Colleges and university are cutting back on their involvement with ADHD, primarily due to abuse of the psychiatric medications — stimulants like Ritalin — prescribed to treat the disorder. Students — whether they are malingering the symptoms or actually have it — are prescribed a drug to treat ADHD (sometimes from different providers in different states), then sell a few (or all the) pills on the side. Profit!

Now universities are becoming wise to the epidemic nature of the problem, as some studies have suggested up to a third of college students are illicitly taking ADHD stimulants.

This might help curb the abuse problem, but will it also make it harder for people with actual ADHD to receive treatment?

The short answer is, yes, of course. Students with a pre-existing diagnosis of attention deficit or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder will still often be able to get their prescriptions filled while at school. The university just doesn’t want to do the diagnosing of ADHD any longer.

I’ve long wondered at the wisdom of universities getting into the ADHD business in the first place. University counseling centers generally shrug off long-term treatment of serious mental illness. So it’s never been clear to me why they were comfortable prescribing medications for ADHD.

The New York Times notes — in a well-written take on this issue by Alan Schwarz — that the changes are sweeping campuses throughout the country:

Lisa Beach endured two months of testing and paperwork before the student health office at her college approved a diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Then, to get a prescription for Vyvanse, a standard treatment for A.D.H.D., she had to sign a formal contract — promising to submit to drug testing, to see a mental health professional every month and to not share the pills. [...]

The University of Alabama and Marist College, like Fresno State, require students to sign contracts promising not to misuse pills or share them with classmates. Some schools, citing the rigor required to make a proper A.D.H.D. diagnosis, forbid their clinicians to make one (George Mason) or prescribe stimulants (William & Mary), and instead refer students to off-campus providers. Marquette requires students to sign releases allowing clinicians to phone their parents for full medical histories and to confirm the truth of the symptoms.

“We get complaints that you’re making it hard to get treatment,” said Dr. Jon Porter, director of medical, counseling and psychiatry services at the University of Vermont, which will not perform diagnostic evaluations for A.D.H.D. “There’s some truth to that. The counterweight is these prescriptions can be abused at a high rate, and we’re not willing to be a part of that and end up with kids sick or dead.”

Not everyone is convinced:

“If a university is very concerned about stimulant abuse, I would think the worst thing they could do is to relinquish this responsibility to unknown community practitioners,” Ms. Hughes [CEO of CHADD, an advocacy organization] said. “Nonprescribed use of stimulant medications on campus is a serious problem that can’t just be punted to someone else outside the school grounds.”

She has a point. The 2010 suicide death of Kyle Craig, who abused Adderall prescribed by his local physician at home and not by the university he attended, suggests the problem is more wide-ranging than perhaps some university officials understand.

However, this sort of effort on the part of Fresno State is amazing and should be applauded:

And in a rare policy among colleges, students receiving prescriptions to treat A.D.H.D. must see a Fresno State therapist regularly — not for a cursory five-minute “med check” but for at least one 50-minute session a month.

Psychotherapy required for ADHD treatment? Nice — finally an institution that listens to the research and understands that medications are, for most, not a life-long answer.

I think that, by and large, this is a measured response to a very serious problem of stimulant abuse among college students. Students have long enjoyed free healthcare on campus, with counseling an additional free service they receive. But student counseling centers mostly refer students with serious, ongoing mental health or mental illness to local providers in the community — they’re simply not well-equipped to treat people with such concerns. I see no reason why ADHD should be an exception.

What this does for the colleges that are mostly getting out of the ADHD business is to limit the overall amount of prescriptions floating around for these stimulant meds. That should drive down supply, drive up prices, and make it less attractive as a “study” option for students without ADHD.

As for the students who actually have attention deficit disorder? I think they will still be able to get the treatment they need. Having seen people at community mental health centers, I know that if there’s a will, people will find a way to pay for mental health services.

Read the full article: Colleges Tackle Illicit Use of A.D.H.D. Pills

This may happen because girls are frequently told early in childhood that if a guy teases or berates, it’s because he actually feels quite the opposite — he’s acting mean because he’s interested. And with that, a spark is ignited.

Girls misread certain unfriendly vibes as interest, and therefore yearn to track down their attention.

A 2008 article, “Why Nice Guys Finish Last,” discusses the positive side of negative traits such as callousness, narcissism, impulsivity and other antisocial traits) and how it can affect a girl’s desire to flock to the guy who embodies this persona.

“We would traditionally consider these dark triad traits to be adverse personality traits, and we think that women would avoid these kinds of men,” Peter Jonason, researcher/study investigator, said in the article.

“But what we show is counterintuitive — that women are attracted to these bad boys and they do pretty well in terms of sheer numbers of sexual partners.”

Jonason categorizes the modern-day ‘bad boy’ as a male with little empathy, and one who’s a seeker of mainly short-term goals (goals that are usually achieved). Jonason believes that perhaps these traits have been evolutionary successes since they have persevered in so many individuals.

The three traits that may signify a ‘bad boy’ — what Jonason refers to as the “dark triad bad boy” traits — include:

• A man with little empathy for others
• A penchant for fast cars and even faster women
• A seeker of short-term rather than long-term goals — especially concerning the opposite sex

Some experts think that these narcissistic males may be embellishing stories of their sexual conquests, but regardless of the success they do have, there is a silver lining for the nice guys who don’t follow a similar agenda.

Everett Worthington, professor of psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University, claims in the same article that while males with dark triad traits may be more advantageous in short-term sexual relationships, their fortune in long-term relationships is compromised.

“A strategy of building trust and intimacy and commitment is, by nature, going to take longer. Thus, the payoffs are likely to be greater in the short term.

“However, long-term relationship survival is likely to be strongly disadvantaged in people with dark triad traits,” Worthington said.

And ultimately, it’s really the long-term that matters, right?

Whether in the center of a city or deep in a forest, the cacophony of sounds around us makes it apparent that true silence is impossible. Composer John Cage wrote music that included long periods of silence. When the musicians stopped playing, concertgoers were quickly confronted with the shuffling, shifting, and coughing sounds in the concert hall.

So what is silence?

Silence is the absence of intentional sound. Intentional sounds are the things we turn on, such as TVs and iPods; words spoken or heard in a conversation; music such as humming or tapping; and the noise of tools, keyboards, or other objects. Sounds that remain are unavoidable. So silence is purposeful quiet. Some find it unsettling.

A study of 580 undergraduate students undertaken over six years, reported by Bruce Fell on The Conversation, shows that the constant accessibility and exposure to background media has created a mass of people who fear silence.

This study, along with research by Drs. Michael Bittman of the University of New England and Mark Sipthorp of the Australian Institute of Family Studies argues that “their need for noise and their struggle with silence is a learnt behavior.”

This cannot be blamed on the relatively recent rise of social media and 24-hour availability. For many of these students’ lives the TV was always on, even when no one was watching. That often was the case throughout their parents’ childhoods as well. If background noise has always been with us, it’s no wonder we can become so uncomfortable when it’s taken away.

Lest I try to pass myself off as a contemplative or a meditation master, I confess that I have my own difficulty with silence.

My wife and I, city dwellers, were staying in a house far from the city. It was rustic, with no TV, radio, or Internet. When we went to bed it was so dark and quiet it was unsettling. We couldn’t sleep! If I miss a few days meditating in a row, as I did in the busyness of the recent holidays, I find it very challenging to break away and begin my practice again. And when I am in a difficult episode, riddled with self-doubt, nervousness or anxiety, the last thing I want to do is turn off all of the media that distracts me from my insecurity. But I soon realize that distractions can exacerbate the difficulty. I get back to fixed periods of silence, return to the discipline of my practice, and heal.

If the fear of silence is a learned behavior, it can be unlearned. This can be undertaken through mindfulness meditation and focused attention.

To develop focused attention, you may want to begin by confronting the experience of silence. Turn everything off, go to as quiet a place as you can find, and sit for a few minutes. Take in the environment. Just experience the present moment and allow what is around you to exert itself.

If you find yourself agitated or ill at ease, start with very short periods of quiet. Turn off the TV when washing the dishes. Drive without the radio on. Walk the dog without the iPod or phone. You will reap benefits. And slowly, as silence is embraced, you will find comfort there.

Silent man photo available from Shutterstock

Of course there are exceptions, but it appears that the idea of leaving the nest immediately following college graduation is long gone.

The current economy makes establishing financial independence a difficult feat. From a sociological perspective, extended mooching off Mom and Dad seems to be trending. Many young adults either are saving the money they do have, basking in domestic convenience, or simply waiting for the right living opportunity.

Overall, it seems they’re just not ready to take the next step.

A 2010 article in the New York Times Magazine features insight from Jeffrey Jensent Arnett, a psychology professor at Clark University. Arnett deems the 20s as a stage called “emerging adulthood.” He points to cultural shifts that led to the creation of this new phase of life: young people feeling less rushed to marry because of the acceptance of premarital sex; young women delaying pregnancy due to more career options and reproductive technology; the need for additional education in our information-based economy; and fewer entry-level jobs available after all those years of schooling.

“Approximately 51 million Americans live in multigenerational households,” stated a May 2012 article in Forbes.

“Twenty-nine percent of 25-34 year-olds have taken shelter Chez Mom and Dad during the Great Recession and with almost 80% satisfied with this arrangement, the impetus to get their own pad ASAP just isn’t there.”

According to the Forbes piece, moving out has become a phenomenon that needs to be approached with caution. Alice Karekezi, a writer for Salon, asserts that living at home longer is now viewed as a practical choice.

“Now to become a qualified professional, many middle-class American kids are going to have to spend many years in completely unpaid internships,” Karekezi said. “So they finish college, or in the course of going to college, they spend years upon years working in jobs that used to pay money and don’t anymore because this market is so crowded. You’ve got to live some place. So in households that can afford it, parents are making it possible for their kids to gather credentials that will allow them someday — they hope — to launch at the level they’re expecting.”

However, since 50 percent of college grads are unemployed or underemployed, a change may not be on the horizon in the near future.

A June 2012 article in the New York Post cites 20-somethings who are still living at home, even if they’re capable of striking out on their own. Jason Siegel graduated from LaFayette College a couple of years ago and was able to secure a job in Manhattan starting at $50,000. Although he’s well employed (and has a serious girlfriend, who could be a potential roommate), he still chooses to stay where he is. “I didn’t want to start a new job and move at the same time,” he said. “It was too much transition, two huge changes at once.”

Convenience appears to be an additional rationale for not running out the door as readily. Another “gainfully employed” 23-year-old told the Post that living at home simply spawned a higher quality of life. “I can travel without worrying about money. I can go out to not the cheapest dinners often. I don’t have to think, ‘Is this dinner next week’s rent?’”

Living at home longer seems to be a sociological trend within “emerging adulthood,” as well as a byproduct of our times and how the Gen Y’s are coping with its unpredictability. To put a positive spin on the pattern, I’ll even say this 20-something generation is patient. It takes patience to achieve financial independence and patience to create a well-thought-out plan before leaving.

In “Occupy Mom and Dad’s House,” personal trainer Amanda Shugar stated that she’s been mentally preparing herself for moving out. “It’s a scary thing,” she said.

It is indeed, especially when all the pieces haven’t fallen into place just yet.

Young woman at home photo available from Shutterstock

Unfortunately, for many, the answer is a resounding “no.” Hordes of college grads have not acquired any skills that will enable them to get a decent job. And if that weren’t bad enough, they’re saddled with a mountain of debt that will be an albatross around their neck for decades to come.

With no prospects for the future, is it any wonder that so many college grads feel lost? This isn’t the way it was supposed to be. Higher education was supposed to be the best investment one could make to guarantee a solid future. Often they feel cheated, left asking “now what?”

Dumped into adulthood, with no job prospects, many decide to double down on their education. Go to grad school. Get an advanced degree. But will more education pay off? Or will it simply dig a deeper debt hole? No guarantee. Even many with graduate degrees are unemployed or underemployed.

The importance and value of a college education has been sacrosanct. But things change. It takes a while for people to get used to the change. Remember when owning a home was the guaranteed path to building financial security? Paying rent was supposed to be throwing money down the drain. Then came the housing bubble. And we all know how that story turned out for scores of homeowners.

Might it now be time to openly question the value of a college education? With the walloping nonstop increase in tuition costs, it sure seems like we’ve entered an education bubble. It’s likely to leave many in mega-debt, with no prospect for even a ho-hum career. Latest reports indicate that 53 percent of recent college grads are either unemployed or working at a job that does not require a college degree. There are more than 100,000 janitors in the U.S. with college degrees and 16,000 parking lot attendants.

Clearly, many families need to consider other types of post-secondary education for their kids. Perhaps learning a marketable trade is the way to go. There will always be a need for auto mechanics, electricians, carpenters, beauticians, makeup artists, and workers with other hands-on skills. These jobs will not disappear and cannot be shipped overseas. Or, one might consider investing in a small business or franchise. Become an entrepreneur. Pursue your culinary skills. Follow your artistic dreams. Or, don’t attend college as a four-year vacation with beer parties, drug parties, hooking up and easy courses as the main attraction. Instead, pursue your degree with the primary goal of learning marketable skills.

But what about the idea of education for education’s sake? Isn’t that what college is supposed to be about – making you smarter, more savvy, more cosmopolitan? Ideally, yes. However, in today’s world, anyone who wishes to become smarter and savvier does not need to attend college. The Internet can provide you with an amazing low-cost or free education. Several companies, including Coursera and Khan Academy, offer lectures taught by world-class professors. You can learn at your own pace, test your knowledge, and reinforce concepts through interactive exercises. Curious about what makes good people do bad things? Go online to TED talks for free lectures from top researchers in the field. Get started with a talk by Dr. Phil Zimbardo and you’ll be hooked.

Even Ivy League schools offer free courses. Yes, prestigious universities like Stanford, Yale, Princeton and MIT offer the same courses with the same professors that college students spend thousands of dollars to take. For free.

The catch? You don’t get college credit. But you will get an education. And you can use the money that would have been spent on getting a degree to launch your career and move out of your parents’ house before you turn 30

There are choices to be made, folks. Don’t automatically assume that going into debt for a college education is the only or best way to create a first-class future. There are many options out there. Consider them before deciding what to do.

Do any of these sentiments sound familiar to you? It’s not a foreign concept that Facebook status updates may be geared toward all the positive occurrences in one’s life. It’s also likely that when some scroll through their news feeds, they’re comparing these successes to their own lives.

Facebook use has become an integral part of our daily routines, regardless of whether we’re aware of its impact.

According to Digital Buzz’s Facebook statistics for 2011, there are 500 million active users, used by approximately 1 in every 13 people on Earth. Over 250 million users log in every day and 48 percent of users are in the 18- to 34-year-old demographic.

Therefore, it’s not too surprising that studies have been conducted to determine the relationship between Facebook usage and its impact on our happiness, well-being and self-esteem.

A study conducted by The University of Gothenburg in Sweden surveyed 335 men and 676 women (average age 32) to help determine the link between self-esteem and Facebook usage. A significant negative relationship between the two was uncovered (as Facebook interaction increased, self-esteem decreased), though the main difference was between genders. Women who used Facebook were apt to feel less happy and content with their lives.

“One of the theories behind the discontentment could be the finding that women tended to write more about their thoughts and feeling, while men spent more time provoking others,” stated the study.

The mere state of comparison could play a key role with Facebook’s impact on self-esteem as well. “It seems like everyone on my friends list has really good news at every time of the day,” Steven, a recent college graduate who studied psychology, said. “One would think that if you’re surrounded by all of this positive, virtual energy that you in turn would feel happy-go-lucky.

However, it seems inevitable that you will find yourself comparing your life to the seemingly perfect ones illustrated on the wonderful world of Facebook. Personally, I think social networking sites, although convenient for communication and keeping in touch with people, will probably do more harm for a person’s self-esteem than good. I think this is most true for the people who frequently log on and less for those who seldom go on just to browse.”

On the other hand, the Cornell Daily Sun published a piece, “Study Shows Facebook Ups Self-Esteem.” A study conducted by Amy Gonzales, Ph.D and Prof. Jeffrey Hancock found a positive relationship between Facebook use and self-esteem for college students. “When we’re online, we can selectively self-present,” Hancock said. “We can take more time and sound more witty.”

A 2009 study published in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking looked at 63 Cornell students who were divided into three groups in a social media lab. One group sat at computers that depicted their Facebook profiles, another group sat at computers that were turned off, and the last group sat at turned-off computers with mirrors propped up next to them. Students with the computers logged onto Facebook were allowed to spend three minutes exploring and editing their profiles.

After three minutes, all participants were given a questionnaire that measured self-esteem using the Rosenberg Self-Esteem scale. When researchers compared the group with a mirror and no Faceboook access to the group with no Facebook access or a mirror, no elevation in self-esteem was reported.

However, a drastic rise in self-esteem was found in the group that spent time on Facebook; those who also edited their profiles had the highest self-esteem in the entire study.

According to Gonzales, the study was originally produced to analyze two opposing theories of communication. The objective self-awareness theory conveys that when an individual focuses attention on him- or herself, his or her self-esteem may be negatively affected. This focus makes the individual recall and concentrate on all his or her faults. The hyperpersonal model theory suggests that when people focus on themselves, they view themselves in a positive light.

This Facebook study supports the hyperpersonal theory. “There are not a lot of theories that have been tested within the computer-mediated communications field compared to other communication subfields, so this was exciting from a theoretical perspective,” Gonzales said.

Regardless of whether we realize it, Facebook use does influence our psychological well-being. Maybe now that we’re aware of its hold, we can become more conscious in how we let it shape our view of ourselves.

References

Denti, L., Nilsson, I., Barbopoulos, I., Holmberg, L., Thulin, M., Wendeblad, M., … Davidsson, E. Sweden’s Largest Facebook Study: A Survey of 1,000 Swedish Facebook Users. Gothenburg Research Institute, April 2, 2012.

Gonzales, A., & Hancock, J. (2011). Mirror, Mirror on my Facebook Wall: Effects of Exposure to Facebook on Self-Esteem. Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking, 14, No. 1-2. DOI: 10.1089/cyber.2009.0411

Being a student — while potentially fun — also brings with it a bunch of not-so-fun stuff. College students often experience their first serious romantic relationship. They can also grapple with their first battle with a mental health concern — like depression, bipolar disorder, ADHD, or anxiety (like social anxiety or test anxiety).

The good news is that there’s a lot of free resources available to the savvy college student. Which includes you, since you’re reading this article.

Blah, blah, blah… Everyone’s already told you what to expect from university. So I’ll try not to repeat any of that information here.

What they may not have mentioned is that college life is actually a good prep for understanding how life works once you graduate too. It’s full of trying to juggle stress, relationships, friends, needing to do your work, but also wanting to have some fun and downtime. It’s full of its share of good times, but it’s also going to be full of a few bad times too.

Going into it with these kinds of realistic expectations can help. Understanding it’s not going to be one long, endless party is a good step too. But if all you’re doing is putting your head in a book, hibernating in the library, and playing video games, you’re also not really taking much advantage of the college experience.

College life — like life in general — is all about finding and striking a balance. A little partying is healthy, but so is studying. Making new friends is what a good part of college is all about. Staying up all night playing video games with your new friends is not (well, as long as it’s not every night).

Nobody can tell you what that balance is going to look like exactly for you, since everyone is unique and different. But finding it is something that you should treat as a priority, especially if you feel a little empty or without particular direction.

Free Stuff That’s Available To You in College

Being a college student also has lots of benefits you don’t typically get outside of university. For instance, you may not realize this, but you have access to free student counseling and therapy services. Yes, that’s right — free counseling! While this may seem like a non-benefit (“Only crazy people need that sort of help, right?”), you never know… especially if you’re feeling especially down, stressed out, or otherwise have reached some internal limit or breaking point.

Talking to someone can help. And if it’s free, wow, you can’t beat that with a big stick.

Student counseling is sometimes combined with academic counseling. One of those places is where you can get help for common student concerns like test anxiety, or figuring out how to give an oral report in front of others when the thought of doing so keeps you awake at night.

In addition to free counseling, you have the opportunity to check out a whole bunch of activities, interests, and pursuits that would normally cost you a hefty sum to investigate outside of college. Everyone can feel a little shy in stepping up and trying something new, with new people — but that’s also the fun, exhilarating part of it. I always tell myself, “Well, if it doesn’t work out or I don’t like it, I’ll never see any of these people ever again anyway, so why not give it a try?”

You may not appreciate it as much — since you have the wealth of the Internet at your fingertips — but your college library is also a much under-appreciated resource. And despite what you might think, most of the stuff at the library is not yet available online — nor as readily available to non-students (although most university libraries allow non-student patrons to use their resources too).

Outside of work, you’ll never have the opportunity to be with as many like-minded people your age, all pursuing similar activities. This is a key opportunity to make friends, and explore friendships — even ones outside of your normal comfort zone.

College life is fun, but also full of hard work, lots of studying, and lots of figuring out what you — as a person — are all about. Take the time to do all those things and more, and you’ll have a great experience you’ll always remember.

Here are some more articles you should check out on Psych Central about college life:

• College Life: Freshman Friends

• Back to School: 4 Tips for Thinking Like a Student Again
• Making the Most of Your Freshman Year of College
• College Activities: Not-So-Incidental Learning
• Post-College Planning: Build Your References from the Start

And if you’re in college and you don’t feel like you quite fit in, it may be because you were never meant for college in the first place.

So the start of another school year can feel sobering (at best).

But there are ways you can ease into the fall semester, without much stress. Below, Julie Hanks, LCSW, a licensed psychotherapist and author of the blog “Private Practice Toolbox” on Psych Central, shared her tips for shifting to student mode.

1. Start reading regularly. “Get back into the habit of reading for longer stretches of time and reflecting on what you’ve read,” Hanks said. Try to read material that’s somehow related to your studies, such as textbooks or journal articles.

2. Gather everything you’ll need. Figure out the tools you’ll need this semester to succeed, Hanks said. It might be anything from a laptop to certain books to notebooks to a backpack. “Externally preparing for the shift into ‘student mode’ can help you get back into feeling like a student.”

3. Create a comprehensive schedule. Carve out chunks of time for homework and studying, in addition to social events and other commitments, she said.

4. Get involved in extracurriculars. What school activities or clubs would you like to join this year? Consider what’s available in your area of study, Hanks said. “Volunteer, visit the campus, and envision yourself as a successful and engaged student.”

Hanks isn’t just sharing her advice. She’s also taking it. She’s heading back to school this month to pursue her doctorate. These are a few of the ways she’s preparing for her program. Maybe they’ll inspire you, as well.

• She purchased her school’s sweatshirt. Hanks is attending the University of Louisiana at Monroe (ULM) to receive a PhD in Marriage & Family Therapy. It’s an online program. So the sweatshirt is a tangible symbol of her student status.
• She adjusted her commitments. As she said, “I have shifted my priorities and commitments to allow for time to devote to my studies. I’m seeing fewer clients. I’ve blocked out chunks of time from work and family responsibilities so I can study.”
• She’s staying involved. According to Hanks, “I visit the website often to look at my schedule, check student email, get updates from professors so I can continue to prepare. In fact, I just checked before writing this and one of my professors sent the list of three textbooks that I will now go online and order.”

To learn more about preparing for school (or to help your child prepare), check out our list of
“Back-to-School” articles.

What if we can change our past? What if we can go back in time and do it all differently? Would our future be better? Would we be happier?

Scotch effectively illustrates how our past leads us to exactly where we need to be.

In “Time of My Life,” the protagonist, Jillian, appears to be going through the motions of motherhood after the birth of her first child, Katie, and can’t help but feel something is not quite right in her suburban life and marriage. She and her husband, Henry, no longer connect the way they used to, and she sometimes finds herself pining for what once was — the intense relationship she had with her ex-boyfriend, Jackson, and the fulfilling work she did at an advertising agency in New York City.

So when Jillian goes to get a massage and her masseuse “unblocks her chi,” where she travels back seven years into the past, she is very content to embark on a second chance.

Despite an ongoing ache of missing Katie, she initially enjoys reaping the benefits of being brought back to that highlighted time of her life. She’s able to thwart the petty fights with Jackson (for she knows what’s coming), and she even saves her friend from undergoing serious complications during her miscarriage.

Similarly to the popular film, “Groundhog Day,” Jillian is living in the past, aware of what is ahead, and convinced that she has the ammunition to deal with the bullets that would be thrown her way.

However, as big issues with Jackson begin to rear their ugly head once more, and Henry still manages to appear in various settings hoping to win Jillian’s heart, Jillian starts to question if her old life is really what she desires. After she starts to piece together unresolved concerns regarding her mother leaving her family at a young age, she becomes aware of some painful realities about herself and learns that maybe it isn’t the past that she really longs to change.

Tinybuddha.com features a blog post by Adam Alvarado who writes on this very topic — on pondering what could have been.

“Ever thought about where and who you’d be if only you’d done something differently, gone somewhere else, chosen something or someone else?” he says. Instead of backtracking into a cycle of “if only” and “maybe if,” he assures us that our past choices fatefully led to the present we are meant to embrace. He didn’t like the thought of wondering what his life would have been like if he choose to go to a different college, for example.

“I wouldn’t know any of the people I now call my best friends,” he notes. “I wouldn’t know any of the people I now hang out with. I wouldn’t have met the first girl I loved. I wouldn’t have experienced any of the things that ultimately led me to depression, which forced me to change myself, and my life, for the better. And I definitely wouldn’t be sharing my often strange thoughts and stories online for the world to see, as I’m doing now here, and usually do on my website. And then, of course, you wouldn’t be sitting here reading it.”

Do you still wish you can get a do-over? As tempting as it sounds in theory, it’s comforting to trust that you are on the path that is right for you.

What do you think?
Would you still like a do-over, or do you see how your past choices have led to the life you have today?

From that knowledge, the researchers suggest we could design some sort of intrusive, spying app on your computer, iPad or smartphone to let you (or Big Brother, in whatever form — college administrators, your parents, or big data mining companies working for advertisers) know when you’re surfing in a “depressive” pattern.

Are the researchers over-generalizing from their data, or do we really know how people use the Internet when they’re depressed?

Let’s find out…

As we explore this article, keep in mind that researchers’ conflict of interest in writing up their results for the mainstream media is a very real one. They will help forward their academic careers and professional reputation by having such a write-up appear in a prestigious newspaper such as the New York Times.¹ Such a write-up won’t help as much if the researchers aren’t brazen and absolute in their conclusions.

And yet, we need researchers to explain the complexities of their data and be cautious when generalizing their results. Especially when they’re explaining their results in a regular newspaper (as opposed to a journal article). (Especially when other non-scientists will simply uncritically repeat the finding as though it were fact, because it appeared in the New York Times.)

The researchers found that a small group of college students who scored highly on a single measure of depression — not people who’ve actually ever been diagnosed with depression — appear to like to download more music, movies, and file-sharing, and seem to email others more often than those who didn’t score as highly. “Other characteristic features of “depressive” Internet behavior included increased amounts of video watching, gaming and chatting” and switching between online tasks more often than non-depressed individuals.

Previous research from 11 years ago had found similar results correlating loneliness (not specifically depression, though) with increased email use. It’s also not really surprising to learn that people who are depressed like to watch more TV — or the Internet equivalent of it today, downloading more movies.

People Use Facebook? Smartphones?

But it’s important to also note what this study did not measure — social network and social media use, as well as mobile phone use and texting. After all, I’m sure college students are using Facebook, Twitter and their smartphones to keep in touch with their friends more than they use email.

The lack of specific mention or monitoring of these popular and widely used technology platforms is a significant hole in the researchers’ data. It means the researchers are describing only what they can measure. We’re completely in the dark about technologies they didn’t measure yet are widely used.

Think of it this way… What if researchers only had access to magazine subscriptions of a group of people, but no access to their newspaper subscriptions or TV viewing habits? The researchers could tell us all about their magazine reading habits, but leave out what most people are actually doing — watching TV and reading newspapers.

Convenience Sample — Not a Randomized, Representative Sample

Another problem is that the subjects they used to conduct their study is not randomized nor representative. Taking 216 undergraduate college students from a single university campus is not robust methodology. It’s called a “convenience sample” and is usually done in exploratory or pilot studies in psychology. Worse is that only 28 students of their sample — a tiny 13 percent — were female.

At the onset of the study, a surprising 30 percent of the students met research criteria for depression (specifically, they scored a 16 or higher on the CES-D). That’s a big number, and suggests that their sample had an inordinate amount of depressed students in it. It’s also nearly twice the rate of depression as measured in the 23,000+ students who responded to the National College Health Assessment.²

Big Brother Knows When You Are Sad

The researchers, based upon this single study, are “currently attempting to build a classifier to proactively discover depressive symptoms among students by passive, unobtrusive and run-time monitoring of their Internet usage.”

How “unobtrusive” will it be when someone from the university counseling center comes knocking on your door to inquire about your “depressive” Internet use? What is the rate of false-positives?

And are the researchers really at a stage of development in their research — before it’s been replicated on a single additional college campus — that ensures what they’ve identified is actually a “depressed” pattern of Internet use? What if a dozen other mental disorders exhibit similar Internet patterns? What if it’s college stress, which simply surfaced as higher CES-D scores in this study? What if it’s a male-only phenomenon?

So many questions remain, yet the researchers — computer scientists, not psychologists — feel certain they are on the right path to a new mental health intervention.

In sum, the headline could be more accurately reflected as: How a Small Group of Depressed Male College Students Who Are Not Representative of College Students in General Use the Internet at a Single Campus at a Missouri University.

Not quite as sexy or eye-catching.

Read the full article: How Depressives Surf the Web³

Read the study: Associating Depressive Symptoms in College Students with Internet Usage Using Real Internet Data (PDF)

1. It’s never clear to me why a news organization like the New York Times is okay with letting researchers — who have an intrinsic conflict of interest — write up the findings of their own study and then publish the write-up. I guess they rationalize it by putting it in the Opinion pages, as though people reading the article online will note and appreciate the differentiation.
2. http://www.acha-ncha.org/data/PHYSMENTALF06.html
3. This is a pretty offensive headline, too, although not the writers’ fault. Calling a person who has clinical depression a “depressive” is a depressing reminder of the stigma and short-hand taken by people who don’t appreciate that a person is not defined solely by whatever medical or mental health condition they may have.

It peaks as recent graduates navigate the stressors of post-college life, a bleak economy, and the complexities of romantic relationships. As someone who’s going through the motions, I began to view being this age as a time akin to a second stage of puberty — a little awkward and a little terrifying.

Lena Dunham, 25, created and stars in “Girls,” a television series that tells the story of four 20-somethings finding out that the ‘real world’ doesn’t exactly resemble Sex and the City. Instead of Carrie Bradshaw’s glamorous Manhattan lifestyle, these girls live in Brooklyn, wearing clothes from thrift stores and opting for the affordable beer over a cosmopolitan.

In an interview on hitflix.com, Dunham and co-producer Jenni Konner address the inevitable comparison to Sex and the City. They suggest that the tone of “Girls” is vastly different because the ideas and goals of women in their early 20s are not the ideas and goals of women in their 30s.

The title of the series is also a bit ironic and ‘tongue in cheek.’ Despite these young women being young adults trying to come into their own, they’re faced with that pubescent-like struggle and still identify themselves as “girls.” They’re in one of life’s transitional chapters and still a bit scared to grow up. “I don’t think that they feel like women,” Dunham says. “It’s less about how the world views them, but I think that these are girls who will feel like girls until they’re 35 maybe.”

The show tackles a few generational issues that many in their 20s will surely find topical, if not downright relevant. In the first few episodes we see Hannah, Dunham’s character, leave her unpaid internship at a publishing company because her parents are no longer going to support her financially; face rejection at an awkward job interview; sift through the emotional ups and downs of seeing a guy who ignores her text messages; and acquire an STD, while dealing with the traumatic aftermath of confronting an old boyfriend.

Dunham believes the characters’ experiences are universal, as opposed to plots that are series-specific. “In terms of the universality with the show, something I learned through the process of putting out “Tiny Furniture” was that things that feel super personal actually feel really universal,” she says. “It’s sort of the more you really identify something specific within yourself, the more people connect to it because ultimately we are all connected in some way.”

While there are scenes that can easily induce cringing and make viewers uncomfortable, that’s all the more reason why “Girls” should be successful. After all, maneuvering through the 20s is uncomfortable. It’s refreshing to see a show attempt to hone in on those not-so-Sex and the City-esque realities and join us on this bumpy ride.

Texting has become an everyday facet of our lives. The feature serves as a platform that absolutely allows us to stay connected to others with instant communication. However, there is something to be said about the ways in which it has the potential to diminish our social skills, if we choose to allow it to do so.

Texting has the ability to reinforce ineffective communication. Individuals can ‘hide behind a screen’ to escape confrontation in friendships or romantic relationships.

A 2007 article in the Washington Post (“Hey, You’re Breaking Up on Me!”), discusses how “singles can avoid direct confrontation by crafting ‘Dear John/Jane’ letters using advanced technology.” Bernard Guerney Jr., founder of the National Institute of Relationship Enhancement, says part of what’s occurring with texting is that people can use it when they lack the courage to face certain predicaments. This notion may be sending the wrong message, ‘no pun intended.’

“You grow some when you face things, and I think you lose something when you have to resort to tricky things and not confront people about things that are intimately important,” Guerney said. Texting could enhance avoidant tendencies and become an ‘easy way out’ for those who wish to ignore unpleasant or awkward situations, or ignore them altogether. But it’s left up to the individual to decide if they want to give into these more ‘cowardly’ methods.

“I just think people blame objects and things instead of taking responsibility for their own actions and behavior,” holistic health coach Kelly O’Leary said. “It’s not the cell phone’s fault that you chose to text in slang and whatnot instead of picking up the phone and calling someone or meeting them in person. That’s your decision to make. That says a lot about your character, not the technology.”

Texting also is impersonal. Emotional sentiments are expressed through typing, without clues such as tone of voice, facial expressions and body language. It’s probably more effective to have an intimate conversation in person if possible. However, texting provides an ‘out,’ even for the guys who’d rather not make that phone call to ask a girl on a date.

Psychologist and sociologist Sherry Turkle recently broadcast a talk entitled “Connected, but Alone?” She argues that our technological devices are redefining human connection. “We have conversations with each other to learn how to have conversations with ourselves,” she said. Texting cannot serve as a substitute for a ‘meaningful connection,’ a connection that is much better formed when you spend the day with someone, where you can really get to know them on a deeper level.

Turkle also suggests that connection ironically yields isolation. Aside from taking yourself out of the present moment, “you can end up hiding from each other even as we all are constantly connected to each other.” In an age of advanced technology, many don’t wish to spend ‘alone time’ with themselves, but that solitude is needed in order to form attachments with others.

So does texting have the potential to hinder our social skills? Perhaps. The temptation is there, but it’s up to us to decide how to use it.

Sounds good, right? In an ideal world, the student counseling center would properly assess, diagnose and even treat students with mental health concerns — such as depression, anxiety, ADHD, and more.

But we don’t live in an ideal world and student counseling centers don’t make a university any money. So they aren’t necessarily well-funded, overflowing with well-paid staff or have access to all the resources they need.

That’s why Emily Merlino’s column about her experience at the University of Massachusetts (UMass), supposedly one of the better universities in the country, was a bit disheartening to read. In it, she details how she was experiencing depressive feelings and sought out help from a professional at the UMass Mental Health Services clinic.

When Emily Merlino first called for an appointment, she was placed on a 2-week wait-list. This is not an uncommon experience for anyone who’s ever sought out services from their university’s health center or student counseling center, or from a community mental health center. When I was in graduate school nearly 20 years ago, this wait-list could extend for as long as 4 to 5 weeks for the first psychotherapy appointment. Since state and federal budget cuts, these wait lists have only gotten worse.

When she finally did get in to see a professional, it was not a positive experience:

After what seemed like an eternity, when a mental health services employee finally spoke to me, she treated me like I was absolutely wasting her time. When I discussed my family’s history of depression and told her I was fairly sure I had symptoms of clinical depression, she did not even take the time to screen me, the first logical step in treating depression. Because I did not have suicidal thoughts, she literally told me that obviously my depression was not pressing or worthy of concern. Finally, her proposed “treatment” was suggesting that I drop out of the University.

I’m not sure if this is standard procedure at student counseling centers — to dismiss the person’s symptom concerns, or to minimize them if they didn’t acknowledge suicidal thoughts. (News flash: Even severely depressed individuals don’t always have suicidal thoughts.)

The problem with student mental health services is that nobody pays it much attention until you need to utilize them. As a prospective student, it’s not even a question that crosses most people’s minds when checking out schools. You just assume there’ll be someone there if you need to talk to someone — that their health and mental health services are going to be, at the very least, competent.

Sadly, that doesn’t appear to be the case at UMass. Such a large, well-funded state university system should be able to do better than what this student detailed in her experience.

The first step in reforming mental health services at universities like UMass is implementing an organized, efficient system to screen students for depression. At Loyola University in Chicago, first-time visitors to the university’s medical center are given a two-question survey to screen for depression. If the patient’s answers indicate a possibility of depression, the student is more extensively evaluated.

We couldn’t agree more.

Read the full story: Better Services for Mental Health

Luckily, these feelings of sadness, anxiety, and depression are not as rare as they may seem; people like you and me may conceal them every day and no one would ever know it. Instead we wait until we’re home alone or with our loved ones to unleash the dragon. Because depression is so widespread, it’s important to remember that we are never alone. Someone always has it worse. We should be grateful for what we do have, and bad things will soon subside. Similar to the change of seasons, depression will bloom and wilt, but we can try to conquer it for good.

I have a lot of experience with depression — through family, friends, and even myself as a teenager. The biggest issue we face as young adults is that we don’t want to admit when we feel depressed, so we start to shut people out and ignore these powerful feelings that could end up destroying us.

Personally, I’ve gone through periods where I am happy, my relationships are strong, and nothing could bring me down. Then there were the times where I would cry for no reason, lie in bed all day, and avoid the people in my life who have always added to my happiness. These are all common symptoms for people struggling with depression, but I’d like to consider myself a success story. I found that what helped me the most were my relationships, and my ability to accept that I had a problem that I needed to deal with head-on.

For high school and college-aged students, changes in feelings are sporadic, and with continual stress everything tends to build up quickly before we realize that it’s affecting us negatively. My way of coping was by trusting my therapist and friends, and allowing myself to place my confidence in these people and hope for words of encouragement in return. I also tried to get myself out more by joining extracurricular activities, like participating in theater, choir, band, and volunteer work. Theater, among other activities had a very positive effect on me. I was able to surround myself with people with similar interests and eventually, with time, I was able to feel better and turn myself around.

At home, I spent a lot of time writing. Whether I was blogging, or just writing a story in my journal, getting my feelings and thoughts out of my head was really beneficial. Even though no one read the entries I would write, at the time, it felt good to let out all my baggage. It felt even better to look back at those journal entries years later and realize that it wasn’t the end of the world, and I made it through what seemed like the worst time of my life.

These are very powerful feelings that need to be approached carefully. In most cases, depression won’t just go away on its own. It takes time and understanding. It may be episodic. If you handle your feelings with care, it will be possible to go longer without feelings of despair.

If I could give you a few tips of how to cope with depression, they would be:

• Acknowledge your feelings, and seek help from either a professional or the people you love. A licensed professional can be a great way to get an unbiased look into your life. Because psychologists and therapists are trained to work with depression, their opinions will be very different than your friends and family. My advice is to start seeing a therapist once a week or so in the beginning and see how you feel. It’s not easy to admit you’re having feelings of sadness and pain, but getting help is the best thing you could do for yourself.

  It’s also important to seek out friends and family, because during this difficult time, you are going to want to be surrounded by supportive people who love you. Your support system will not always understand what you’re going through, but hopefully they will assist you in any way you need.

• Join a club or activity that interests you. By joining different activities, you will meet people with similar interests, which will motivate you to go back for each meeting. You may discover that by joining an art club you have a talent for sculpting, or that your basketball skills make you the Most Valuable Player. Keeping busy, trying new things, and having fun will all benefit you and will be a great release.
• Remember that you are not alone in these depressed feelings and thoughts. Every day, all around the world, people struggle with depression, and there are many people who are able to take control of it and triumph. Things will get better, and although it may seem like the end of the world sometimes, it isn’t. You are not alone.

A few people had suggested throughout the past couple years that I do it, and I thought I’d go to one session to say I’d done it and be done with it. Well, I went to that one session and told the counselor I needed help with stress. She talked to me about stress, but in ending the session, rather than asking “Do you want to come back?” asked “When do you want to come back?”

I have difficulty saying no to anyone, so I agreed to a time. The next session went nearly identical to the first, but during the third session she redirected the goal of our sessions toward me talking more. She had me take some tests (MMPI-2 and MCMI) and I wrote out a list of my goals for her.

She never directly told me, but eventually I picked up that she thinks I have social anxiety disorder. She started having me write down situations in which I felt anxious and what I was thinking and feeling at those times, but I didn’t really understand the point of it. I started realizing just how much anxiety had controlled my life, but I didn’t feel like doing this was helping me.

What this work did do, however, was make me really want to be able to do the things I was so terrified of doing.

After a few weeks of this my counselor started asking me to rate how much anxiety I felt in various situations, one of which was in sessions. Upon hearing how difficult sessions were for me she determined that rather than working toward my goals we should work toward me being more comfortable with her.

This is where things started spiraling downhill in a hurry. I would come to a session and she would have me lie down and close my eyes and do breathing exercises for fifteen minutes, then send me on my way. She couldn’t have known this since I never said anything, but closing my eyes brings my anxiety level up, laying down makes me feel vulnerable, and the breathing exercises were the way I breathe when I’m really anxious. So doing this was bringing me into an extremely anxious state at every session, and it would take me longer each week to calm myself from the session.

My sessions are on Tuesdays and one week it got to the weekend and I still couldn’t fully calm myself—nothing was working. I was frustrated and ready to just tell the counselor I was done, but because talking to people is so hard for me I didn’t know if I could do it. I was scared not only of doing it, but of hurting her feelings. After a weekend of spending hours on my laptop trying to figure out how I was going to tell her what was going on, I finally wrote something to tell her we either needed to get back to my goals or be done.

While this seems like a negative experience, I think the negative backstory is necessary to explain the positive experience I now receive. At my session that week I read what I had written and, although skeptical at first, my counselor agreed to go back to my goals. Unfortunately, I am a college student and we only had one more session before I left for break.

In that last session, though, she was pleasantly surprised to learn that I had managed to not only meet, but exceed my goal for the week, and said hi to three people over the course of the week. I know that seems like a marginal accomplishment, but for a girl whose social interaction is mostly limited to her journal that was huge. I also was given a packet about recognizing negative and unhelpful thoughts to read over my break.

Between my break and hers, it was a month and a half before I saw her again. We spent the first session back discussing the way my thoughts and anxiety affect each other, and planning our goal for the week: trying to say hi to as many people as I could throughout the week and recording both my negative thoughts and coming up with alternative responses. I wasn’t feeling very successful at the beginning of the week, but by the end of the week, with the support of my counselor behind me and the knowledge that my thoughts and feelings don’t have to define the situation around me, I had grown much in my ability to communicate. I was finally able to at least acknowledge my friends when I saw them. That was an enormous accomplishment for me.

Although that was only two weeks ago, it seems like eons ago because of the amazing progress I’ve made since then. In sessions, my counselor and I talk about the situations in which I completed my goals for the week, how the situations felt, and what could have gone better. We also roleplay situations that might still be too difficult for me to do spontaneously, and she talks me through the situation and encourages me until I can do it successfully.

Once my counselor and I were on the same page, I started making so much progress. I wish that I had had the confidence to let her know what was going on earlier, but even with the short time we had together before my break, my family and friends noticed a distinct difference in my confidence and ability to communicate. Now, after only a few weeks back with my counselor I have progressed to a communication level that I never realistically expected of myself. Sure, I always had my fantasies about becoming like my extremely extraverted friends, but I always knew that extraversion was likely not a part of my personality, and had much lower realistic expectations for myself.

I thought that once I got my therapy back on track that it would still take me years to reach a level of social ability comparable to that of my peers, and have been pleasantly surprised to find that at the rate I am progressing now I may be there by the end of the year. Understanding how a more normal friendship works may take a bit longer after living isolated as a nearly silent companion for so many years, but with the support I receive from my counselor I know I will soon be the socially secure college student I long to be. Even something as simple as commenting on a blog post, or even liking someone’s post on Facebook was way outside my comfort zone just a few months ago, yet now I can do them with little concern.

Although the process is difficult, every frustration and challenge has been worth it to be able to have the ability to have more than a one-word contribution to conversations with my friends. I would say even the frustration and anxiety that resulted when my counselor and I did not see eye to eye was worth it because it showed me the importance of learning to advocate for myself.

What started as something to check off the to-do list to please others has become something that has given me more than I ever expected to receive.