Episode 29 (Jan 2024) Deaths of Despair: Isolation and Despondency

Beth Patin, Dave Lankes & Mike Eisenberg
Description
Content Warning: This episode includes discussions about mental health, addiction, and suicide. Listener discretion is advised. If you or someone you know is struggling with these issues, please seek professional help. It is important to prioritize your well-being and the well-being of those around you.
In this episode, we get serious about a serious problem: despondency and despair across all age groups – middle age, young adults and seniors too. For example, going against all the statistical norms, people in their middle ages are increasingly dying from suicide, drug overdoses and alcohol related illnesses. First observed in middle aged white men, the trend is now seen across gender and racial boundaries. The one predictive factor? The deaths are rising in those without 4 year college degrees. For older adults, social isolation or loneliness is associated with a 50% increased risk of developing dementia. And among youth, post-pandemic statistics point to a decrease in loneliness, but overall levels of depression have not fallen as much as one would hope. What’s the possible connection to our information-overloaded and increasingly online and technologically-mediated world? And most importantly, what can library and information professionals and institutions do to help?
This episode includes:
- AI Watch
- Wazzup?
- Main Topic
- Awesome Library Thingy
References & Resources
Wazzup?
Gardner, A. (Jan 2, 2024). “New Year’s Eve Rochester tragedy leaves moe. fandom shocked, but determined to persevere.” NNY 360. https://www.nny360.com/communitynews/communitynotes/new-year-s-eve-rochester-tragedy-leaves-moe-fandom-shocked-but-determined-to-persevere/article_34d23449-d7d3-58f8-9957-703d1da32dd2.html#tncms-source=login
JustinGuitar (2024) “How To Change Acoustic Guitar Strings for Beginners.” YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFGjZyk8k_o
Banjo Ben Clark (2024) “Tech Tip: How to Tie a Luthier’s Knot When Changing Strings, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWf6eaoeMs0&t=2s
GripStic (2024) “GripStic Bag Clips,” https://www.gripstic.com/products/12-pc-gripstic-set
Flipitcap (2024). “Flip it bottle emptying caps,” https://www.flipitcap.com
AI Watch:
State Libraries and AI Technology Group, SLAAIT (2004) https://slaait.circl.community
Tenbarge, K. (2024) Explicit, AI-generated Taylor Swift images continue to proliferate on X, Instagram, and Facebook. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/explicit-ai-generated-taylor-swift-images-continue-proliferate-x-insta-rcna136193
Hoffman, B. How Often is Taylor Swift Actually Shown at NFL Games. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/25/style/taylor-swift-nfl-broadcasts.html
Youngman, T., Appedu, S., Tacheva, J., and Patin, B. (October 2023). “Flashing the Hazard Lights: Interrogating Discourses of Disruptive Algorithmic Technologies in LIS Education,” Association of Library and Information Science Educators Conference, Milwaukee, WS, https://doi.org/10.21900/j.alise.2023.1327 , Best Conference Paper Award 2023
Gaudiolab (2024) “Gaudio Studio instument separation tool.” https://studio.gaudiolab.io/
Lalal.ai (2024) “Music Separation service,” https://www.lalal.ai/
Media.io (2024) “Portable online AI tools,” https://www.media.io/
Main Topic: Despondency and Despair
Johnson, Sarah (Nov 16, 2023). “WHO declares loneliness a ‘global public health concern’,” https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/nov/16/who-declares-loneliness-a-global-public-health-concern
Bower, Bruce (Nov 2, 2020) “‘Deaths of despair’ are rising. It’s time to define despair,” Science News, https://www.sciencenews.org/article/deaths-of-despair-depression-mental-health-covid-19-pandemic
Beseran E, Pericàs JM, Cash-Gibson L, Ventura-Cots M, Porter KMP, Benach J. (2022 Sep 29). Deaths of Despair: A Scoping Review on the Social Determinants of Drug Overdose, Alcohol-Related Liver Disease and Suicide. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Sep 29;19(19):12395. doi: 10.3390/ijerph191912395. PMID: 36231697; PMCID: PMC9566538. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9566538/
U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community (2023) “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation,” US Dept of Health and Human Services, Office of the Surgeon General. https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf
“Bibliotherapy, One Book at a Time” (May 2009). The Ohio State University https://beyondpenguins.ehe.osu.edu/issue/polar-oceans/bibliotherapy-helping-students-one-book-at-a-time
American Library Association (2024). “Bibliotherapy,” https://www.ala.org/tools/atoz/bibliotherapy National Alliance on Mental Illness (2024). “Mental Health by the Numbers, https://www.nami.org/mhstats
PC Sweeney (Apr 21, 2021). “How Libraries Address the Loneliness Epidemic,” Medium, also published in EveryLibrary https://medium.com/everylibrary/how-libraries-address-the-loneliness-epidemic-31daac5b339f
Kaplan, Juliana and Eliza Relman (Sep 24, 2023). “Feeling lonely? Go to the library.”
Juliana Kaplan and Eliza Relman, Business Insider, https://www.businessinsider.com/work-decimated-office-socializing-the-solution-could-be-libraries-2023-9
Awesome Library Thingy
Syracuse University Library (2023) “Open Access at Syracuse University Library,” https://researchguides.library.syr.edu/oa
Open access (OA) refers to the free, immediate, online availability of research outputs such as journal articles or books, combined with the rights to use these outputs fully in the digital environment.
Patin, B, Sebastian, M, Yeon, J, Bertolini, D, Grimm, A. (April 2021) “Interrupting epistemicide: A practical framework for naming, identifying, and ending epistemic injustice in the information professions.” Journal of the Association of Information Science and Technology (JASIST), J Assoc Inf Sci Technol. 2021; 1– 13. https://surface.syr.edu/istpub/194/
Richland County (South Carolina) Library (2023). Let’s Talk Race Curriculum https://www.richlandlibrary.com/lets-talk-race-curriculum
Designed for libraries, museums, non-profits, educational and community organizations as well as individuals, the Let’s Talk Race Curriculum will provide easy-to-follow and implement resources such as:
- Facilitation Best Practices
- Conversation Guides
- Tool Kit and Library
- Videos
- And more
McFadden, Cynthia (Oct. 26, 2023). “Jennifer Garner talks mission to help Kentucky flood victims TODAY Show, NBC https://www.today.com/video/how-jennifer-garner-is-helping-kids-impacted-by-kentucky-floods-196447301893
Jennifer Garner talks about her mission with Save the Children to help the community in Perry County, Kentucky, still on the road to recovery more than a year after historic flooding. She then surprises students with a donation from Scholastic. NBC’s reports for TODAY on effort to improve the lives school kids impacted by the disaster.
Filed under: Dr. Beth Patin, Dr. Dave Lankes, Dr. Mike Eisenberg, Season 4