

Tech Has a Depression Problem - dfc
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/09/tech-has-a-depression-problem/380004/?single_page=true

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jrapdx3
Fact is "depression" is among the most prevalent illness among humans, and a
leading cause of disability world-wide. It affects people in all regions
though incidence is higher in industrialized countries for unknown reasons.

Part of the problem in talking about the condition is that the word
"depression" may refer to a variety of feelings or behavioral states--in
everyday usage it's not a precise term at all.

But in the context of the article, I infer the issue is "clinical depression",
a very serious illness that has specific diagnostic meaning.

Distinguishing depression-as-illness from a passing mood, or transient
discouragement is important. It's normal to have these moods at times of loss,
high stress, etc., but _not_ normal when it becomes persistent and affects
thinking, energy, motivation, interests, or physiological rhythms.

As the article points out, suicidal thinking and action can be associated with
depression. The mortality rate of severe depression is high, on the order of
15%, a decidedly non-trivial matter.

One more statistic to point out is the cost burden of depression. A very
recent study estimated depression costs the US nearly $200 billion per year,
more than cancer ($131 billion) or diabetes ($171 billion) annually.
Considering that a minority of patients with depression receive adequate
treatment, we can surmise much of the high cost of depression could be reduced
by earlier intervention.

Depression is a treatable disease, the majority of sufferers respond at least
moderately well to medication and non-medication therapies. Treatment doesn't
always work as well as we'd like, but the problem is not being neglected.
Since there's so much at stake, it's an extremely active field of research;
our treatment tools will get better.

The important message is depression is a real illness that can be and should
be vigorously treated. Ignoring reality does not make it go away. No one is
immune, not entrepreneurs, programmers, engineers, doctors, janitors, or the
fabulously wealthy.

Let's not continue to let a treatable illness turn into tragedy.

~~~
peterwwillis
Treating depression like an illness makes it into a medical problem, and
medical treatment is simply not the best recourse for a large number of people
with even 'clinical depression'. The huge variety of causes and its transience
makes it much less like other medical diseases, and so trying to treat it like
a medical disease often won't work.

While I agree that medication is for many people an appropriate way to treat
some forms of depression, it's certainly not a panacea. You don't treat
diabetes by just taking medicine; you also don't eat crap that fucks with your
blood sugar. If you have scoliosis, you don't just wear a back brace during
childhood; you also avoid trying out for the football team. If your family has
a history of melanomas, you stay out of the sun and put on sun lotion.

It's important to note that some of these treatments are not strictly 'medical
treatments' \- they're ways of living your life that reduce the impact of the
disease. Just talking about disease is incredibly morbid. So to my mind,
thinking of yourself as having a disease is actually the _opposite_ of what
you want to treat depression. Sure, it's comforting to have a way to define
oneself in order to understand what's going wrong. But a negative focus on
yourself is really the wrong way to go about reducing the impact of
depression.

Yes, studies and medications and non-medication therapies and prescribed
treatments are all useful in 'combating the disease', until you realize that
it isn't one single disease. It's a human condition that varies in cause from
chemical imbalances to unexpected life changes, and is incredibly difficult to
diagnose the root cause of, not to mention find a workable treatment for.
Relating the emotional state of humans to the working of their organs is a bit
like relating an Indy 500 race's lap stats to the engines in the cars on the
track.

So until we establish an actual field of science that focuses on every
conceivable treatment of every form of depression, could we all please stop
being so clinical about the whole thing?

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zoba
This article focuses on founders, and I've wondered if depression in founders
is actually less "Founders get depressed" and more "Depressed people become
founders".

My theory is this: being regularly depressed causes folks to regularly fix
their depression. They say "What is going to make me happy?", and then they
push their lives farther. Extreme amounts of money represent freedom to do
what one pleases when one pleases - and how do you get that money? By founding
a successful company. And its not just the money - its the satisfaction that
you've done something with your life.

I've often wondered why humans get depressed, and I've seen articles on
depression being an evolutionary advantage. If its the case that depression
drives people to work harder (as is the case for me), then it may be true that
it is an evolutionary advantage (I certainly inherited it from my family).
This may then also mean that there are a significant number of founders who
are just going to be depressed, solitude/stress/success or not. I'd be
interested to see how many founders have a family history of depression.

~~~
enraged_camel
>>If its the case that depression drives people to work harder (as is the case
for me), then it may be true that it is an evolutionary advantage (I certainly
inherited it from my family).

Depression can also cause people to commit suicide, which makes it somewhat
difficult to frame it as an evolutionary advantage.

~~~
TeMPOraL
It depends on how this averages out. If _on average_ the benefits (increased
productivity leading to increased mating) outweight the drawbacks (people
committing suicide), then it still might be an advantage. Evolution doesn't
care about individuals, it's a statistical process.

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kiyoto
Here is what I consider to be a more accurate portrayal: Depression is an
issue that plagues pretty much all of the educated America, which
significantly overlaps with tech these days.

~~~
jiggy2011
Why just educated America? People who are uneducated may still be depressed,
but less educated about mental illness to try and address it.

~~~
canvia
As they say, ignorance is bliss. If you never educate yourself about how other
people in the world live and how your lifestyle impacts them, or how the food
you eat is made, or the actions that governments take on your behalf, you
won't feel empathy or anger about all the injustices and abuses that occur.
Once you realize how much pain exists, and how much of it is a result of your
action or inaction, then the real depression starts.

~~~
ealloc
Actually my impression is that poorer people are more likely to be depressed.
Consider the high rate of suicide among poor Indian farmers, or the high
number of homeless with mental illness.

A quick google search for studies of the correlation between wealth and
suicide seem to confirm my view, eg "a 2009 Gallup survey [shows] the rate of
depression is nearly twice as high for Americans making less than $24,000 a
year than it is for those with annual incomes above $60,000." Of course, the
real story is more complicated: It seems the correlation is much less clear
for poor _regions_ than for poor _individuals_ , and I saw some suggestions
that poor people living next to wealthy people were more likely to commit
suicide.

~~~
groby_b
That might be confusing cause and effect. It's not that homeless people are
more likely to be mentally ill, it's that the mentally ill are often homeless.

And that's by choice - we've decided that we'd rather not give a shit about
mentally ill people, because it might cost money. (Cf. the killing of the
Mental Health Systems Act)

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AdmiralAsshat
Not mentioned in the article: those young people in the tech industry with a
stable, boring job working for a conglomerate company and depressed by
constantly observing our adventurous peers trying to change the world in hip
start-ups, wondering if we made the wrong decision.

Grass is always greener, I suppose. Or depression is just infectious.

~~~
nether
I've slowly felt my soul being crushed after five years at a small, Office
Space-esque mechanical engineering firm in an LA suburb. Our perks include two
10-minute breaks per day where we can make personal calls, walk around the
parking lot, or close our office doors. Actual methods of analysis draw
heavily from '70s to early '90s engineering. I sound horribly millennial
(which I am) to complain about these things while I'm making six figures at
age 29, but it feels stifling and inhumane to work like this.

~~~
atom-morgan
I know exactly what you mean. I felt the same way with my first job as a
developer out of college. I'd always considered myself a mentally stable
person until _that job_. Like you, I had the feeling that my complaints were
those of "millennials" but I couldn't keep myself there. I eventually left and
I'm glad I did.

~~~
nether
I'm leaving in ten months. I have $60k in disposable savings (i.e. this
excludes retirement) and a pickup truck. I will travel the world for at least
a year, then do who knows what. Maybe I'll become a programmer.

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cschneid
There is a discussion forum specifically for this:
[http://devpressed.com/](http://devpressed.com/) Please check it out, and also
any of the talks [1] by its founder, Greg Baugues. It's from a ruby
conference, but is applicable to all developers.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFIa-
Mc2KSk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFIa-Mc2KSk))

------
clumsysmurf
I'm very worried about the destruction of our environment. Not one to be into
spiritual things like 'Spiritual Ecology' but I think there is some truth to
it: we all have some connection to the earth and nature. What we eat is our
most profound expression of our connection to the physical world. But it goes
further of course, to how we treat nature, wildlife, etc. As the environment
becomes more polluted with toxins, light, noise -- as it becomes more scarce -
I think many of us will realize the hard way how important it is to our
psychological well being.

The following has worked very well for me, I hope others benefit also:

* running 45min-1hour each day high intensity (80% HRM) (on the trails of course, away from concrete and civilization) * playing in the dirt (1) * being around animals / Farm Therapy * make sure you treat your microbiota well * if depression has neuroinflammation as a cause, consider Tumeric, possibly one that will cross the blood brain barrier (2) * getting good sleep

(1) [http://modernfarmer.com/2014/08/dirt-make-us-happy-
getting-h...](http://modernfarmer.com/2014/08/dirt-make-us-happy-getting-
hands-ground-better-prozac/) (2) [http://truttmd.com/curcumin-caveat-emptor-
not-all-brands-are...](http://truttmd.com/curcumin-caveat-emptor-not-all-
brands-are-created-equal/)

~~~
capisce
Just a warning about running that much: [http://www.cbsnews.com/news/too-much-
running-tied-to-shorter...](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/too-much-running-tied-
to-shorter-lifespan-studies-find/)

They say it's the first five minutes per day that give the most benefits:
[http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-five-
min...](http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-five-minutes-
running-per-day-extends-life-20140728-story.html)

Maybe you should consider trading some of that running for walking instead.

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tesq
It's surprising that one would be depressed working 10hr+ days for little to
no pay chasing what, as time goes on, seems to be a dubious dream to make
someone else very rich.

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dsp1234
Greg Baugues from Twilio gave a powerful talk titled "Devs and Depression" at
Laracon this year. He talks about his personal experience, and about breaking
out from the underneath the stigma of mental health issues for developers.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6x9wmlFz_c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6x9wmlFz_c)

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yupmetoo
Seems to me like there's plenty of help around if you're a founder, but not
very much if you're just a programmer, especially a relatively new one. I
don't have many contacts for career advice and frequently have to kick myself
to maintain my drive - it seems to ask for help would be to invite a bunch of
people to tell me my skills are shit.

------
rsobers
Certainly depression in tech is real and people suffering deserve help (and
can hopefully get it given their station in life).

But when you strive for hyper-ambitious outcomes, whether it be selling your
company for $2B, trying to change the world, or training to become a world
champion fighter, you're likely going to suffer some injuries that you might
not fully recover from.

I feel for all the people who are depressed AND struggling to find their next
meal--working in fast food or in factories, being treated as if they were
less-than-human.

I find it super-hard to get worked up when we founders and startup employees
get to have health insurance, good salaries, free food and education, and a
chance to win the lottery.

~~~
keithpeter
You have _perspective_

People who are suffering from clinical depression may not have. The pain will
be the same irrespective of their position in society.

I know what you mean, many of my (adult) students are doing a couple of
minimum wage jobs, looking after children and/or parents and trying to study.
Not easy.

~~~
lutusp
> You have perspective. People who are suffering from clinical depression may
> not have.

You're using "perspective" in an unclear way here, as though it means optimism
or a long view. In fact, studies show that depressed people often have better,
more accurate, perceptions of reality than non-depressed people. This state of
being even has an associated theory or school of thought:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism)

Quote: "Although depressed individuals are thought to have a negative
cognitive bias that results in recurrent, negative automatic thoughts,
maladaptive behaviors, and dysfunctional world beliefs,[2][3][4] depressive
realism argues not only that this negativity may reflect a more accurate
appraisal of the world but also that non-depressed individuals’ appraisals are
positively biased."

If this idea turns out to have scientific merit (which it doesn't at the
moment), I would find that depressing.

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thegenius
Warren Buffett's partner Charles Munger says it best in this interview (time
linked). He's talking about wall street executives, and the envy they have
over one anothers' successes, but the same applies to tech founders.

"If somebody makes a lot of money, or reports a lot of money... Let them!"

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6RS_PqudxU#t=1460](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6RS_PqudxU#t=1460)

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mattew
Are there any good online or real world assessment tools out there to identify
people who may be suffering from depression / more predisposed to be
depressed?

------
thathonkey
There's also a strong positive correlation between incidence of depression and
intelligence.

~~~
rmetzler
True. Also depression seems to be an illness human beings may inherit.

Physical exercises are known to help depression. Sitting in front of a
computer screen all day long without much social interaction seems to make it
worse (at least for me).

~~~
thathonkey
Of the serious mental illnesses, they're almost always inherited.

------
mcguire
"Tech circles" == "startups"?

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michaelochurch
A fair number of VCs perform back-channel references (references the candidate
didn't provide) and the main reason for that is to filter out anyone who's
ever suffered from depression or anxiety.

Large firms are in on this discrimination, too. It's illegal to ask about
these disorders when hiring, but if you acqui-hire from investors who legally
can probe into those questions, it's a nice little loop-hole.

I don't think it really does any good, because all else being equal, I'd want
to a person of good character who fought a mental disability and beat it.
That's not easy to do. Beating depression or bipolar or panic disorder is
_way_ harder (and says more about a person's fortitude) than building
Snapchat. The truth is that many people with mental illnesses are far above
normal in functionality when not affected.

Still, this is just another thing that is changing in Silicon Valley. The old
Silicon Valley (HP, not Snapchat) driven forward by passionate, creative
people and many had these illnesses. The new one (Snapchat, Clinkle) is all
about image management and favors low-variance, reliable mediocrities.

~~~
maxerickson
You assume the VCs are good at spotting depression and anxiety. It doesn't
seem obvious to me that this is the case.

~~~
michaelochurch
I don't assume that they're good at it. I _know_ that they try to do it, and
what their methods are. I think their methods are, at best, modestly effective
and, even with that, it's not clear that selecting against low-level (and
usually manageable with age) mental health issues has any value, and it just
might be counterproductive (antifragility argument here).

