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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: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 02 2018, @06:03PM (2 children)
The truth is in terms of value to society most academic research (at least in the soft science) is not producing anything of value. That 30k a year average may be too much, but the problem is more how it gets distributed.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday April 03 2018, @02:38AM
And we still try to get the kids to go into STEM.
I am in that same boat as well... just glad I was close to retirement when the tech left USA.
Dream about making that rocket-ship, but wake up! Ya gotta make money. No wonder stressed out. You spend all this time studying hard to make the grade, then find out nobody needs you to build their things... or even to fix them. Nobody seems to want the worker types anymore, and its a mad race to the bottom, while our Government concerns itself with legislating/enforcing artificial monopolies to keep the technical types from competing against the "rightsholders". Or just another way of saying... anybody can come mow my lawn, and I will choose the lowest priced worker, but if you do what I am doing to make a buck, then you are in clear violation of my business model! Only I have the "right" to do this!
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday April 04 2018, @02:52AM
These dudes were proving how blood circulated through the body during a novel form of CPR, using colored latex nanospheres... relatively hard science there, a bit removed from commercial application, but if we only reward the salespeople when they close a sale and no-one else, society will rapidly implode.
🌻🌻 [google.com]