I usually hate anecdotal stories, especially as it's the tool of the right to defend pseudoscience. However, there's a heap of scientific evidence behind us.
In the last six months, I've a lot of older people and family passed due to heart troubles, including my dad. I would never say anything out loud, as it's just rude, as people are grieving and I don't know for 100% sure (the fecking burden of not being a reactionary). Like a friend's mum died of heart failure 3 months after a COVID infection, and I thought to myself "this is a very good chance that COVID increased her risk" but I'm not going to be a knob and say that out loud. You know who didn't fail to give their opinion? Fucking antivaxxers everywhere. "Did you mother get the jab?" "Fuck off her last vaccine was in 2021".
The other massive glaring thing I see every day is my students. Exam scores are way down, while behavioural and emotional problems (including medication) is up. COVID infections definitely can hurt kids' cognitive ability and cause an increased risk of neurological problems. I've just see way more fighting, anger, and serious emotional troubles in school than I ever have in my 20+ years of teaching. Students are missing way more school due to illnesses like COVID but also other viral stuff like the cold and flu than they ever used to, and they're falling behind because of it.
Total shot in the dark, but I see more of my close friends struggling with depression, anxiety, and low energy than I ever remember. I don't mean to downplay the genuine struggle that is mental health, people definitely had symptoms before COVID and many other issues are completely unrelated to COVID. I'm just seeing an increase across the board with people I know, especially people who I previously considered to be a rock.
I know that anecdotal evidence isn't worth considering, but we've being posting hard science for years, and I think it's fair that we start to notice patterns in our community.
I've been reading Stolen Focus by Johann Hari. I don't know if it contains anything particularly revelatory, but it does do really well to line up all the evidence that tech (and our culture more generally) is designed to wreck our ability to concentrate. Anecdotally, my partner teaches and the number of kids who have issues with their phones and video games seems pretty high. COVID is probably accelerating the development of all these problems.
Also speaking anecdotally, I haven't had any major illnesses since the pandemic started and I've been massively struggling with mental health. I think we're just able to sense that our culture and society are both in a terrible place and that's causing a lot of mental strain.
I really benefitted from reading that book, but Johann Hari has been extremely controversial in his field (actually, he has no credentials, so (pop) psychology is not his field at all). He is a journalist, not a Doctor.
So if any one thing is helpful, fine, just know his conclusions are drawn far more from his own anecdotal experience and his empirical sources really don't support his conclusions.
He is also a serial plaigarist and his book on depression is absolute dog-water.
Another takedown that specifically talks about Stolen Focus here
Well shoot, thanks for the heads up.
The Stuart Ritchie piece adds some useful context for the turn into the anti-medication takes at the end of the book.
Thanks! Here is that article link in case anyone wants it: https://unherd.com/2022/01/johann-haris-stolen-ideas/
Pretty good except for the Anti-anti-Capitalist jabs.
There's a book by Neil Postman titled Amusing Ourselves to Death which was published in 1985(!!) that examines the shift in people's ability to focus which you might be interested in reading.
Of course in some respects it's hopelessly outdated given that it was written in the era where TV stations first started switching to 24/7 broadcasting rather than shutting down at night (lol) but it's also interesting to consider the arguments the book puts forward and it's a good waypoint to measure what a critical examination of the state of affairs was like some 40 years ago to use as a point of comparison to today.
I will check it out, thanks!