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Poor mental health is an issue for many of our readers. That fact is underscored by the response to a tweet sent by @NatureNews earlier this week, which highlighted that rates of depression and anxiety reported by postgraduate students are six times higher than in the general population (T. M. Evans et al. Nature Biotechnol. 36, 282–284; 2018), and asked what should be done to help. The figures are a shock, but it was the reaction that blew us away: more than 1,200 retweets and around 170 replies.
“This is not one dimensional problem. Financial burden, hostile academia, red tape, tough job market, no proper career guidance. Take your pick,” read one. “Maybe being told day in, day out that the work you spend 10+ hrs a day, 6–7 days a week on isn’t good enough,” said another.
The feedback emphasizes something that Nature has highlighted often in recent years: there is a problem among young scientists. Too many have mental-health difficulties, and too many say that the demands of the role are partly to blame. Neither issue gets the attention it deserves. “I’d love to see some of the comments under this thread published,” wrote one responder. “There needs to be real conversation about this, not just observation.”
We agree — which is why we are publishing some of the responses. (You can read the full thread here.)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 02 2018, @12:40PM (11 children)
Of course postgrads have mental health issues.
- They suffer from depression related to "How am I going to find a job in my dwindling field and how am I going to pay off my student loans while working at McDonalds?"
- They see housing and healthcare costs going up fast while wages stay stagnant, and they realize that housing, healthcare and energy costs are not included in the government's calculations to determine the rate of inflation.
- They see a nation being divided by both political parties, and by many other special interest groups.
- They see their friends still living with their parents.
- They see the life expectancy in the US actually dropping.
- And they don't see much on TV that is worth watching or hear any good new music.
Come to think of it, we're doomed.
(Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Monday April 02 2018, @01:01PM (6 children)
I'll mod you up, but I don't agree that "they don't see much on TV that is worth watching or hear any good new music". There is pretty much a consensus that there is a "golden age of television" [wikipedia.org] right now1. There is more competition than ever with streaming giants like Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and soon Apple laying down billions to create new content, including niche content that would never have been made 10-20 years ago. CGI is also expanding what can be portrayed on screen, particularly for science fiction shows. As for music, the Internet not only allows people to discover more good music from all over the world, but platforms like Soundcloud and Bandcamp lower the barrier to entry for new musicians. They also provide a way for talented artists to gather a following online and then break into the mainstream. YouTube, Patreon, etc. revenue can allow artists (of various types) to bypass traditional gatekeepers and earn a living creating music, entertainment, art, whatever.
What does this mean? It means that the "circuses" part of "bread and circuses" is functioning well. As for the bread, you can live on $1-2 a day if you plan your meals right and shop at ALDI.
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(Score: 2) by acid andy on Monday April 02 2018, @01:33PM (2 children)
I think the problem is there's just so much more of everything. Lots more good TV and music but countless mountains more crap. In the past you might only have to wade through 50 or 100 crap pieces of music or TV shows to find the real gem. Now there are 1000s. The numbers I gave get trimmed down if you're interested in a particular genre or even just what's popular or trendy (doesn't work well for me) but I'm still left questioning whether this can really be legitimately called a golden age. The mountains of shit taint the overall impression. That wikipedia link doesn't help the case for me either. I don't consider Lost or Battlestar Galactica (reboot) quality TV, so I'm not sure what this "international acclaim" is worth. They were both fairly entertaining but the habit of making it up as they went along constantly leaving plot threads dangling and their abhorrence of science drove me a bit nuts.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Immerman on Monday April 02 2018, @02:05PM
One word: curation.
Yes, if you wander through the mountains of crap looking for a gem, you're going to see a lot more crap.
So, you don't start there. You start by following a number of review sites that display tastes similar to your own, and mine them for suggestions on new things to start watching. Or skim the "top NN things to watch lists". Don't just go randomly wading through the sewers and then complain about the scenery.
Because here's the secret - a lot of what you like is crap too. You just don't notice because its crap that managed to hit the high points that matter to you. A lot of what everybody likes is crap - the gems that see widespread accolades are very rare. Hell, I'd bet good money that even the masterpieces of Shakespeare or Dickens would widely be considered crap these days, losing out to the many crappy remakes that cater to the expectations of a modern audience.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 02 2018, @02:05PM
That's the filter problem. Some years ago, I'd spend hours at weekend listening to bandcamp. In all that time I discovered only a handful of bands I thought were interesting. This is where instant access to market and lack of initial investment impacts quality control, "good enough" isn't. Bland, derivative crap reminiscent of wading through a "me too" (AOL Version (although there's plenty of "ear rape" involved)) comments section. Movies and TV have likewise been relegated to the level of fan fiction.
(Score: 1, Troll) by VLM on Monday April 02 2018, @02:06PM
As far as cheap food goes, the analogy with McDonalds fast "food" is near perfect.
If you take away the hype and product placement, "The Sopranos" as mentioned in the wikipedia link is awful. I tried to watch it while recovering from the flu a couple months back; couldn't. Awful show.
The problem is human supply of creativity has always been mostly fixed and only a tiny, optimistically good, fraction of writing talent has ever been tapped. Turning a larger percentage of scripts into video streams means the quality HAS to implode, as it has.
Likewise the problem with automation of indie music, is for 99% of the population "music" means the music industry pop crap, and pressure from indies sucking money away means its worse. Without McDonalds competition, your average restaurant would serve slightly better food.
In growing developing industries, competition grows the pie; in commodity industries competition just provides smaller slices of pie until the technical challenges of paper thin slices means the industry collapses and you get no pie or the pie is disgusting low quality.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Freeman on Monday April 02 2018, @03:46PM (1 child)
I think we already passed the Golden Age of Television. In fact, I think the golden age of Television was dwindling when I was born. I think the 90s killed the Golden Age of Television. The 2ks are performing dark arts on desecrated remains of good television. That said, I still have a Netflix account. There's nothing quite like the TV series "Hogan's Heroes", "MASH", or "The A-Team". Even the anti-gun lobbying people had a cool thing going with "MacGyver". One thing they all had in common is that they didn't feel a need to throw in graphic violence, nudity, or "foul" language to sell their series. They relied on interesting characters and Good Stories to sell their series. I can grab a camera and take better pictures than so many "great films". That doesn't mean I can make a great movie. Whiz Bang features are fly by night.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 02 2018, @07:32PM
MacGyver was always helping at-risk youths.
The M*A*S*H guys were always mentoring somebody coming through the ward.
The A-Team were writing wrongs while helping teach people to defend themselves in creative fashions.
Etc.
Hell, Airwolf was about curbing the dangers of government action without concern for the damage it could cause within and without. A lesson that could perhaps be useful to learn today given our modern military industrial complex and ever lowering bar of conduct among individuals in privileged positions.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Monday April 02 2018, @01:44PM (3 children)
Its actually worse, the kid who didn't go to college instead taking on an electricians apprenticeship, by phd time, is making $100K/yr and has a hot spouse and about two kids and a nice house and no debt, getting close to that master electrician cert and opening his own small business, despite endless indoctrination that higher ed is the only path to success and not going to college means living under a freeway overpass for all eternity.
Cultural ideas die hard. Generations ago, higher ed made sense. It hasn't for at least a generation for at least half the attendees. Now its merely a cash extraction scam, but its going to be generations before culture catches up to reality.
Higher ed has always been a great way to get an education. For awhile last century, it was a vocational meal ticket, but its back to purely being educational and if anything anti-correlates with individual success.
Or rephrased something like higher ed always took rich kids and made them better although slightly poorer (probably still very rich), then last century it took average kids and made them wealthy, now it takes all kids and makes them poor for a lifetime but slightly (only slightly) more educated. Harvard started out as a seminary, most people going to seminary don't go there to get rich, generations ago Harvard grads temporarily got rich, now we're back to "normal" and its just a seminary for the progressive religion outputting unemployable fundamentalists once again.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday April 02 2018, @03:57PM
This is getting more and more true: the investment in Uni just doesn't pay off. Maybe with an M.D. you hit ROI after 3-5 years of practice and then can really start enjoying the benefits of the education, but in most fields it's just wasted time and wasted money that doesn't put you on any faster track to success.
Now, that electrician (plumber, etc.) should have a plan that gets him out of field work by the time he's 40-50, or he will regret it.
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(Score: 4, Interesting) by bobthecimmerian on Monday April 02 2018, @04:46PM
There is nothing wrong with becoming a carpenter, plumber, auto mechanic, or electrician. That said, even that can be a hard field to do well with. A lot of people are shifting that way because they have no other option. When someone calls about getting a sink replaced instead of competing against two other people when all three of you charge $75 an hour for labor (because of taxes, insurance, and fuel for your van) you're up against ten competitors and some are so desperate to bring in an income that they charge $35 an hour. You can't blame the buyer for picking the cheap competitor, it's not the buyer's job to verify that the competitor carries insurance or any certifications.
My uncle is a retired electrician and he said the blue collar trade to look into now would be robotics repair and maintenance. That's guaranteed to be a fast-growing field.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 03 2018, @12:55AM
It's higher schooling, not higher education. And no, it hasn't, or at least not when it comes to the vast majority of schools. Most people who graduate have little idea what they are doing, as most colleges and universities simply rely on rote memorization much like K-12 schools. This continues to be true. Anyone who believes that are school system is anything but a disaster simply doesn't know what a quality education looks like, because they've probably never witnessed one, or at the very least are heavily indoctrinated by our anti-intellectual culture.