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A review by ultramarine316
Lost Connections: Why You're Depressed and How to Find Hope by Johann Hari
5.0
What a great treatment of the subject of depression! Hari looks at the current narrative about depression (that it is an individual problem, a malfunction of the brain, if not an actual moral failing, requiring medical intervention of the individual) and finds it wanting.
He makes the case, using engaging anecdotes backed up by convincing research, that depression is a perfectly rational reaction to the society we live in; one in which the majority of people spend most of their waking hours doing work that seems meaningless to them without freeing themselves from financial insecurity, one that seems designed to promote isolation and loneliness, and one where people are promised happiness through consumerism, leading to a constant cycle of disappointment.
Hari also tells us about his own experiences with depression, which makes the book very personable and palatable; he's not some smug jerk telling you to just go exercise more and spend some time in nature, he comes across as someone who genuinely cares and has been there. Refreshingly, he also doesn't blame social media (the forces causing social isolation were in place long before social media, he points out. If we're so eager to consume the thin gruel of interpersonal connection social media gives us, it's at most a sign of how pervasive isolation is, not the cause of it.)
I would recommend this to anyone who has dealt with depression, who knows someone who has, or to anyone who enjoys a good critique of capitalism.
He makes the case, using engaging anecdotes backed up by convincing research, that depression is a perfectly rational reaction to the society we live in; one in which the majority of people spend most of their waking hours doing work that seems meaningless to them without freeing themselves from financial insecurity, one that seems designed to promote isolation and loneliness, and one where people are promised happiness through consumerism, leading to a constant cycle of disappointment.
Hari also tells us about his own experiences with depression, which makes the book very personable and palatable; he's not some smug jerk telling you to just go exercise more and spend some time in nature, he comes across as someone who genuinely cares and has been there. Refreshingly, he also doesn't blame social media (the forces causing social isolation were in place long before social media, he points out. If we're so eager to consume the thin gruel of interpersonal connection social media gives us, it's at most a sign of how pervasive isolation is, not the cause of it.)
I would recommend this to anyone who has dealt with depression, who knows someone who has, or to anyone who enjoys a good critique of capitalism.