Notes and Meditations

A new study finds the rates of mental illness soaring among college students. The study found, among other things, that:

-- One in three students report having experienced prolonged periods
of depression
-- One in four students report having suicidal thoughts or feelings
-- One in seven students report engaging in abnormally reckless behavior
-- One in seven students report difficulty functioning at school due to
mental illness

Does this really surprise anyone whose ever watched an MTV reality show? I doubt it. Those shows glamourize college students who specialize in "engaging in abnormally reckless behavior."

What the long story fails to mention, and what the study probably didn't even attempt to measure is the correlation between college students who report symptoms of faltering mental health and those who come from divorced families. I suspect the correlation is high, but finding that correlation and reporting it would have been politically thorny to say the least.