[mannanj]

Most people on earth: Let's just look at how many people use technology. How many use it? And how many are obviously also using it more than 4 hours/day to consume information in a fashion that doesnt' serve their health, connection or wellbeing?

Those statistics are widely known and accepted. Do you need me to provide evidence from that?

[warkdarrior]

Yes, please point to the statistics showing that most people on Earth are depressed.

[mannanj]

What have you looked through already and what kinds of sources do you consider reputable and trustworthy?

Asking because there's a lot of trolling and hostility disguised as curiosity on hacker news lately, and I've wasted a lot of time engaging with these people. Not saying thats you or the guy above you, but I'm not open to spending my time only to receive a dismissive and hostile response discounting my sources when your preferences (obviously different from every other person) would point to different level of burden of proof.

In which case I'm curious, why haven't you already looked for this? What's stopping you? or did you check and couldn't corroborate - why would I answer then for someone who has already started with dismissiveness and demonstrated a filtering perception that won't be open minded? I find it akin to talking to a wall when someone asks for proof when they've already made up their mind that it cannot exist.

[gghackernewsgg]

Hi again

> Those statistics are widely known and accepted. Do you need me to provide evidence from that?

No need for that in particular. What I would appreciate evidence for is this part specifically:

> the technical addiction and attention economy that has created more depression and a lower quality of life for most people on earth.

Basically, a source or sources demonstrating all of the following:

1. "Technical addiction" (presumably meaning internet, smartphone, social media etc) is present in the majority of the worldwide population.

2. Technical addiction is the cause of depression (not just associated with depression)

3. Most people on Earth have depression.

4. The overwhelming majority of cases of depression are caused by a technical addiction.

> What have you looked through already

I didn't look up anything in particular in reaction to your message because I was already familiar with plenty of the research on adjacent subjects. For example, I know that while there is a strong correlation between excessive use of digital devices/social media and depression, causation is notoriously difficult to established. I also know that depression prevelance worldwide is far below 50%. Taken together, these made me skeptical of the claim.

But then again, I'm no expert on this topic, and I've been out of the loop for the past 2-3 years, so perhaps there have been some new developments that I'm unaware of, or maybe I'm just not reading the situation correctly. Hence my request. I'm not here to troll.

> and what kinds of sources do you consider reputable and trustworthy?

I'm only asking for the sources that your claim was based on, whatever they may be. I do not expect you to do extensive research for me. But it was a strong claim that you made, so I presumed it was based on some source(s) that you consider trustworthy. If they're easy for you to pull up real quick, I would appreciate the links. If it's too much of a hassle, I understand and no worries at all.

[mannanj]

If I revise my original claim to this, it more accurately represents the spirit of what I was trying to say. As I believe you are focusing on the clinical application depression, this edit would misalign our interests.

> Google and other technology companies have expanded access to useful services, but they have also helped build an attention economy that can weaken people’s attention, sleep, connection, agency, emotional vitality, and quality of life at a massive scale-even when those effects do not fit the clinical definition of depression.

[gghackernewsgg]

Hi mannanj, thanks for the thoughtful responses. I still haven't read your other message in full (busy weekend), will come back to it ASAP. And yes, your revised claim is definitely more thought-provoking!

[mannanj]

I’d like to spend more time to give you a better answer than i can now. Thank you for your response and engagement, And respect.

Since you haven’t shared your definition of depression and what it means to you, here’s what I mean by it.

Feel free to share yours, feel free to email me also to continue this discussion if it’s easier

[e-mail]

Mayo Clinic depression: “ Depression is a mood disorder that causes a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest. … it affects how you feel, think and behave and can lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems. … trouble doing normal day-to-day activities, … sometimes you may feel as if life isn't worth

Https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/depression/symptoms-causes/syc-20356007

This is a diagnostic definition.

“ChatGPT: diagnostic definition: the symptoms clinicians count to determine whether someone meets criteria“

I imagine much of your research and past experience, has been focused in on the diagnostic definition, and probably mind heavy. Depression imo isn’t just defined by looking at the markers you look for to diagnose them in a clinical or medical setting, nor by focusing on only one body part like the mind. Has your experience been that a lot of research focuses on this and misses the rest of the body?

“ChatGPT: experiential definition: the underlying transformation those symptoms collectively express.”

What would you say the underlying transformation is? I’d say it’s loss of mood, pleasure, motivations connection, meaning and overall sense of possibility.

With everything in the world today happening at an accelerated harmful rate becoming aware to everyone simultaneously as we are growingly interconnected in this digital age; everyone sees the news on war, covid, ai and that has this transformational impact on them. Wouldn’t you say? How much have you noticed this transformative definition occur for >50% of people on the earth.

Unfortunately I don’t think I can find studies on this. There’s too much new; and it’s a lot of interconnected pieces lumped into one. Seeing also I took a holistic approach, I don’t know there’d be much evidence that would feel quality as holistic approaches and study in general get underfunded and dismissed and struggle to find study sponsors ie government, pharma etc. and when it comes to doing holistic studies; they’re just so hard. It’s so hard to do identical studies for very customized holistic whole systems.

So all this to say not much sources, as I didn’t approach this in the clinical way you did. I’m sure if I tried to narrow in on a definition anyway or devise an experiment that could represent this, its definition would be fringe and unpopular. As the truth often is.

So if I attempt To name my my sources were: - my experience - lots of embodiment including specifically practices to produce depression in the body. Not a clinical depression (which I feel is as non existent and fake as saying I’m looking for the particles behind the atom when I quantum theory says that’s bs and the particle and the wave neither exist before nor after observation and just appear to represent the thing we observe in a way to represent it in the way the observers can perceive)(like they’re a proxy for something there we can’t really ever understand but only ever approximate, like the truth) - philosophical perspective and embodiment of different emotional states; with some training in shamanism and breathwork - studies and articles I’ve read over the years - being unorthodox and taking a perspective that lets me choose my own simpler definitions, to better understand and approximate whatever we are using language to describe and approximate.

What’s depression? A label for some state of a human being. Though not limited to human beings. I find it helps to introduce first principles ie whats depression in other animals? And from the shamans perspective, what’s it in the trees and plants and stones which I also know to be experiencing several of the things I as a human experience but in their own language. With this it’s definitely not what the mayo clinic called it. It might be a subset of that as it’s reduced to what’s true also still for the plants, other animals and even stones. I like to see it as something in the middle with facets of the mayo definition, and and the experiential one. And then reality is so weird anyways that you and I can induce depression in someone simply by suggesting it, the news by talking about it like fear and sickness has been studied to cause more fear and sickness in a populace. So then from my perspective again we have no standardized “time range” for what qualifies as something being depressed. What is “persistent” anyway as from the mayo definition. Who agrees on what makes it persistent or not, and will enough people agree namely those who get to choose what makes something depression? I doubt clear enough defining and agreement comes.

For depression: Am I or the rock depressed because we had a depression like embodiment exprience for a few moments on Tuesday? Or must that remain for at least 50% of my living experience from day to day? Well wait, who’s doing the timing? There’s not a single study that can ever actually check how long relative to someone’s personal subjective time exprience “depression lasts”. So it’s not inaccurate by our scientific definitions of depression (which by being scientific, should occur by consensus yet also are always up to change as consensus changes) to say I am depressed if I had a depressing experience due to sitting at a chair in a depressing posture for 8 hours at work and so I check off all the boxes and as soon as I get home or go for a walk it changes. The clinical approach says this qualifies, but does it really? Yes and no.

Something about science, evidence, studies, and sources all kind of feels like bullshit when you start looking at the definitions we use for phenomena we want to describe and study and then realize we all use our own self fitting definitions and then back that up and find evidence to support it, and even do something as silly as studying “depression” for decades and everyone else does this too so we ignore it and pretend it’s not happening. And that the research means something when it really doesn’t.

Sorry to respond this way; this was about the best I could do after all and much of this came out on a phone while sitting in heat so I could have done better. Anyway hope this was valuable for you and answered what you were seeking; this is the best I can do right now. Maybe you can help me understand this all better and are seeing something I’m not about this . Would love to hear your thoughts. And even what you’ve built and studied in this space.