operate best when adult life is a mystery, some intangible and incredible future that will happen but is not understood, and unfortunately the society we have constructed post 2000 has destroyed the ability for any young kid to be ignorant.

Depression is a function of idleness

> thinks guys like the "natural" look

I wish that was still true, but in developed countries, the Becky's are covered with make-up, trendy clothes, nails things, perfume, hair-styles, and so on

Everyone is fat. Traditionally male models of success are being pushed on girls. Boys are backlashing against feminism hard. People aren't growing up in stable homes with both parents around and single mothers are WAY more likely to medicate their kids into submission via medical diagnosis.