Neoliberal Anxiety: Depression, Loneliness, and Suicide under Late Capitalism
Channel: Eco Gecko
Date: 2018-11-07

Content Warning: Mental illness, suicide. 

Across the developed world, people are becoming more anxious, more depressed, and unfortunately, in some cases more suicidal, even as neoliberalism has nominally delivered on its promise of material prosperity. But this isn't a new phenomenon: our social bonds have been dissolving for decades, so video games, TV, and social media can't be to blame. What's going on?

In this video, we examine anxiety and depression as symptoms not of individual neurological defects, but of the social and economic world around us.

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Articles and papers cited:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/suicide-prevention-minister-ukip-joke-beachy-head-jackie-doyle-price-conservative-a8577496.html
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17151166
https://www.psychotherapy.org.uk/news/new-figures-workers-reporting-anxiety-depression-risen-nearly-third-last-four-years/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/10/171030134631.htm
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A939RX0Q048SBE
https://economics.mit.edu/files/586
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/5ff1/815a89a36895f2704df9633e0d7f4acdeb48.pdf
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.532.5200&rep=rep1&type=pdf
https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.81.9.1148
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2834184/
https://www.asanet.org/sites/default/files/savvy/images/press/docs/pdf/June06ASRFeature.pdf
https://phys.org/news/2018-05-americans-socially-isolated-theyre-lonelier.html
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-antidepressant-diet/201706/social-loneliness-may-make-the-depressed-even-more-so
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0182145
https://www.calmclinic.com/anxiety/isolation-loneliness
https://time.com/5212558/loneliness-social-isolation-heart-health/

Books cited:
Robert D. Putnam, "Bowling Alone", 2000.
Karl Polanyi, "The Great Transformation", 1944.