
Barnes and Noble says books on anxiety are soaring - kozmonaut
https://goodereader.com/blog/bookselling/barnes-and-noble-says-books-on-anxiety-are-soaring
======
basementcat
Sales of books on anxiety are only increasing in places like California and
New York. In other parts of the country, sales of such books are decreasing.

[https://www.mysanantonio.com/technology/businessinsider/arti...](https://www.mysanantonio.com/technology/businessinsider/article/Barnes-
Noble-says-books-about-anxiety-are-13123563.php)

~~~
meaniehusker
urbanization, city life. look at tokyo. mental health and anxiety increases in
these highly crowded areas.

~~~
icebraining
NY has been a city for a long time. That doesn't explain why they are soaring
now.

~~~
meaniehusker
hmm you're right. what could it be then.

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chess19
Does anyone else think technology has a lot to do with this?

Recall the experiment where a rat is placed in a cage with a "pleasure button"
that stimulates reward centers in its brain. The rat proceeds to never stop
pressing the button.

I believe that things like social media act in the same way. Not to mention
smartphones, "clickbait", video games. Machine learning algorithms that
increase a service's abilities as a pleasure button.

The philosophy behind HN is that popular community websites have lower quality
content. In my view, this is simply a "regression towards the mean" of people
wanting a dopamine rush.

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pmart123
Slightly off topic, but given Amazon is off conquering the world, does anyone
else feel as though Barnes & Noble could put together a data driven blog
regarding trending books, topics, how different books are read, etc. much like
OkCupid did for dating a while back? It might not be as sexy of a topic, but
it could captivate an audience to think about Barnes & Noble when you buy a
book?

~~~
swagasaurus-rex
They could make a dating app that pairs you with people of similar literary
taste.

It'd probably be a better match than those ok cupid algorithms, and an instant
ice breaker.

~~~
conanbatt
That was an actual hackathon project at Scribd.

Instead, I wanted to do reading-sentiment showing which parts of the book were
exciting by measuring engagement, to learn years later porn-sites had been
doing that successfully for a long time.

I guess Freud had a point.

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bena
Romanticized mental disorders probably also have something to do with this.
Claiming to have some anxiety and depression is pretty much par for course
these days. What's more ironic is that the trend is to suggest that you're
secretly depressed and anxious with suicidal thoughts and hiding it with humor
by... pretty much telling people that you're secretly depressed and anxious
with suicidal thoughts and hide it with humor. Which is kind of contradictory.

But then again, it's kind of a dick move to question anyone's mental state in
such a manner. Because you don't know what's actually going on for the most
part. You won't have the whole story most of the time. So if someone says
they're anxious or depressed or a third thing, accept it, let them have it.
Worst case scenario, they're putting on airs and they get the attention and
validation they're craving. Big deal. If this leads to less stigmatization
about mental health in general and people who genuinely need help, get it, I
don't care if only 0.01% of people who claim it have it.

Not to mention, even if you aren't afflicted to the degree that it negatively
impacts your life, learning how to manage anxiety can't be a bad thing.

~~~
drb91
It seems to me you’re painting people with a broad brush. Many people who talk
about anxiety (or depression) talk about it because they are dealing with it,
successfully or no—awareness does not imply inaction.

Why would you question them? If you think they have more capacity to handle
life than they think they do, this would probably be a reassuring and helpful
thing to state.

This assumption that people would prefer a comfortable self conception to
addressing their problems is a dangerous slope to go down. People are not this
simple in aggregate or individually.

~~~
bena
Either I know far more depressed and anxious people than is statistically
likely or there is some degree of over-reporting going on.

And I think I explicitly said that I don't question them. I keep it to myself,
because if I'm right to question them, the rewards are minimal, but if I'm
wrong, then the risks are greater.

I also think you're reading me wrong. It's not "You're stronger than you think
you are." It's more like a child over-selling their accident for attention. I
don't believe that it's as serious as being made out.

And where did I say anyone is simple in the aggregate or individually? I noted
certain trends, that's all. And while people are not simple in aggregate or
individually, statistics can't be beat.

~~~
drb91
> It's more like a child over-selling their accident for attention.

How could you possibly distinguish? And my point was that extrapolating a
claim on an aggregate from anecdotal evidence seems low value.

------
Maven911
Speaking of which, any suggestions on any good books on anxiety from the HN
crowd?

~~~
mmanfrin
Four Agreements by Don Ruiz and Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.

~~~
rthomas6
Also Seneca's Moral letters to Lucilius. The great thing about this _and_
Meditations is that they're freely available online!

Meditations:
[http://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.2.two.html](http://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.2.two.html)

Seneca's Moral Letters:
[https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius)

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TazeTSchnitzel
Political and environmental turmoil make it hard not to be anxious in these
times.

~~~
mythrwy
So what's different :) ?

~~~
the_new_guy_29
In comparison to what?

~~~
WalterBright
The Cuban Missile Crisis? The Cold War?

~~~
qubax
During the cuban missile crisis, wasn't there only 3 networks on TV and they
broadcast news once or twice a day?

You really can't compare that with today's 24/7 cable news and media barrage.

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CM30
Given the status of the media and political discourse right now, can you blame
anyone for being anxious? If you went on what the former say about Trump (or
randoms on social media sites say about anything) you'd think we were on the
verge of World War 3. See another articles and internet posters screaming
about how the 'other side' will destroy the world and all you hold dear, and
well, I'd want a few books on anxiety too.

------
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rc_bhg
Trump effect?

~~~
seatdrummer
Could be.

Could also be the people that are bombarding the average citizen with all of
the atrocities committed by trump, from how many scoops of ice cream he gets
to the trade war.

People love to hate trump, but it also becomes tiresome and stressful when
people are constantly bombarded with analysis of tweets, off hand comments,
and other decreasingly trivial things, and then finally mix in all of the
instability of global politics.

~~~
r00fus
Spending 2+ weeks abroad on vacation reduced my anxiety levels significantly -
partly due to the fact that noone talked about Trump much at all (and when
they did I simply ignored or changed the subject).

Very refreshing.

------
Kagerjay
Offtopic but I recently went to a Barnes and Noble after 5+ years of never
going to one.

They sell toys and legos now. Things you would have found at Toys R Us. Maybe
this isn't new and I'm just slightly out of date on these things

~~~
bena
Not entirely new. Bookstores have been slowly expanding their ancillary
offerings.

I think it has to do a lot with tie-ins. Now bookstores sell movies and music
as well. So a book gets adapted into a movie, you can sell the book, the
movie, the soundtrack, the tie-in collectibles, etc.

------
modells
Pack more people closer together, damage the earth more and more and reduced
resources, life for the average person will be a greater and greater struggle:
depression and anxiety will likely be the norm, not the exception. Likely
explains the emotional aspects of the opioid crisis as well.

I humbly suggest having a homestead somewhere like Oregon and alternate two
weeks of telecommuting, if just to release anxieties about the future,
microfarming and gardening are more satisfying than one can imagine.

~~~
jstarfish
Moving to Oregon and telecommuting is not an option for most people.

Nobody with real problems gives a damn about density or the environment.
They're too busy trying to cope with the anxieties of losing their job to
automation, whether or not they can afford healthcare, and where they are
going to live in artificially heated market (while getting reamed over monthly
rent). Oh, and we're expected to have saved millions of dollars by the time
we're 65, since Social Security may or may not be around.

It is a time of many uncertainties, all of which fuel anxiety. Life is hard
and unclear if you aren't privileged.

~~~
WalterBright
> It is a time of many uncertainties, all of which fuel anxiety. Life is hard
> and unclear if you aren't privileged.

When and where was that never the case?

Life in America, relative to history, is currently very, very good. For
example, there's no famine. Childhood diseases are a thing of the past. Polio
was defeated. No armies ravaging the countryside. No cold war. Health care is
better than it ever was before. People grow tall and healthy.

Best of all, there is no caste or nobility system. People can, and often do,
rise from nothing to wealth.

~~~
coldtea
> _When and where was that never the case?_

For very long stretches of time in rural life. Even medieval peasants had it
much better than most people think. A lot of people conflate disasters and
incidents from millennia of history (1 to 1950 A.D say) and across countries,
and create a mix of disasters as if those were constants in the pre-modern
era.

~~~
WalterBright
I'm not buying it. Famine was a constant and very real threat throughout
history until around 1800 in the US. There was no defense against disease. No
medical care. No dental care. Get an injury leaving you unable to work? You
died.

If people in those days had less anxiety, it hardly meant they had less
adversity and risk. It likely meant they accepted lower expectations of what
life was about.

~~~
coldtea
> _Get an injury leaving you unable to work? You died._

There have been institutions taking care of the disabled and the poor for
millennia.

~~~
WalterBright
They exist today, too.

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zomg
Oh yeah, Barnes and Noble!

------
justcorrect
Not a surprise with what the media has been doing. They've done it for every
(R) President, but it gets worse every time. They protested Reagan, worried he
was going to start a nuclear war with Soviet Russia. Worried he was going to
take away rights from women. Worried what he was going to do in Central
America. They called Bush 43 worse then Bin Laden, the worlds greatest
terrorist. Hollywood commissioned movies like Fahrenheit 9/11 to try and
conflate national tragedies with certain political views. Now with Trump, you
have straight out suppression of certain viewpoints, implicit acceptance of
violence against those in power, implicit acceptance of 'acceptable' racism,
and constant ratcheting up of rhetoric by those who lost. I remember what Jon
Stewart said on the Daily Show in 2012, to Republicans. "You LOST, it's
SUPPOSED to taste like a shit sandwich!"

