Using the exemplar of autism to show how changes in healthcare, diagnostic standards, and screening practices can clearly account for changes in prevalence (but it's much more fun to blame it on tech)
Great breakdown. The publication of Donna Williams' "Nobody Nowhere" (1992) and Temple Grandin's "Thinking in Pictures" (1995), both bestselling autobiographies of autistics, as well as the Oscar-winning movie "Rain Man" (1988), have done a lot to influence the public awareness of autism during that initial rise in diagnoses as well. That may have indirectly affected diagnostic rates, as more laypeople learned to recognize and potentially flag the symptoms.
Thanks for reading. And I definitely agree. There are a lot of things that I didn’t include that certainly had an impact. Another example is Ronald Reagan making autism awareness month an official thing in 1988.
I’m also skeptical of the *literal rewiring* argument and the dismissal of other factors in favor of a blanket “it’s the Internet.”
Another piece of this that a lot of these critics are responding to is an uptick in mental health “culture” that proliferates online. So, not only are phones isolating young people and not only are they comparing themselves constantly, but they’re also entrenched in subcultures which make various mental health diagnoses subcultural signifiers.
I think it’s basically true that this exists and it’s amplified by the media. There seems to be a secondary market of tee shirts, workbooks, wellness regimes etc that are marketed to people who want to be in a digital autism subculture. This is also true for anxiety, depression, etc.
That being said, I don’t love the tack that all of this is an expression of narcissism and that there are easy solutions. On both the cultural and medical dimensions, the conversation feels painfully flattened. Ironically, that, too, is probably a product of the Internet: easier to sell black and white thinking than nuance.
Well said. There's definitely been a dramatic shift over the past decade or two in how young people approach mental illness. It's gone from stigmatized to valorized in many contexts. Like a pendulum swinging from one extreme to the other
Great breakdown. The publication of Donna Williams' "Nobody Nowhere" (1992) and Temple Grandin's "Thinking in Pictures" (1995), both bestselling autobiographies of autistics, as well as the Oscar-winning movie "Rain Man" (1988), have done a lot to influence the public awareness of autism during that initial rise in diagnoses as well. That may have indirectly affected diagnostic rates, as more laypeople learned to recognize and potentially flag the symptoms.
Thanks for reading. And I definitely agree. There are a lot of things that I didn’t include that certainly had an impact. Another example is Ronald Reagan making autism awareness month an official thing in 1988.
I’m also skeptical of the *literal rewiring* argument and the dismissal of other factors in favor of a blanket “it’s the Internet.”
Another piece of this that a lot of these critics are responding to is an uptick in mental health “culture” that proliferates online. So, not only are phones isolating young people and not only are they comparing themselves constantly, but they’re also entrenched in subcultures which make various mental health diagnoses subcultural signifiers.
I think it’s basically true that this exists and it’s amplified by the media. There seems to be a secondary market of tee shirts, workbooks, wellness regimes etc that are marketed to people who want to be in a digital autism subculture. This is also true for anxiety, depression, etc.
That being said, I don’t love the tack that all of this is an expression of narcissism and that there are easy solutions. On both the cultural and medical dimensions, the conversation feels painfully flattened. Ironically, that, too, is probably a product of the Internet: easier to sell black and white thinking than nuance.
Well said. There's definitely been a dramatic shift over the past decade or two in how young people approach mental illness. It's gone from stigmatized to valorized in many contexts. Like a pendulum swinging from one extreme to the other
I’d like to write more about it