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Subscribe to RSSDoes life in the city sometimes seem a little, well, nuts?
Come to find out, research shows that urban areas do tend to have a higher incidence of schizophrenia and psychotic disorders than rural areas.
But why? Is it the stress? The poverty? The drug use? The crime? Is it that guy on the #2 bus who constantly clips his toenails?
Turns out it might just be a lack of potlucks and social mixers.
A new study in the Archives of General Psychiatry looked at more than 200,000 people living across Sweden and determined that the culprit is actually increased social fragmentation, i.e., a lack of social networks, social bonds, community spirit, etc.
“Social fragmentation was the most important area characteristic that explained the increased risk of psychosis in individuals brought up in cities,” wrote Dr. Stanley Zammit, lead author of the study.
Does that mean that living in cities -- especially cities where people never mix or mingle or make eye contact -- makes us crazy?
“Our findings suggest that living in certain parts of cities is associated with an increased risk compared to other areas in cities or rural areas but it’s only a small increase,” says the clinical senior lecturer in psychiatric epidemiology at Cardiff University in Wales. “The lifetime risk of schizophrenia is about 1 percent, so lifetime risk of living in a city might go up to about 1.5 percent -- not a big difference.”
Not a big difference, but coupled with city noise, high costs, increased stress and the occasional break-in, it was enough for Heather Corinna to move to a small Pacific Northwest island after living in Chicago, Minneapolis and Seattle.
“When I was living in a basement apartment in a crummy neighborhood in Chicago, I kept waking up to find my back door open,” says the 40-year-old sexuality educator. “I thought I was just forgetting to lock it until I woke up in the middle of the night and found the janitor of our building sitting in a chair at the end of the bed watching me sleep. He was probably one of the people in that study.”
What about your city drives you nuts? Tell us in the comments area.
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I live in a rural area of central Texas. What really drives me crazy about cities is the lack of personal space when in a public place. I cannot walk down the sidewalk without other people getting too close for my comfort. If I am holding a conversation with someone in a public place, it seems as if someone is always in a position to overhear what we are saying.
Another thing that bothers me: when I do business with an urban establishment, no matter how often I have been there, the staff almost never remembers me. When I do business with a rural establishment, after the first few times, I am always remembered and often greeted by name.
Those who look down on suburban life seems to speak as if it's there that people are isolated. Now that the kids are gone, my wife and I do feel somewhat detached, but I don't think we would start building relationships living in the city, either. It would be as easy to get to know our neighbors in a subdivision as it would in a downtown apartment.
Perhaps the closeness of the city causes people to crave space. Interesting subject.
This is a no-brainer. We were not meant to live like ants, and when we do we wonder why we break down mentally.
Hive mentally is for insects, not people...otherwise we start behaving like hive insects...which is pretty damn cruel.
I moved from the burbs to downtown San Jose, CA last year and I love it! There is so much to do down here within easy walking distance from my Condo. I walk to get my groceries, I walk to the movies, I walk to work, I can easily get to great performing arts and I walk to dinner. My car usage has dropped an amazing amount. I used to spend $250 per month on gas in the suburbs and now I barely spend $50 using my car. I no longer waste my time driving and have more time to enjoy life. As far as socializing, I have great neighbors in my building and we all visit, have book clubs at our places, and enjoy weekend bar-b-ques by the pool together.
To me the cities are where Americans should invest in their futures. I don't want to be a captive of the suburban mall mentality where you need a car to get around and your entertainment choices are very limited to movies and TV. I have found that life is great downtown.
I like the suburbs. Cities feel dirty to me. I can actually smell the dirt in the air and see it on sidewalks and everywhere around me. I like a cleaner environment.
Speaking of social fragmentation, this article has the hallmarks of social fragmentation. It's as if it is written by Stewie Griffin - the jokey, snarky, cynical passive aggressiveness in it. Culture has become an industry. Language has become rhetoric. Religion a farce. A grand helpless spectacle. Living like ants indeed.
So we need a quantified, schematized study to understand this? Social theorists have known this for years, from Ortega y Gassett, to Adorno, Horkheimer and Marcuse. Deleuze and Guattari wrote that schizophrenia is the precise result of capitalism. A symptom of a culture directed by a mechanized world of formal reason.
And now we can joke, because we are helpless. We laugh at it because we are totally victimized by a system, at the whim of a machinized world. Like the sorcerer's aprentice, our rationalized society has turned on us. Our enlightenment is our totalitarianism.
"Insanity is a sane response to an insane world." - R.D. Laing
Nuts? Screwy? I'm sorry, what decade is this? Anyone who's actually KNOWN a human being suffering with mental illness, and I mean SUFFERING, sees that this joke of an article is both poorly written and extremely insensitive. Language matters. It forms thoughts and attitudes and beliefs. Take a sensitivity class or read up on the reality of schizophrenia, dear author. Maybe next time your attempt at humor will be successful.
I live in a large city (Baltimore) and I really like our neighbors, even the weird ones because I know them. I am bothered by the people who do not belong in our neighborhood that may be passing through for one reason or another (drugs, booze, etc). I do not feel disconnected at all living there. I routinely see my neighbors at the grocery store, park, restaurant, bar, where ever I go.
However, on another note, my family is considering leaving for the fact that the schools are atrocious. I would never send my daughter to a school system that is routinely ranked in the bottom of the state.
I can see where cities have a higher rate of mental disorders. I would guess it's the crowding, and the stress of everything being faster and more "in your face". Also it's easier to become invisible and unknown in the cities. The Twin Cities is the nearest metro area to me. I like going there for entertainment, but I don't think I can ever see myself living in downtown Minneapolis.