Scrutable

plodder wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 13, 2022 3:36 pm

Opti wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 13, 2022 3:28 pm

bagpuss wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 13, 2022 3:23 pm

I'm 52 and I have always found people calling me on the phone to be a direct assault on my personal space. Texts/WhatsApp/Messenger/chat/Teams/whatever just plain is less intrusive.

This.

Interesting - I feel the opposite.

Everyone I know always texts/Whatsapp/whatevers me before calling to see if I'm up for a chat. I do the same with them.The only numbers I answer are delivery drivers (they all do it here and I'm expecting it) the doctors and hospital.
It's just considerate that I may be doing something else with my time.

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 13, 2022 2:53 pm

Didn't drop though, did it?

In the '70s and '80s I and my friends were entirely certain that the only way the cold war could end was with nuclear armageddon. Not "if", just "when". It's funny how you can compartmentalise and put things like that to the back of your mind, but every time you got a reminder through some news event, there it was; the doomsday clock sat at 4 minutes to midnight and you knew eventually someone would f.ck up and it would be whoops apocalypse.

That it wasn't going to turn out that way strangely did not figure in how anxious we were about it.

I think there's a fundamental difference between sudden doomsday/nuclear armageddon anxiety, and creeping boiling frog type climate change/decay of pensions and cost of housing/reversal of liberal progress anxiety.

Nuclear armageddon anxiety is binary - it's either happened, and everything is really really sh.t/you're dead, or it hasn't happened. There's not a huge amount that can be done to prevent it while tensions are high. Climate change/decay of progress anxiety is a creeping steady flow of things getting worse, with new things everyday showing how it's getting worse.

It's the difference between worrying about dying suddenly in a car accident, and worrying about dying slowly in ever increasing pain from a progressive condition.

It'll be ironic if the earth is spared climate runaway by a nuclear winter.

dyqik wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 13, 2022 7:57 pm

I think there's a fundamental difference between sudden doomsday/nuclear armageddon anxiety, and creeping boiling frog type climate change/decay of pensions and cost of housing/reversal of liberal progress anxiety.

Nuclear armageddon anxiety is binary - it's either happened, and everything is really really sh.t/you're dead, or it hasn't happened. There's not a huge amount that can be done to prevent it while tensions are high. Climate change/decay of progress anxiety is a creeping steady flow of things getting worse, with new things everyday showing how it's getting worse.

It's the difference between worrying about dying suddenly in a car accident, and worrying about dying slowly in ever increasing pain from a progressive condition.

Instead of a car accident, a better analogy might be that the whole family gets killed in a mass shooting.

But overall I agree. I spent the 80s being very aware that everything could be destroyed with about 10 minutes warning.

It still could of course.

But aside from profound anxiety the existence of nuclear weapons had very little practical effect on peoples’ everyday lives. Climate change is different in that respect.

Martin Y wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 13, 2022 9:00 pm

It'll be ironic if the earth is spared climate runaway by a nuclear winter.

Pity that none of us would live to see one problem being solved by creating a bigger problem.

Hm, well the OP was about trigger warnings in health and safety briefings and now we're on about climate collapse vs nuclear armageddon. Although it's all linked I'm not sure it's really accurate to describe the scenario in the OP as simply a manifestation of a generation's existential terror. I think it is as much a example of a culture where people have been encouraged to think about the potential impact of any scenario on others (or themselves I suppose), which is very thoughtful but leads to a habit of conducting a mini risk assessment of all possible adverse outcomes of a situation potentially several times a day, which can in itself be anxiety inducing.

So there is a contradiction there in that a cultural attempt to make the world safer and more pleasant has led to a lot of anxious people worrying about potential threats (many real, some imagined). It's also of course a push back against an older culture of 'put up and shut up', which EPD and others have mentioned earlier, and more current forms of oppression that are emerging (or re-emerging).

Ideally this culture will work itself out in such a way that, say, we're all sufficiently self aware of these issues that taking necessary steps to protect people from unnecessary harm becomes second nature so we no longer feel the anxiety associated with it, and can turn outwards to focus solely on the real oppressors, but maybe that's too optimistic.

Good post, disco.

I have both fainted and made people faint in health and safety talks. Sometime the images and videos can be very disturbing.

Now I make sure to tell people beforehand about disturbing content, and haven’t had anyone faint since.

El Pollo Diablo wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 14, 2022 9:16 am

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... manchester

Um, that's in cash terms rather than relative to e.g. % youth employment or income or whatever and we all know inflation is high right now - it doesn't just affect young people. My point being that anxiety isn't the only way to react to the news in this article.

Since people are still on about housing, I'll point out again that affordability depends on household discretionary income, not salary. If you want to quantify changes in affordability between generations, go for it, but no-one has correctly so far. That is not to say that it isn't a massive transfer of wealth from the young to the old.

Regarding the OP, there has been a huge change in culture with respect to mental health in less than ten years. The old forum was exceptional in its day in its discussion of and support for MH issues. I date the change to about 2017 or 2018, when the "safety moments" at work (a few minutes at the beginning of each meeting to draw attention to a health and safety issue, not normally anything to do with the meeting topic) suddenly changed from being all about physical safety, and occasionally physical health, to very often being about MH.

Things that make me a bit uneasy about the current culture are:

It's only about the very mild end of MH issues, plus maybe depression. It's still exceptional for anyone to talk about psychosis or paranoid schizophrenia or the like, unless they're a murderer. (Private Eye is a commendable exception for campaigning for the rights of people with life-threatening MH problems.) It is very much not a case of "job done".

Indeed, it sometimes seems that the focus on extremely mild MH issues trivialises the wider question.

We risk medicalising or pathologising (is that a word?) the normal ups and downs of everyday life. Bad things happen to everyone from time to time, and people have to learn to deal with them.

At the extreme, "harming my mental health" sometimes seems to mean just "making me a bit unhappy or stressed". A few people seem to think that's a trump card to stop other people from doing things that are necessary. No I can't think of an example, I didn't realise there would be a test.

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 13, 2022 3:57 pm

If there's a generational difference in concern, that'd be interesting. It could be because of a lack of ability to extrapolate present trends into the future, or a difficulty imagining themselves living in it. But I'll be 10 years off retirement in 2050 and I do have certain preferences for what it'll be like, and those decisions have to be made right now.

I’m 8 years from retirement (or at least becoming eligible for the state pension) and I’ve only recently started to be able to imagine myself living in that future. Which means it’s only recently that I’ve started doing anything about it (saving money, for example). Thing is, neither of my grandfathers lived long enough to retire, so I had no example of what a life in retirement might mean. It never seemed like a ‘real’ thing that I might encounter myself one day.

Martin Y wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 13, 2022 5:25 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 13, 2022 2:53 pm

Didn't drop though, did it?

In the '70s and '80s I and my friends were entirely certain that the only way the cold war could end was with nuclear armageddon. Not "if", just "when". It's funny how you can compartmentalise and put things like that to the back of your mind, but every time you got a reminder through some news event, there it was; the doomsday clock sat at 4 minutes to midnight and you knew eventually someone would f.ck up and it would be whoops apocalypse.

That it wasn't going to turn out that way strangely did not figure in how anxious we were about it.

This. I was certainly aware of the threat of nuclear war in the early 70s when I was barely in my teens. Also we lived not far from Fylingdales, which was (and presumably still is) a first strike target.

That is not to say that current teens and 20 somethings don't have plenty to be anxious about - chucking around terms like "snowflake" makes the user of the term sound like Piers Morgan.

ETA I'm aware that it wasn't Martin Y who used the term.

plodder wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 13, 2022 2:01 pm

Fun. Increased life expectancy means more old people older for longer, young uns less important. Good to see some stats but makes sense.

Basic stats for UK:

1980: 15-30 year olds 22.4% of population, higher than >65 at 15.1%

2020: 15-30 year olds 18.2%, lower than >65 at 18.6%

I suspect higher anxiety among young people is a global thing, which means looking beyond mere UK factors like Brexit. Japan is the most notorious example, and Japan has a shifting demographic profile.

To add a hypothesis I didn't think of the other day - religious types would probably bring in loss of spiritual stuff as a cause of anxiety.

Tim Harford briefly reviews the evidence for the case against social media.

Sciolus wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 15, 2022 9:46 am

Tim Harford briefly reviews the evidence for the case against social media.

Thanks. That's fascinating. (As expected 'cos it's Tim and he's great.)

Martin Y wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 13, 2022 9:00 pm

It'll be ironic if the earth is spared climate runaway by a nuclear winter.

Mainstream 1980s armageddon telly:

https://mobile.twitter.com/ScarredForLi ... 3421707266

Mainstream 2020’s armageddon telly: not as scary

And a thread that clearly demonstrates kids are too soft nowadays.

https://twitter.com/paulisci/status/1558579983022338048

I'm just on my way back from a festival that was full of young folk, and let me tell you they are *obsessed* with ketamine, well known for causing anxiety symptoms. I knew it was trendy but half the conversations I overheard mentioned it, bands referred to it between songs and all sorts.

So there's your answer. Too much ket.

discovolante wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 15, 2022 2:20 pm

I'm just on my way back from a festival that was full of young folk, and let me tell you they are *obsessed* with ketamine, well known for causing anxiety symptoms. I knew it was trendy but half the conversations I overheard mentioned it, bands referred to it between songs and all sorts.

So there's your answer. Too much ket.

not the zombie apocalypse festival with the mushroom cloud of dust?

plodder wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 15, 2022 9:11 pm

discovolante wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 15, 2022 2:20 pm

I'm just on my way back from a festival that was full of young folk, and let me tell you they are *obsessed* with ketamine, well known for causing anxiety symptoms. I knew it was trendy but half the conversations I overheard mentioned it, bands referred to it between songs and all sorts.

So there's your answer. Too much ket.

not the zombie apocalypse festival with the mushroom cloud of dust?

Yes, that one. (Unless there was more than one of those this weekend)

discovolante wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 15, 2022 2:20 pm

I'm just on my way back from a festival that was full of young folk, and let me tell you they are *obsessed* with ketamine, well known for causing anxiety symptoms. I knew it was trendy but half the conversations I overheard mentioned it, bands referred to it between songs and all sorts.

So there's your answer. Too much ket.

A couple of months ago I had a chat with an American academic psychologist who semi-seriously linked the current state of the US with the legalisation of cannabis. He thought that the last thing his fellow citizens needed was mass consumption of a drug notorious for creating feelings of paranoia.

Stumbled upon this report:

The Future is Bright – or is it?
Comparing Opportunities across the Generations in the UK
https://www.sociology.ox.ac.uk/sites/de ... _is_it.pdf