Evidence for a depressogenic society? Cultural patterns as incubators of severe emotional problems

1. Evidence for a depressogenic society? Cultural patterns as incubators of severe emotional problems Jacob Z. Hess, Ph.D. Utah Youth Village, Director of Research

2. “When I was six, [my step-mother] locked me in the closet . . . I was scared of the dark when I was little. And I remember screaming at first . . . after a few hours, I was like so embarrassed because I had to go to the bathroom. • My Dad was there, but he never opened the door. When the screaming went on longer than she would have liked, she . . . she taped my mouth and taped my hands behind my back and she hog-tied me . . . And after three days, she let me out.”

3. “I just kept hoping that maybe my doctor would see through my lies . . of me going, ‘I’m fine.’ • He put me on Prozac.” • ---Lucy • [Certainly, any doctor would be horrified at this kind of treatment. I share the story as an extreme example of a larger troubling pattern in how our culture often responds to serious emotional problems . . .]

4. “There must be something wrong with me . . .” The larger pattern: • The existence of enormous, documented external societal conditions relevant to severe emotional problems •  Primary emphasis in many theoretical explanations and treatment approaches on internal issues and deficits • Examples: • “Anorexic girls” vs. “Eating disordered culture?” • “ADHD kids” vs. “Rapid-fire culture” etc.

5. [This prevailing approach often conveys an overriding message to those facing these problems that they are, on some fundamental level messed up] • By contrast: • “There is more right with you, than there is wrong, as long as you are breathing.” • –Jon Kabat-Zinn, Director, University of Massachusetts Medical Center Stress Reduction Clinic in (1993) “The Art of Conscious Living” 

6. [Instead of largely focusing on deficiencies within individuals, what if we turned our collective attention to problematic patterns surrounding us?]  • Example: A “Depressogenic” Society? • “The growing number of depressed people can be attributed to a ‘depressogenic society,’ a society that places many of its members at risk for developing depression. . . . You may be living in a society that makes you more prone to depression on a number of levels” • --Addis & Martell, 2004 (Clark U./University of Washington)

7. Evidence for a depressogenic society? Cultural patterns as incubators of severe emotional problems [What would understanding these external conditions mean for the work of caregivers and professionals? What would it mean for those facing serious emotional problems?]

8. “Incubate”: (verb) • To maintain eggs, organisms, or living tissues at optimal environmental conditions for growth and development. • To maintain a chemical or biochemical system under specific conditions in order to promote a particular reaction.

9. “Sim City” is a popular video game where players function as all-powerful leaders of a new society, given the responsibility of building and creating conditions that will allow citizens to live, work and be happy. For our purposes today, I invite you to play a new version with me...

10. Psychology Edition!! .

11. Sim City: Psychology Instructions: Rather than creating conditions that cultivate happiness, your assignment is to plan and create conditions in your society that will effectively incubate painful social/emotional problems at a widespread level.

12. Stage One: Take three minutes and discuss with the person next to you societal patterns/conditions you would create to cultivate the widespread propagation of depression in your culture.

13. Sim City Psychology: Depression • What would you manufacture for this population to eat and drink? • What messages would you convey to them? • What kind of entertainment would you provide for them? • What would their pace of life be? • How about their sense of community or civic society? • [I will share with you 5 conditions I came up with that would be ideal ways to cultivate depression on a societal level…]

14. Incubation condition #1: Pace of life. Ensure widespread, pathological levels of busyness . . .

15. Over-scheduling • [Wouldn’t you know it? Our current society has some of these conditions already . . .] • Hofferth (1999) notes that youth time in structured sports doubled between 1981 and 1997 (from 2 hours, 20 minutes per week, to 5 hours, 17 minutes per week). • Doherty and Carlson (2002) review and examine how “soccer practice, violin lessons, and other extracurricular activities can serve to overwhelm children and distance them from their loved ones.”

16. “At the pace of life we lead in our society, I sometimes think we should rename the species ‘human doings’ instead of ‘human beings’” • --Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of • the Mindful Way Through Depression

17. Depression as partial byproduct of hectic lifestyle? • The 20-fold increase in depression over the past century is proof that "humans were never designed for the pace of modern life". • "We're designed for a different time . . . when people were physically active, when they were outside in the sun for most of the day, when they had extensive social connections and enjoyed continual face time with their friends and loved ones." • --Dr. Ilardi, University of Kansas (2009, “the Depression Cure”)

18. Immunizing against condition #1? • For societies like ours, that reflect this kind of a societal pattern, what might we do to help immunize or vaccinate individuals against the inevitable exposure we can expect?

19. #1 If you don’t remember anything else from this talk . . Buy this book!!!!

20. Condition #2: Relationship fragmentation. Dilute, degrade or distract close connections between people . . Putnam, R.D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community

21. Declining civic connection: • “Membership and activity in all sorts of local clubs and civic and religious organizations have been falling at an accelerating pace. In the mid-1970s the average American attended some club meeting every month, but by 1998 that rate of attendance had been cut by nearly 60%. “

22. Deteriorating civil discourse:

23. Declining friend connections • “Equally striking is the fraying of our informal ties with friends and neighbors and relatives. In 1975 the average American entertained friends at home 15 times per year; the equivalent figure is now barely half that. Virtually all leisure activities that involve doing something with someone else, from playing volleyball to playing chamber music, are declining.”

24. Decrease in family talking: • Comparing measures of family time between 1981 and 1997, researchers found household conversations had dropped dramatically, with the average American family in 1997 spending close to no time per week "talking as a family” and only 45 minutes per week in “conversation with anyone in the family” as primary activities (Hofferth, 1999, University of Michigan).

25. Family meal time: • Declined by nearly an hour per week over the same period, with a 33% decrease over three decades in families who say they have dinner regularly. • Currently, only one-third of U.S. families indicating they "usually have their evening meal together on a daily basis” (with 58% also reporting that the TV is on during dinner) (RGA Communications, 1995).

26. Family meals/overall time: A “dramatic change” over two decades • Since the evening meal has been a communal experience in virtually all societies for a very long time, the fact that it has visibly diminished in the course of a single generation in our country is remarkable evidence of how rapidly our social connectedness has been changing (Putnam, “Bowling Alone,” p. 100, Harvard University).

27. Putnam continued: “Dramatic change” • Beyond mealtime, virtually all forms of family togetherness became less common over the last quarter of the twentieth century. • Between 1976 and 1997, according to Roper polls of families with children 8-17, vacations together fell from 53 to 38%, watching TV together from 54 to 41%, attending religious services together from 38 to 31% and “just sitting and talking” together from 53 to 43%. It is hard to not read these figures as evidence of rapidly loosening family bonds (p. 101).

28. Family time overall: • In a recent survey of 1,800 adults across the United Kingdom, Vodafone (2006) found that during the week, “a quarter of all families spend an hour or less together without distractions (i.e., 8 minutes, 36 seconds, on average each day)” with statistics for the majority families only twice as much (17minutes, 24 seconds on average each day).

29. Why less time together? Putnam’s answers • --Over-working, overscheduling • --Free time invested elsewhere: • “Between 1965 and 1995 we gained an average of six hours a week in added leisure time, and we spent almost all six of those additional hours watching TV” (pp. 222-223).

30. Why less time together? • 47% say computer games and TV are the biggest reasons for not spending quality time with the family. In fact one third of all respondents said their main way of communicating is not face-to-face. This leaps to almost half when looking at the 16 - 34 year old age group (Vodafone, 2006)

31. Lack of relationships linked to depression: • Many studies show that peoples’ happiness is in relation to the number of close, supportive friendships that they have (i.e., a recent study by Canadian researchers links loneliness to both depression and alcoholism) • Golan’s research: people who were more independent and found it hard to relate to others were most at risk of depression.

32. Abuse and depression • The lifetime prevalence of depression is almost double for victims of completed rape in childhood (52%) than it is for nonvictimized women (27%). • The mean prevalence rate of depression among battered women is 48%. • Keita, G. P. (2007). Psychosocial and Cultural Contributions to Depression in Women: Considerations for Women Midlife and Beyond. Journal of Managed Care Pharmacy, 13, No. 9, S-a

33. 'Culture of we' buffers genetic tendency to depression • Communal cultures keep biology from having its way with depression • “A genetic tendency to depression is much less likely to be realized in a culture centered on collectivistic rather than individualistic values, according to a new Northwestern University study. In other words, a genetic vulnerability to depression is much more likely to be realized in a . . . culture that is more about we than me-me-me.” • Chiao & Blizinsky (2009) Culture-gene coevolution of individualism-collectivism and the serotonin transporter gene. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

34. Immunizing against condition #3? • Bill Doherty’s (professor of Family Science at the University of Minnesota) multi-partisan, non-sectarian effort to “help parents reclaim family time” across the nation (Doherty & Carlson, 2002; see www.puttingfamilyfirst.org). • Doherty proposes that “retrieving family life requires a public, grass roots movement generated and sustained by families themselves” aimed at “raising awareness about finding balance in our over-scheduled lives” and the “impact that over-scheduling has on all of us.”

35. Reclaiming family time • In terms of ultimate goals, Doherty envisions a nation-wide initiative to “counteract the erosion of family time and the overly-competitive world,” eventually “building a community where family time and family activities have high priority in a world that pulls families apart” and “where family life is an honored and celebrated priority.”

36. Doherty’s suggestions: • Make family time and family activities a high priority in their decision making. • Set conscious limits on the scheduling of outside activities in order to honor the values they hold about family time. • Set limits on television, the Internet and other electronic media if these are dominating family life inside the home. • Seek out ways to participate together in activities that build and serve their communities. • (“Putting families first” website)

37. A comeback for family dinner? • A nationwide survey by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University found a recent rise in the number of children ages 12 to 17 who said they ate dinner with their families at least five times a week (from 47% in 1998 to 58% in 2005; Foderaro, 2006). • “It really tells you something about our society when a family sitting down to eat dinner together is newsworthy enough to be on the front page of The New York Times!” (Schulman, et al., 2006).

38. Incubation condition #3: Pervasive, Relentless Media • Reach as many Americans as possible . . . Especially in their own homes.

39. TV media pervasiveness : US Stats • The average American watches more than 4 hours of TV each day (or 28 hours/week, or 2 months of nonstop TV-watching per year). • Number of hours per day that TV is on in an average U.S. home: 6 hours, 47 minutes • Percentage of Americans that regularly watch television while eating dinner: 66% (A.C. Nielsen Co). • 40% of overall American free time in 1995 was absorbed in watching television (Putnam, 2006)

40. Media stats for children • American kids are spending an average of 3 hours a day in front of the TV alone (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). • When movie, video game and computer time is added in, total in-home screen time soars to an average of more than 4-6 hours a day.

41. TV promotes bad food, not moving • One new study, published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, takes a closer look at television advertisements aired during Saturday morning children’s programming. About half of all advertisements were for food, with over 90 percent high in fat, added sugar or sodium, or low in nutrients. • Research also links more time watching television with low physical activity and more overweight.

42. CDC report on parental views on TV:Reasons limits not being enforced. • Many said it was hard to keep track of the time kids spent watching TV. • Others did not see any reason for time limits, as long as chores and homework were done. • Some were more concerned about limiting the type of TV program than the amount viewed. • --Collins, K. Too much screen time, not enough activity (http://calorielab.com)

43. How else does media amount matter for depression? • a) Potential role in “emotional fragmentation”: (Scott Peck, The Road Less Travelled) •  

44. b) What TV replaces: • Number of minutes per week that parents spend in meaningful conversation with their children: 3.5 • Number of minutes per week that the average child watches television: 1,680 • Hours per year the average American youth spends in school: 900 hours • Hours per year the average American youth watches television: 1500 • Number of videos rented daily in the U.S.: 6 million •  Number of public library items checked out • daily: 3 million

46. Incubation condition #3 continued: Pervasive, relentless media • Amount of media • Content of media

47. Media content: Violence • Number of murders seen on TV by the time an average child finishes elementary school: 8,000 • Number of violent acts seen on TV by age 18: 200,000 (TV-Free America) • Since 2000-2001, violent content during the Family Hour has increased by 52.4%(Parent Television Council)

48. Media content: SexRecent Parent Television Council Study on the “Family Hour” • “Across the broadcast networks, verbal references to non-marital sex outnumbered references to sex in the context of marriage by nearly 3 to 1; and scenes depicting or implying sex between non-married partners outnumbered scenes depicting or implying sex between married partners by a ratio of nearly 4 to 1.” • See www.parentstv.org

49. Media content: Sex • There were 2246 instances of violent, profane and sexual content in 180 hours of original Family Hour programming, or 12.48 instances per television hour. • Since 2000-2001, sexual content has increased by 22.1% • The Fox network as the overall worst offender, with 20.78 instances of objectionable content per hour.

50. Media content: Body image • Most fashion models weigh 23 percent less than the average female.