Why is depression trending? (here’s why)

In this guide, we will explain why is depression trending and how it all started.

Recurrent depressive disorder includes recurrent depressive symptoms. The person experiences a depressed mood, loss of interest and pleasure, and decreased energy during these episodes, leading to decreased activity for at least two weeks. Many individuals with depression also suffer from signs of anxiety, impaired sleep, and appetite, and may have feelings of shame or low self-worth, poor focus, and even symptoms that a medical diagnosis does not explain.

Why is depression trending

People founded on the idea of happy, ideal lives are so tired of social media. It is all about being Depressed Online in 2019.

Among several must-follow accounts across all channels is “Trendy” emotional distress on social media. “same”same (currently at 3.6 million). Even if you share photographs where you look sweet and cheerful, as recently, it must be followed by a self-deprecating caption.

The age of being Sad Online is characterized by a sense of reverse FOMO, a tacit agreement by JOMO (the Joy of Missing Out) to redefine being cool on the internet, then file it under social anxiety. However, it is likely that continuously writing about our depression or anxiety may often be just as performative as the culture of self-care #posivibes that starts to feel lame.

Social media encouraging people to talk about their depression

There has also been a surge of social media campaigns that empower people to talk about their mental health freely. To help to normalize, destigmatize, and contribute to those hardships, the social media hive mind has rushed to share their real emotional distress. The basic and crucial difference between sad feelings and the words used to diagnose mental illnesses, such as anxiety and depression, may have been overlooked in our hurry, however.

“People label their sadness as depression and their nervousness as anxiety when the problems that they’re facing often don’t reflect those psychological problems. If healthy people are convinced that they’re depressed, they ultimately identify with the glamorized social media posts, aggravating the phenomenon even more,” Jinan Jennifer Jadayel, a graduate student from the International School in L.

Increasingly, social media has blurred the distinction between what is authentic and success, even inside ourselves. Although blogging about our irritating vibes may sound more genuine, it may just be a new way to fit in online for others.

Depression reportings increased

There have never been more people disclosing mental health problems across all numerical accounts than right now, particularly the young demographic that dominates social media.

A recent Pew Research study showed that 7 in 10 teenagers agree that the greatest challenges their peers face are anxiety and depression. The medical journal JAMA analyzed data from the CDC that revealed a significant rise in suicide rates among Americans aged 15 to 24. In addition to young people, the CDC also cites the often-repeated estimate that in a given year, 1 in 5 Americans experience mental illness. A rise in anxiety and depression among boomers has also been documented by the American Psychiatric Association in recent years.

We are more nervous and frustrated than ever before or, at least, more openly talk about it. The pattern of sad online culture, however, may contribute to wrongful self-diagnoses and an unintended trivialization of serious diseases.

Rola Jadayel, another co-author of the social media study and professor of science at the University of Balamand in Lebanon, says: ‘More and more adolescents are persuaded that depression, anxiety, anorexia, and bipolarity are’ cool ‘or can make you’ special.’

The appeal of saying you are depressed on social media

The study focused on a particular form of Tumblr and Instagram post that glorifies mental health problems blatantly through specific hashtags (you know the type). The study indicates that by presenting them as attractive on social media, more people associate with these misrepresentations, which can lead to all kinds of damage.

There’s a bit of a pull to enter a community for some people, particularly when you’re young. And the group of people with social anxiety or depression feels like one you can easily join, “For some people, especially when you’re young, there is a bit of a pull to join a group. And the group of people with social anxiety or depression feels like one you can easily join,”

Meme-ing, blogging, Instagramming, and tik-toking about anxiety and depression aren’t just for coping in these jaded times. It can act as a guise of integrity in a virtual social setting that tends to misrepresent it, particularly for young people desperately seeking authenticity and connection.

How depression trending is bad

That’s not to say that we shouldn’t or can’t chat online about mental health problems freely. But Tracy claims the prevalent mental health social media dialogue is far too far from reality to be beneficial.

“There’s this group that starts to believe that all mental illness is: some mild anxiety and a breathing exercise,” she says. “It normalizes a version of mental illness that isn’t realistic for those of us who have a serious mental illness. Someone with a severe anxiety disorder is going to need a whole heck of a lot more than breathing exercises, you know.”

What may seem mild from the outside, however, can seem serious to the person experiencing the symptom, and a mental health professional may be the only real judge about the impact. The concern then is not that more individuals post their mental health experiences on social media, but that, without sufficient context, certain individuals glorify or misappropriate those problems. There are still levels of complexity and degrees of severe damage to what kind of social posts lead to.

According to the Balamand University report, two main factors are involved in the most potent and dangerous posts: aesthetic visuals and a person to associate with. That’s why the study concentrated on image-heavy sites such as Tumblr and Instagram because the biggest responses are illegal and are often the most commonly used by especially vulnerable teenagers.

Although the analysis did not account much for the video, the researchers assume that that form of content increases certain main factors. Tumblr has fallen out of favor since the publication of the report, but young influencers have flocked to Tik Tok and Snapchat. These channels are intended for video content that makes followers feel a personal link to the creator to see them as aspirationally linked. And that can be particularly hazardous.

How did the depression trend start

The notion of a beautiful tragedy for teens is far from fresh. Schools teach Romeo and Juliet to adolescents, arguably the hipsters who romanticized suicide centuries before the internet became cool. The ’90s even had their brand of chic depression.

For as long as teenagers have been alive, it has been around, “It’s been around for as long as teenagers have been around,” “The hierarchy of the most depressed was a ’90s phenomenon: Who’s the saddest, most anxious, got the most fucked up family? The stigma was always there, too, but within sub-communities, there’s competition over who’s worse off. And now, there are all these new platforms.”

Social media produces an abundance of small sub-communities where, at lightning speed, this form of Olympic disaster hits an unparalleled number of people. That’s not all evil, but it’s an undeniable vitality.

The emergence of Sad Girls club on social media

Being sad online has authentic origins, too, popularized by Internet Sad Girls, one of the most prominent sub-groups that characterized early web culture. The aesthetic of pale, melancholic, creative anguished teen Tumblr girls became so popular a decade ago that it paved the way for pop stars such as sad vamp queen Lana Del Ray. Not only did sad internet girls have their manifesto, but a feminist ideology written by artist Audrey Wollen called Sad Girl Theory (who goes by Tragic Queen on Instagram).

The theory posited that the trend was a means of political protest, even though it was not explicitly promoting a movement. Finally, through web art and personas, young girls felt able to share their perceptions of pain under patriarchal oppression. For social media accounts such as Sad Girls Club, an organization with 170,000 Instagram followers aimed at supporting women of color with mental illness by giving them a group, this is primarily the impetus.

Hope for the future trends

There is hope that when it comes to sad internet culture, both consumers and developers of social media sites are increasingly coming to realize the consequences of reckless trend following.

Instagram tried to block glamorizing content, removing established inappropriate hashtags such as #proana (pro-anorexia) and highlighting posts from #socialanxiety that is simply about finding support rather than brands of clothing. Even Tumblr is cracking down on its free-wheeling policies, while near to extinct, by pushing help sites and tools for everyone who searches #suicide. 

What led us here to spiral out of control can help us to rein in ourselves: a shift in the culture of social media can be part of the solution to the problem it created. 

In this guide, we explained why is depression trending and how it all started.

FAQs: Why is depression trending

References

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5127071/

https://in.mashable.com/culture/4466/how-being-sad-depressed-and-anxious-online-became-trendy

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/depression