Scouting the Territory

Blog #2

Update: My topic has remained the same since my initial post. I have been doing some research and I am still working on whether I want to include depression as a topic in my paper. From the DSM-5 standpoint, depression has more of a relation to bipolar disorder than anxiety. However, I am almost done with my psychology major and I have learned in many classes that anxiety and depression seem to go hand in hand. Many people who exhibit one, exhibit symptoms of both.

Online findings: From my research thus far, I have learned that depression and anxiety rates have both increased not only in the United States, but also in Britain. There are many factors which contribute to the rise of mental illness among college students, but privatization of colleges are one thing that the United States and Britain both have in common. Privatization, loss of confidence, angst, and obviously depression and anxiety were terms that came up a lot. All of the articles explain different possibilities, viewpoints, and explanations as to why these mental illnesses are on the rise. There are many different research studies, articles, and surveys about this topic. I am interested to see what common grounds are discussed amongst all of them.

Scholarly articles/ books & Conversations about my topic: In Dana Becker's book, she mentions how stress is becoming more of an inside job in that our stress is now causing our problems, we are not stressed because of the problems themselves. One thing she mentions that is causing such stress are the social problems we face. College students all face similar stressors such as being given so many different choices and options, and being afraid to make the wrong decision. Another social issue is the privatization of anxiety (I will hope to continue on this topic with more research). These social problems mentioned also correlate with the article "Anxiety: the epidemic sweeping through Generation Y" by Rachael Dove. One social problem Dove gives for anxiety, is social media and the fear of missing out, otherwise known as FOMO.  Another thing that came up in a scholarly article I reviewed was that students are at a higher risk for mental health problems if they struggle financially. I feel that with this conclusion of the study, I will be able to find a lot of information relating to mental illness and socioeconomic status. Much of this anxiety can be bought out by privatizing colleges, I am excited to see where my research will go.

http://ideas.time.com/2013/03/13/does-stress-hide-deeper-social-problems/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/health/anxiety-the-epidemic-sweeping-through-generation-y/

An alternative useful link: The first useful link I started off with contains statistics on anxiety from college campuses. A potential issue with some of this data is that it is from a few years ago. I would like to research more to find data and surveys that are a bit more recent, but this was a good place for my research to begin. The findings indicate that 80% of students experience frequent stress, 34% have felt depressed, and 13% have been clinically diagnosed with an anxiety or depression disorder.
Other useful links have been discussed above.

Controversies: I have not yet found any controversies on my topic.