Check your head

Today's topic: Mental health.

At least that was the topic of my lectures. I didn't think I would be that interested in mental health issues, but I was. I've always been a bit suspicious of psycho-babble and penis being an explanation of everything wrong with people. In the UK at the moment, approximately 1 million teenagers suffer from anxiety or depression. That's the kind of figure I am suspicious of, as I remember being a teen and I'm pretty sure that anxious or depressed is the resting state for a teenager. I have a theory about why kids nowadays are more vulnerable than in the past, but I'll get to that in a bit. It was a gentle easing back into the regimen of lectures and learning et al, the lecturer was using her "soothing voice" technique on us, something I only picked up on about half-way through the lecture. It wasn't monotonous nor soporiphic, rather it was relaxing. Made me think of "Dune". But anyway. More interesting was that 15-year-olds that smoke Cannabis are four times more likely to develop depression. Not overly surprising, I must say, but interesting to see it confirmed empirically. Pretty much everyone was wearing grey, which at first I thought was more than a co-incidence, showing our mindset. But then a course-mate informed me that grey is the new black - whatever that means. But she did suggest eloping, so I can't really get that annoyed with her.

So down to my theory. Feel free to disagree with me on this one, as almost sure you will:

Are we as a species in danger of becoming overloaded with information? Some kind of critical mass of consciousness? Are my generation are perhaps the best able to deal with this? We grew up at the beginning of global communication happening on an everyday level. We saw the birth of the Internet, surely the most important catalyst in this global mindset. We have had the chance to acclimatise to it's growth in popularity and the opportunities it offers, evolving with it. Younger generations haven't had that option. For them it has always been; MSN-bullying, MySpace paedos and sex from every outlet. They don't have the point of reference that we do, no chance to switch off. Kids today have their mobile 'phones with them at all times. The idea of not being on the grid is alien to them. So the stresses and strains of this accumulates in a way that might have been familiar to the 80's Wall St. executive, but surely aren't appropriate for people who aren't even sure what they want out of life.

Discuss.

[Tortoise edit] Looks like being mentally is pretty much a crime nowadays :\