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user-inactivated  ·  2113 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Sex and Drugs Decline Among Teens, but Depression and Suicidal Thoughts Grow

    I know there's been studies linking social media and depression

I did a project for my Psychology course in the uni, a translation of a study. The point of study was that there are two ways in which people compare themselves to others: upward (when you look up to someone and feel sorry for not having it just as good) and downward (when you look down and someone and pity them for not having it as you good as you do). It's especially prominent in social media.

Upward comparison leads to narcissism and self-centeredness. Downward comparison leads to decreased self-esteem and is a contributing factor towards depression.

    Job prospects and having hope in the future are an issue too I'm sure

I can only speak for my country, but it seems like it's a problem present in both Russia and the US, to varying degrees. Here, most people insist that you need "the paper" (a uni or similar higher ed diploma) to get a job. Most people study just to get it, regardless of the degree or the university, because they believe it allows them the promised prospects.

Government jobs necessitate it, which is understandable, but there are plenty of jobs where skill is all you need yet where "the paper" is a requirement. Translation, for example: if you possess a decent level of the language, it's easy to see what is a good translation and what is not.

I don't have a clue whether it's as bad as people say it is. I've only ever been in semi-official positions: car wash, construction; neither asked me for the diploma. "Get to work". "Yes, sir".

My sister's first degree is in beer brewing. Her mother insisted she get "the paper", and my sister still had no specialty job; closest she got to beer was bartending. Her second is in legal; she had a migration service job for a while, then moved on to court office. She's been trying to get the education she wanted - social work - for a few years now, and every time there's a bump on the road - and she can't enter the uni that year. She's 33.

Our Economics 101 teacher, much as I dislike her, made a good point when she said that higher education gets devalued through the increase in student influx. When everyone needs a degree even to mop the floors (which a cliche people use when describing the situation), you get overcrowded classes, a ton of students who don't give a crap about the field and, therefore, more work for the same small staff of teachers. Her point was that, with more students who get into higher ed because they "have to", there are fewer genuine specialists ready to work in the field, and in an already-oversaturated job market, it can only lead to people working somewhere other than their field of expertise.