The attached video is an incredibly important TED talk. In it, the speaker explains how anxiety and depression are often not just the result of a chemical imbalance, but actually pain that signals real problems in one’s life. And given that these symptoms are on the rise across Western society, they are actually signals about an underlying problem with our values. Imagine having a broken leg and the doctor just gives you some pain meds to dull the pain rather than a cast to set your bone.
What’s most interesting to me, however, is how this is part of a broader trend of society and the media paying too much attention to the symptoms and not the causes. Trump and Facebook come to mind as an example.
In the case of Trump we pay too much attention to him and his psychotic personality rather than the people who voted for him and the culture that makes his candidacy and his presidency possible.
In the case of Facebook we are calling on them to censor speech and take the blame for trolling and misinformation. In fact a lot of this stuff comes from major media sources, Clickbait headlines and fundamental fault lines in our culture. Facebook, and the interactions that happen on it, are mostly just the symptoms of the real problem.
We need more people paying attention to root causes.