Psychobabble

#Mental health now has over 68 billion views. #Tics has 4.2 billion, #borderline personality disorder 1.5 billion and #dissociative identity disorder has 1.3 billion. Tik Tok is taking over the world, its’ algorithms pruned by an army of psychologists to suck teens in and spend hours watching reel after reel. With teens now spending up to 9 hours of screen time a day, what could possibly go wrong? Dissociative Identity Disorder (aka Multiple Personality Disorder), tic-disorders and Borderline Personality Disorder have never had prevalence rates above 2%. On all the different social media platforms, however, you find communities with aesthetically pleasing videos romanticizing symptoms and criteria for diagnosing. Influencers give the impression that having the disorder makes you “someone”. Does it then come as a surprise that clinicians everywhere are reporting that teens are self-diagnosing using the exact terms from the Diagnostic Manual? One study suggests the prevalence rate of Dis...

In 2022 there was  a “pope-dog”-craze , after the Pope criticised young adults for choosing to have pets over children. The observation is legitimate, as 1 in 4 of members of Generation Z choose to have a pet instead of a child, citing the high cost of children, focus on career, and climate change. Incidentally, a  study  out of Michigan is among the first to differentiate between those who don’t yet have kids or otherwise can’t, and those who choose not to. Finding that the latter, the group with the euphemism “child- free”   also refers to a 1 in 4 proportion of the subjects. It also claims that child-free couples are happier than the others. Why couldn’t the pope leave people to live their lives as they please?  I understand the attraction, a pet gives you unconditional love without making you change anything in your romantic, professional or residential life. But is it love, or is it the guarantee that someone’s always happy to see you? I have been told...