
Young people in U.S. dying at high rates - JumpCrisscross
https://www.axios.com/life-expectancy-young-americans-dying-ccf19571-4a7d-4022-bfba-f4707086a7f1.html
======
brenden2
Here's the paper with a less sensationalized title, "Life Expectancy and
Mortality Rates in the United States, 1959-2017":
[https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2756187](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2756187)

The paper concludes as follows:

> US life expectancy increased for most of the past 60 years, but the rate of
> increase slowed over time and life expectancy decreased after 2014. A major
> contributor has been an increase in mortality from specific causes (eg, drug
> overdoses, suicides, organ system diseases) among young and middle-aged
> adults of all racial groups, with an onset as early as the 1990s and with
> the largest relative increases occurring in the Ohio Valley and New England.
> The implications for public health and the economy are substantial, making
> it vital to understand the underlying causes.

~~~
sachdevap
The paper might have a less sensational title, but that does not make the
content any less news-worthy. I don't think the author is wrong at raising
alarm about this.

~~~
brenden2
2 different titles:

"The rate of life expectancy increase slowed over time and life expectancy
decreased after 2014"

vs

"Young people in U.S. dying at high rates"

Which one seems sensationalist to you?

~~~
buboard
This:

> life expectancy decreased after 2014

is explained by this:

> "Young people in U.S. dying at high rates"

Unless something terrible happened, lowered life expectancy for 3 years in a
row should be unacceptable and warrant sensationalism.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/theres-something-
terri...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/theres-something-terribly-
wrong-americans-are-dying-young-at-alarming-
rates/2019/11/25/d88b28ec-0d6a-11ea-8397-a955cd542d00_story.html)

[https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/921858](https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/921858)

[https://www.healio.com/primary-care/practice-
management/news...](https://www.healio.com/primary-care/practice-
management/news/online/%7B257bd9d1-41b0-4bbc-bc7d-79c4b8a8f8dd%7D/us-life-
expectancy-drops-after-decades-of-improvement)

------
_Understated_
Anectodal comment here: n=1.

I stopped actively viewing news in all formats around 4 years ago. I actively
shunned TV news, newspapers, radio, and I block all ads online.

Some still got through, making me more determined to avoid them: leaving the
room when the news came on for example (my wife switching the channel over!).

But it made me angry because I couldn't escape it. I literally could not get
away from it.

When I enter the supermarket, the newspapers are right in front of the damn
door! I actually look away from them. Look past them. Whatever it takes.

I've now resigned myself to absorbing some of it passively but I have
developed a kind of shield. I almost internally say "meh, so what!".

Almost none of it directly affects me or if it does I am in no position to do
ANYTHING about it.

Almost. Some still gets through and pisses me off expecially since every news
broadcast or story has a politician in it.

But it was depressing. I actually think that before I stopped I was depressed.
Not just feeling down. Clinically depressed.

I am a different person now. I talk to other entrepreneurs: by definition, the
successful ones are quite positive people.

I honestly think the constant depressing and negative news was what made me
depressed.

The sooner you get rid of it, the better you'll feel.

------
taurath
This is a problem of a culture that is lost in the woods. We are incredibly
divided, you're probably not going to know or have much in common with your
neighbors. The world seems small, and you're just holding on. We are
functionally going down the same cultural road as Russia, with a "fuck it"
sort of cynical attitude that leads to excess seeking of dissociation and
alcoholism. I have many friends who do absolutely nothing but work, play games
and drink.

There are many countries where people have to work with their hands to put
food on the table, who are quite happier with their lives individually than
people in the US are. There's plenty of ways to look at the problem and
actually study the differences from culture to culture - I'd love to see a few
of them. My hypothesis is one of the causes is a lack of dynamism caused by
economic insecurity. There's n ot a whole lot thats new because there's little
appetite for risk. We still have the same 8 restaurants in malls that we've
had since the 90s because incumbents make it too difficult to succeed. This is
super rambly I admit, but in the US its so fucking depressing.

~~~
TurkishPoptart
I don't want your salient comment to fall to the bottom in a discussion about
food trucks and mall food. Your point is far more important than that stuff. I
really do think that America is turning into Russia (oligarch control of mass
media , hopelessness, alcoholism/drug abuse, propaganda everywhere,
instability and un- and under-employment), and that Russia is turning into
America (inheriting the worst aspects: mass consumer culture, little public
participation in civil society, obsessed with social media, media
conglomerates complicit with the government, money over everything else. The
only other person I've seen make that argument is Max Keiser, whose show,
ironically, is broadcast on RT.

I agree with your hypothesis is that lack of dynamism in society is caused by
economic insecurity. And I, too, have many friends who do nothing but work,
play games, and drink (not that I don't do these things myself). I don't know
where this is all going, but I don't like it.

~~~
taurath
Part of the reason I seize on malls and food is it seems like the place where
people should be going out to, rather than sitting at home with a bag of fast
food every day. Past other activities, everyone has to eat, and eating is a
huge part of thriving cultures.

------
war1025
"We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no
Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great
Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that
one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we
won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off."

\-- Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

------
TurkishPoptart
>Death rates among young and middle-age adults stemmed mostly from suicide,
drug overdose, obesity and liver disease.

These are mostly deaths of despair. When people feel like they have no way out
of crappy circumstances, and time marches on. And when the only treatment is
completely unaffordable, or worse, results in gigantic bills, it can seem
almost logical to turn to suicide or alcohol abuse (what a teacher in my 7th-
grade "life skills" class called 'slow-motion suicide').

~~~
FussyZeus
Exactly. Look at what these kids are being handed for a future and tell me
they don't have the right to be in life-threatening levels of despair.

~~~
hcurtiss
I just don't understand these kinds of comments. On every measurable metric,
there has literally never been a better time to be alive and living in
America. It seems to me that people's expectations are outpacing our
relatively abundant affluence. That may still be a problem, but it has little
to do with "what we're being handed for a future." My suspicion is that hit
has more to do with the rise in social media and the fact that we're
constantly comparing our lives to other people's highlight reels.

~~~
NathanKP
Remember most of us on Hacker News make well over the national average. The
annual median personal income is about 31k a year. This means that there are a
lot of people working mind numbing, dead end, minimum wage jobs (likely
retail, service industry, or warehouse jobs with no benefits or bad benefits),
barely struggling to survive paycheck to paycheck. They don't feel like "there
has literally never been a better time to be alive and living in America".

Social media is bad, but it's not the cause. Our society is seriously
suffering, and the gap between those of us who are privileged and those of us
who have nothing is just getting wider.

~~~
hcurtiss
I keep hearing that there's growing fraction of impoverished people in the US,
but the data tell a very different story. See figure 1 and 2 here:
[https://www3.nd.edu/~jsulliv4/2017%20Consumption%20Poverty%2...](https://www3.nd.edu/~jsulliv4/2017%20Consumption%20Poverty%20Report%20Meyer%20Sullivan%20final.pdf)

~~~
lmpostor
Eh I disagree for a multitude of reasons, first is that I really don't agree
with the government assumed line of "what is poverty" and I seriously doubt
that is the first thing that jumps into everyone's mind when they say people
around them are "impoverished". Strictly speaking for 2018, 13064 is the
official poverty line for an individual with no dependents below the age of
65. You can easily make above the poverty line working those jobs above, but
working minimum wage is quite frankly poverty level in my mind, even 50% more
would be pushing it.

Secondly there are additional items that are necessary for this next
generation that I don't believe are really accounted for. A lack of good
internet access in the form of a smartphone or pc is a literal handicap, if
someone can't justify affording that, I would very much consider them
impoverished. Time is literal money and denying the most advanced tool in our
day and age that will save you large amounts of time/money is poor from my
perspective.

Yes I realize this measures something else, but it is rather opaque, and it
fails to account for other things like debt.

------
corporateslave5
Trade policies and immigration decimated the United States middle class. The
rich got rich. It’s pretty simple

~~~
taurath
The rich are always going to have an advantage towards staying rich. Heck, the
people that voted for candidates who talked about trade policies and
immigration cheered a massive corporate tax cut.

~~~
dba7dba
True, we will always have the rich in our society. HOWEVER, the rich got
richer at stupendous rate in the last few decades, while the rest got poorer
at increasing rate.

~~~
war1025
I wonder how the charts look if you graph them on a log scale. Wealth
concentration is exponential by nature.

------
mfer
There was research work that showed a causation between smart phones/social
media and increased loneliness and depression rates.

I wonder how we can increase awareness and ethical decision making around our
industries actions.

~~~
dba7dba
So I am an older dude living in a coastal city with a high cost of living, and
not a teenager who's easily impressionable.

And I cut the cord years ago so most of my screen entertainment is from
youtube videos. And I don't even watch the `trending` videos that youtube
pushes. I simply watch documentaries, old TV/movie shows, highlights of
soccer/baseball (since I don't have cable TV), some game playing videos, and
vlogs.

It was the vlogs that got me feel depressed even more. I don't watch vlogs of
the pop stars but of normal people who are just going about their life. Like
sailing with family, working on their big houses and cars, flying to places in
airliners, flying around in private planes for work/pleasure.

These are completely normal/awesome people who I would love to have as
friends. But as I watched the vlogs, I realized that I did/do/will NOT have
what they have. Yes yes, it's shallow of me to think this way, of material
goods.

With scripted TV shows/movies, you knew the nice houses/cars/toys were
fantasies. But with vlogs, you know they are real people. It's true that they
are often showing just better part of their lives, but still these
houses/cars/toys are real in real people's lives.

Watching these youtube videos inevitably lead to introspection.

The other part of internet that get me down is real estate websites. Before
internet, you really had to go out of your way to see inside of expensive
houses. Now, with a browser, you can see how the others live. As someone who
is paying $$ for dumpy/small space in an increasingly expensive coastal city,
it surely does depress me. I initially started viewing the sites to look for
my own house possibly to buy, and it inevitably leads to viewing more and more
expensive houses. Soon enough, you wonder, what have I done with my life.

I've started cutting out vlogs/real estate websites. But I cannot unsee what I
have seen.

For anyone who will see this as rantings of a materialistic person, I am
pretty sure I am not. I can fit what I use/need in daily life into a suitcase,
except for my 24" monitor. What really gets me is I can't provide for my
family.

Oh well, maybe I AM a shallow materialistic dude who just doesn't admit to it.

>>> I wonder how we can increase awareness and ethical decision making around
our industries actions.

Frankly, not sure what our tech industry can do to address the complaints I
laid out...

~~~
mfer
My local newspaper has started to write articles about the fancy homes in the
area. It's harder to avoid these kinds of things.

Some of this comes down to ethics. Am I making something that will hurt
people? When I took engineering classes in college I was required to take an
ethics class where we talked about thinking these things through. I know not
everyone has been taught this.

I wonder how we can add this to our culture as creators. To think about the
repercussions of our actions.

------
Vysero
Hopefully this is just coincidence; a few bad years so to say. However, based
on my own experiences and having a few friends die due to drug overdose I can
say I think not. I wouldn't even know where to start when it comes to placing
blame or if it would even help.

I am 33 now and if I have noticed anything in my lifetime it's that people
seem so much more divided now than in previous generations. I look at my
mothers generation and all the amazing things people accomplished with civil
rights, women's rights and environmental action/protection here in the US...
that I can't help but feel like we have dropped the ball.

Perhaps the media has simply poisoned my mind s/t I feel a need to absorb
blame. Perhaps our generation simply has more complex and overwhelming
problems than previous generations. Either way, I feel as though we have all
disconnected from one another despite the fact that our generation is more
connected now (smart phones, tech, social media) than ever before.

------
m00x
Most of this thread seems like it belongs on reddit/r/thanksimcured.

------
RickJWagner
The first 3 cited: suicide, drug overdose, obesity.

In my opinion (having been born 50+ years ago to a large family without a lot
of money), life is a lot easier now than it was then. We have a lot more
technology to help us with all sorts of things.

I think it's easy to lose your sense of purpose today. Not having a strong
reason to get out and work to improve things can affect the mindset, and I
suspect that can lead to all 3 of the cited causes of death.

------
generalpass
"Young people" and then they provide some broad data on "age groups" as if the
entire U.S. were some homogeneous blob.

------
dgudkov
From a report linked in the article.

>China surpassed the U.S. for healthy life expectancy for the first time in
2016.

Ouch.

~~~
TurkishPoptart
Without intending to disagree, is there a link to that you could provide?
China notoriously hides/doctors/doesn't publish public data like this.

~~~
dgudkov
Here is the link: [https://www.axios.com/life-expectancy-every-country-
world-b3...](https://www.axios.com/life-expectancy-every-country-
world-b37971d8-76b9-4777-b86d-5ae99a082fae.html)

According to the chart the growth of life expectancy in China is pretty much
inline with growth in India, so it looks legitimate.

While in the US the trend for life expectancy correlates more with Venezuela.

It's a long span (16 years) and only two data points per country. But still...

------
Dysfigure
Can it really be a surprise? This system is so filled with mixed values that
any moral compass at all becomes a burden like a cross borne. The most
immediate example that comes to me is the Logan Paul/KSI drama, plastered in
unison across the front pages of the internet. Hyper-sensationalized
celebrities who exemplify everything that would've been considered immoral in
bygone eras. Logan's business acumen is honed, it seems, or at least looking
on the bright side he's successful in his endeavors, creating a self-
sanctifying brand. But his character is that of a stupid and inconsiderate
miscreant, and yet, he's represented as a valuable contributor to society, as
evidenced by his vindication and wealth.

Movies that portray unrealistic human interaction across the spectrum while
arresting disbelief create worldviews that are equally disruptive. Our stupid
ape brains absorb it, regardless of the divisions our higher processes might
place on it. It's why horror movies can elicit their jump scares, why sad
moments play the heart strings, and fictionalized steam triggers sexual
response. It's all in there, and while we might deride it as fiction, and
while that might detract from cross comparison to reality, it still possesses
a weighted influence on each and every person's conception of reality, and
they adjust their expectations accordingly.

And likewise, even in the landscape of reality, people are altering and
editing their social personas with social media. Diligently rehearsed and
masterfully placed. Photographs of perfection and all the words that follow,
flawless relationships and airbrushed skin. Exotic vacations, and cars, with
all the invisible debt that follows. All the trauma that comes alongside
maintaining the smoke and mirrors of an expertly crafted life designed to
erect some caricature of what we're supposed to be. How we're supposed to
live.

Peers, parents, and our internal selves. Society at large. There is no union
between a value system any more, and while I believe in diversity for the sake
of evolutionary pressure there is no reason to except such a catastrophic
schism from blame in matters like this. I won't play at the idea we need
religion to survive, but I will say this: at least we had a value system that
could machinistically produce a reasonably predictable environment. In the
here and now everything comes with some unreasonably tumultuous hurtles,
unpredictable even in the best of circumstances. Even were we to crawl back
into the trenches of religion, the church is just as confused. It seems now
status is god, in the church of fame.

Politics incite vitriol and divide us, first by wont and then by class. The
binds of unified labor were dissolved decades ago. The poor and the middle
class draw closer and closer as the ascension of the wealthy create an
insurmountable gap. A continuum of exposure to the extremes of the world, the
best in class in product and producer. Athletes and artists paraded around the
facets of the internet, and where, and who is one left to compare themselves
to? Everyone must aspire to the apex, don't you know? You're either a saint or
a sinner, but there is no holy man in between. And even seditious breaths
whisper at the foot of sainthood.

And everyone caught in between all this has only enough control to pound their
fists, or a bottle, or a needle, or a bowl.

------
eric_b
Drug overdoses and suicides are probably two sides of the same coin. The
feeling of "despair" and "hopelessness" that young people often speak of are
surely exacerbating things and causing some of these deaths.

And while I can empathize, having been the demographic in question until last
year, and having experienced exactly those feelings; I think despair and
hopelessness is not so much "real" as it is "manufactured".

The media of 2019 is partly to blame. I'm not talking about a specific
publication, but the state of "journalism" in general. It's doom and gloom,
24x7 piped to our eyeballs from dozens of sources. Sensationalism and outrage
are the goals, and they've gotten very very good at it.

Smartphones and social media are another part of the issue. Zombie scrolling
through instagram looking at fake lives and photoshopped images, all the while
yearning for the things those people have. Or getting worked up over some post
on Facebook or some hot take on Twitter.

I quit reading media, and eliminated all social media from my life, and I've
never been happier. I don't feel that sense of dread and despair I used to. I
have more time to create, more time to exercise, and I sleep better at night.

Things are actually amazing in 2019 if you think about it. There are endless
possibilities for people who want to get out and actually _do_ something.

~~~
leggomylibro
How do you keep in touch with people, then? I've also cut out social media and
started spending more time outside and around cities. And sure, I don't
encounter much frustration, outrage, or extreme dysphoria anymore. I also have
lots of time to do and see exciting and fulfilling things, which I enjoy.

But I can't share the experiences or talk to anyone about them. It seems like
there's no way to meet people without social media, bevause a quick
introduction or "hello" by someone outside of a pre-approved friends list is
universally treated as an aggressive imposition these days, even in group
settings where people ostensibly share interests. And none of my friends from
when I had Facebook / etc were willing to stay in touch through other means.

So this is obviously very anecdotal, but I still deal with crippling
loneliness and will probably join the cohort that this study is looking at
soon, since it's clear that there is no hope for any of this to change in the
near future. But I can hardly blame other people or the media for
"manufacturing" those feelings, so I'm not convinced that avoiding toxic
screen time is going to be a workable solution for many people.

~~~
maemilius
Personally, I think the idea of completely cutting off from social media isn't
something that most people can (or even should) do. Rather, it's important to
moderate your interaction with it.

For example, while I've excised most social media from my life, I find Reddit
to be generally positive so I keep it. Facebook, Twitter, etc. not so much, so
I hardly go there. Now, am I missing out on things? Of course, but I've
decided that, for me, those things aren't important enough to deal with the
rest of what comes with them (privacy concerns wrt Facebook, for example).

I also forbid social media on my phone - which can go a long way to breaking
cycle of swiping/scrolling. I generally forbid myself from going on Reddit
while at work, restricting myself to only Hacker News.

For you, that calculus may be different. Maybe most of your friend group
interacts via Facebook and that's what they're most comfortable with. In your
case, it may be best to stick with Facebook to keep your social circle intact.
You just have to moderate your usage. For example, maybe all you really need
is Facebook Messenger, so you never actually have to go on Facebook proper.
Avoid the parts that drag you down while keeping the parts that maintain your
sanity. Maybe only have messenger on your phone so you're not tempted to go to
the Facebook site.

It's not easy, which is why a lot of people (myself included) choose to simply
throw them away; it's not worth the trouble for us, but it may be for you.

~~~
_Understated_
>Personally, I think the idea of completely cutting off from social media
isn't something that most people can (or even should) do

Incoming anecdotes...

I'm not so sure. I think the only solution is total cut-off.

Remember that the goal of social media is to get you hopelessly addicted and
to give away as much information as possible so that THEY can make vast sums
of money off your content. They employ thousands of brilliant minds who's sole
job is to break down your will power with dark patterns and deep psychological
tricks to keep you clicking and scrolling.

No one posts their fuckups, or their bad side, or the boring stuff like doing
the ironing or cutting the grass or being stuck in traffic: the normal,
everyday things. All you see is edited highlights.

You only see aspirational things that most people will never achieve. That
they haven't even achieved.

In fact, I know a guy, a model, who has shunned social media now but still has
friends on there who constantly lie and do stuff like buy a bunch of Calvin
Klein clothes and pay for their own photoshoot with them wearing it saying
things like "Big thanks to Calvin Klein for the gear" etc.

It's utter bullshit from one end to the other.

It's an addiction we have as a nation and the cure is abstinence.

Edit: used the word "stuff" a bit much :)

~~~
gpanders
Agreed. Repeating your anecdotal disclaimer, I too have completely severed
from social media (and almost all "infotainment" sites, such as Reddit) and
have only been the happier for it.

Obviously this depends wildly on each person's individual situation, but I
haven't found that it seriously affects the relationships I care about. I no
longer know the minor details about the lives of acquaintances from college or
high school, but so what?

