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Comment by lumb63 | Hacker News Reader

Call depression what you want, but I don’t agree that it is not contagious, along with some other mental illnesses (e.g. anxiety). They’re not “contagious” in the sense that you will receive a clinical diagnosis for depression immediately after being around someone depressed, but I think it is naive to think others are not impacted by their interactions with depressed people.

A few of my family members struggle with depression and also with anxiety. I love them dearly, but spending too much time with them can ruin my mood. It is exhausting to try to be upbeat around someone who is depressed; in my experience, they win, and I am dragged into sadness as well. Similarly, it is stressful to be around someone who suffers from anxiety.

It is widely accepted that mental illnesses like depression and anxiety are positive feedback loops. I don’t know why the same traits that make them so would not be able to impact others.

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You don't even need to have mentally ill family members to see how contagious depression and anxiety can be.

Just spend the morning on Reddit (or even HN!) and notice how your entire outlook changes.

Environment and suggestibility could explain the contagion hypothesis.

There really needs to be a close proximity to the source; this means that online content isn’t really going to spread it. You need to be physically located in the environment near the people with depression and anxiety.

Also, you have to be easily socially suggestible and open to the input of others, on the level of mirroring and the chameleon effect.

Example: I worked for a boss with depression and anxiety. It never rubbed off on me, but his wife was highly suggestible and she seemed to mirror his foibles and idiosyncrasies.

I don’t know if I would go as far as the conclusions of the Rat Park experiment, but there is something to be said for a healthy, safe, and nurturing environment.

I remember seeing experiments that Facebook had done around changing someone's feed to have more depressing content and concluding that it was possible to change someone's mood by that. Online content definitely impacts mental health, you can see how the outlook of people who are always on Twitter or Foxnews changes.

> it was possible to change someone's mood by that. Online content definitely impacts mental health

For approximately 10% of the population, who are considered highly suggestible. For comparison, Fox News had 1.21 percent of the US population as a primetime audience in 2020. One can imagine how that number increases with shared environments of family, friends, peers, and work (in other words, networks).

My mother is a great example. She won’t take tech advice from anyone in our family, but if one of her close friends shares that same information with her, it somehow becomes history—signed, sealed, and delivered. She’s influenced by her peers in a highly suggestible way.

Don’t know what the Twitter numbers are. In the 1960s, Huxley speculated that suggestibility was as high as 20%, and argued that if you controlled 20% of the population, you controlled the whole of society. More recently, that number has come down to 15%. My point remains the same as before.

You are addressing the effect rather than the cause: Simply removing an anxious person from the workplace won't solve the underlying reasons why that person became anxious or depressed at work in the first place. If you went on a crusade and fired all of the anxious workers, do you contend that will stop the 'spread' of anxiousness among your employees? I certainly don't think so.

Reminds me of a somewhat related proverb: "Never argue with idiots. They will drag you down to their level, and then win through experience."

Of course, I am not implying that people with depression are stupid.

If only there was a way to inoculate oneself...

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