Is the World More Depressed? T.M. Lurhmann

“Of course rising mental illness can’t be directly attributed to Facebook, or to what Sherry Turkle, an M.I.T. professor and author of “Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other,” calls “the pressure of performance.” But there may be something important here about our awareness of other people and where we stand in social space. We know that social position affects both when you die and how sick you get: The higher your social position, the healthier you are. It turns out that your sense of relative social rank — where you draw a line on an abstract ladder to show where you are with respect to others — predicts many health outcomes, including depression, sometimes even more powerfully than your objective socioeconomic status. What has exploded in India over the past few decades, but also everywhere else in the world, is information about other people. As we watch television, surf the Internet and follow events around the world, we become intimately aware of other ways of living and of others who are richer and more powerful. We place ourselves in a vast social order in which most of us are ants. It may truly be a depressing reflection.”