Clay Shirky On Hackers and Depression: Where's the Love?

giminy writes "Clay Shirky has a thought-provoking piece on depression in the hacker community. While hackers tend to be great at internet collaboration on software projects, we often fall short when it comes to helping each other with personal problems. The evidence is only anecdotal, but there seems to be a higher than average incidence of mental health issues among hackers and internet freedom fighters. It would be great to see this addressed by our community through some outreach and awareness programs."

Comments

License?

[dtmos]

It would be great to see this addressed by our community through some outreach and awareness programs.

I assume these programs would be released under the GPL, or some other open-source license?

FIghting the system is a mental health issue

[L4t3r4lu5]

Take these SmaxoGlythKlein brand pills so you are more normal. You want to be normal, right?

Who is this guy, and why does his opinion matter?

Re:FIghting the system is a mental health issue

[X0563511]

In all seriousness, there seems to be correlation between intelligence and tendency for depression.

It could be that being a hacker and being depressed are just two end products of being smarter than the average bear.

Re:FIghting the system is a mental health issue

[magic maverick]

Clay Shirky is a "writer, consultant and teacher on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies", something he's been doing since 1996. He has written a heck of a lot of stuff on the topic, and is presumably some sort of expert. He isn't just another blogger.

In this piece he says something that many people have said before, but is framing it in a different manner. The cultures and sub-cultures that we are part of need to be more caring. We need to be there for our friends and compatriots. We probably can't help much, most of aren't professionals. But simply being there and being supportive is helpful.

The thing is, that people do kill themselves. There are various reasons, some of them can be fixed easily. E.g. by adjusting chemical balances in the brain. Others have an external cause. Some are harder to fix, but might include removing the cause of the problem (bullying or terrible conditions). Some of them can't be fixed. What we as a community can do is provide as much support to people as we can, and help them get the help they need.

Re:FIghting the system is a mental health issue

[L4t3r4lu5]

In all seriousness, there seems to be correlation between intelligence and tendency for depression.

The stupid don't realise how fucked up things are.

Re:FIghting the system is a mental health issue

[SirGarlon]

I used to think depression was an intrinsic part of my personality, like introversion. Then I started taking Vitamin D supplements and the depression went away. I'm still a misanthropic curmudgeon, but I'm a *happy* misanthropic curmudgeon.

My point is, you don't have to give up the things you like about yourself in order to get over depression. And in some cases it can be as simple as turning on a flourescent light or taking a cheap over-the-counter vitamin.

Re:FIghting the system is a mental health issue

[ColdWetDog]

Oops. That's not the Vitamin D. We mislabeled the Prozac.

So Sorry.

Re:FIghting the system is a mental health issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually it makes perfect sense. The more intelligence, the sooner a person will come to realize basic facts about the world, such as:

1. It is filled with injustice all around. Some of it can be fixed, most of it can not be fixed.
2. Most of what can be fixed will never actually be fixed, due to reasons such as status-quo and conflicts of interest, corruption, bribes, lobbying and differing ideologies.
3. Society has become so huge and complex that it is impossible for a single individual to effect meaningful change in a lot of issues, unless one becomes a professional politician, in which case, go back to point number two. Never mind that most intellectuals are not suited to this role due to the different skill-sets required (mainly social ones instead of analytical) The alternatives are extremes like blowing yourself or other people up, or more mildly, DDOSing the organisation that sparked your ire, or protesting by camping on the street. Either one is more likely to harm your cause than help it as people will either call you a 'terrorist', 'immature script-kiddie' or (soon to be) 'homeless bum who should be working instead of protesting'. Thus the hacker individually is powerless.

This comment turned out longer than I thought it would.

Internet Freedom fighters?

[Improv]

So cute when people get full of themselves and take on a title like that. Sometimes the depression is when that lofty self-perception is a kite that gets snagged in one of the trees of reality.

I suspect it's also that a lot of us became computer types after neglecting human ties to some degree, and once we get old enough we either come back and learn to deal with people, or we become increasingly lonely and unbalanced as we age. Sometimes both.

Re:Internet Freedom fighters?

[GameboyRMH]

And here's your answer. People fighting what appears to be a losing battle for a cause completely unknown to most and trivialized or even demonized by many who do...it's completely understandable.

It's not just this community

[jnelson4765]

Most activist communities have a higher than normal incidence of mental health issues. Personality disorders, paranoia, anger management issues, I've seen a lot of them in various political activist groups.

Re:It's not just this community

[Anonymous Coward]

As a former art student, I used to see the same thing in the halls of art school. Students were very creative, full of self-inflated egos ready to do the next big thing. The problem was, we all had our own reality distortion field. Another problem: lots of depression going on, resulting in poor people-relationships. Now that I've been out of school for nearly a decade, the artists who "make it" aren't necessarily the most talented, but are the ones who can relate to people and gallery owners. In other words, there's a salesmanship aspect to their pitch - some people call it charisma. I don't mean that in a bad way, but they've come to understand other people's emotions and some are even married. I didn't become a big shot artist but I have an office job.
Artists get this reputation of being lovers or some crap like that, but trust me, we don't retain relationships. On a final note, I don' t consider wannabe geeks or emo/ hipster kids to be 'artists' in my above commentary, but I think they have different issues to work out.

When has "outreach" solved anything?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> It would be great to see this addressed by our community through some outreach and awareness programs.

OK, who let the social worker on Slashdot? Seriously, when has "outreach" or "awareness" ever solved anything? (Urban violence? Drug use? What?)

Re:When has "outreach" solved anything?

[thesandtiger]

Increasing the general level of knowledge (awareness) about mental health issues is certainly a benefit when talking about the issue of depression in a certain subgroup.

Many people I run across in tech circles have positively medieval notions about mental illness - people who are depressed are depressed because of personal weakness/defects, etc. As a result, many will not be willing to acknowledge that they, themselves, are experiencing depression, or might think that they should just toughen up and gut it out, and eventually the consequences can be quite dire.

Making it easier to get help when you need it - without judgment and without making people jump through hoops (outreach) will also help.

Imagine how much better things could be if people stopped being ashamed over shit they had no control over and were able to easily get help to make it better? Imagine how much better things could be if you didn't have people actively mocking and dismissing even the mere suggestion that things could and should be better.

You guys are also thinking in the wrong terms - social issues don't get "solved" - they get improved. Real life is messy and complex and there isn't one true solution - it's not as simple as most engineering problems. That you guys don't seem to recognize that says more about your inability to think clearly outside of your discipline than it does about the disciplines you dismiss so easily.

Sad, but not surprising

[PSVMOrnot]

While the evidence he discusses may be only anecdotal, the conclusion he reaches is logical.

There are certain lifestyle and behavioural patterns common among hackers which do leave us prone to depression and other mental health issues. We do tend to spend much of our time alone, engaged in solitary and sedentary pursuits of the mind which - while we may find incredibly rewarding and cool - those around us in meat-space just don't understand.

Now add in the consideration that we tend to find ourselves on the metaphorical wild frontier of the technological world we inhabit. In a place where we are carving out the basis for the new and interesting but always having to look over our shoulders in fear that some technologically inept idiot with a bunch of lawyers with come along and either crush what we have built or steal it from us.

Added to this we, due to our lifestyles, often lack the aspects of life which are typically used to de-stress and prevent depression: good diet to provide the required thinking fuel (no, caffeine and sugar aren't enough), exercise for endorphins to let us forget the shit of the world for a bit and physically present people for company so we can put things in perspective.

Finally, consider that we have both good reason to be down about things and due to our lifestyles tend to lack the things which help prevent depression... yeah, it's not a surprising conclusion.

So, what can we all do about it?

Critical thinking

[Hatta]

Critical thinking is part of the problem. If you've trained your mind to see the world as it actually is, then you're less likely to have comfortable illusions to fall back on. And because other people don't like having their illusions questioned, you don't have much of a social network to fall back on either.

And then when you look for help, you find that psychiatry is bullshit just like everything else. SSRI's don't actually work except for the most severely depressed. And therapy... well when your problem is that you see the world accurately, what exactly is therapy going to do?

Even if you could stop thinking critically, is that an ethical thing to do? Most of the world's problems are due to not enough critical thinking, so if you have that skill and don't use it, you're deliberately becoming part of the problem.

Re:Critical thinking

[SuricouRaven]

When you strip the world of comforting delusions, nihilism is all you have left. I imagine a lot of activists remain so dedicated so they can avoid having to give up the last thing that gives their life any form of meaning. They fight because the alternative is to admit that in a long term view, they are nothing.

It Starts With Examples

[assertation]

When I first read this post I thought " yes, but what can be done?". I've been a programmer for 13 years. Socially maladjusted people are all over the industry. You can't force people to take a look at themselves and go get help.

However, there is the power of the example. Look how many IT types went from being obese to slim with John Walkers "The Hacker's Diet".

What is needed for high profile ubergeeks to publish their own accounts cleaning up their mental health and perhaps providing a geeky way, a "Hacker's Diet" for mental health and social skills ( beyond the ground covered by the PUA community ).

I'm sure there are at least a few ubergeeks who had mental health issues, social adjustment issues and who overcame them. It is time to publish.

Jock Culture

[Bonker]

One of the things I've noticed in the 'professional developer' community is that there is a bit of Jock Culture going on.

First of all, you have a business environment that tends to favor younger, fresher talent and puts a LOT of pressure on aging developers to keep up with their younger peers, many of whom are capable of (in the very, very short run) unhealthy work practices. 80 hour work weeks and back-to-back all-nighters are doable when you're 22 years old. They're fucking painful at 30, and ruinous by 35.

And it's hard to say 'No' to them because we've just come out of a nasty recession when upper management is all too eager to lay you off in favor of younger developers eager to prove themselves.

That shit WILL give you depression, anxiety, and insomnia, and all of those kill.

Second, again with the Jock Culture, developer culture tends to be dominated by hot-headed males, many of whom are eager to replicate locker-room style pecking orders in the cube farms... and that crap just doesn't work when you're developing software.

(Ex-military guys? I'm looking at you here. I've seen you do this shit. Stop it.)

Sadly, those pecking orders are often directly related to pay. The guy who manages to wedge his way into the 'Project Lead' or 'Senior Developer' slot tends to have a few more dollars attached to them. Again, the pressure results in depression, anxiety, and insomnia which are proven killers.

Shirkey's piece spends a lot of time talking about Aaron Swartz, but Aaron was a unique case of being uniquely and unfairly persecuted by multiple 800 pound gorillas. His depression and suicide *should* have been as fucking obvious to anyone who knew him as an 18 wheeler rolling the wrong way down the freeway.

The answer to these issues is, perhaps a shade ironically, the same answer we should be looking at in regards to our sudden flareup of chronic school shooting disease:

Mental Healthcare needs to be made a priority in this nation. We need to destigmatize ADMITTING mental health issues and seeking treatment for them. Also, we need to completely ditch the notion that drugs used for treatment of mental health problems cause more harm that good.

Seriously, guys, when you're having daily panic attacks, when sleep won't come for days at a time, when the world starts showing up in black and white and more black than white... it's time to talk to a doctor. And if your doctor won't help, ditch him and find a doctor who will.

Apropos captcha: Biopsy