Rising cases of mental illness in developed countries might be attributable to their ‘astonishing rate’ of technological change, according to biologist Richard Dawkins.
The iconic British author and evolutionary scientist, 83, floated the theory that we’re evolving too slowly to keep up with our environments, creating an imbalance that disrupts our sense of wellbeing.
He floated the theory on a podcast appearance on Sunday, echoing years of research that have linked social media use to depression among young people, among other modern ailments.
‘Many people do worry that the pace of change is such that we are no longer well-adapted to live in it,’ Dawkins told podcast listeners. ‘This is a worry.’
Despite these seemingly common sense concerns however, debate rages on over the relationship between technological advancement and human well-being — with one study led by Oxford’s Internet Institute finding no ‘smoking gun’ linking the two.
Rising cases of mental illness in developed countries might be attributable to their ‘astonishing rate’ of technological change, according to biologist Richard Dawkins (above)
The iconoclastic British author and evolutionary scientist, 83, floated the theory on the TRIGGERnometry podcast this Sunday – echoing years of research that have linked Big Tech and social media use to depression among young people, among other modern ailments
‘Certainly, the rate at which we are evolving genetically is miniscule compared to the rate at which we are evolving non-genetically, culturally,’ Dawkins told the hosts of the TRIGGERnometry podcast.
‘And much of the mental illness that afflicts people may be because we are in a constantly changing unpredictable environment,’ the biologist added, ‘in a way that our ancestors were not.’
But Dawkins — who has fostered a combative relationship with cultural trends on gender, religious beliefs and other political topics that he views as running counter to evidence-based scientific reasoning — was reticent to fully endorse this theory.
‘Actually, I think it’s amazing how resilient we are,’ the author of groundbreaking books like The Selfish Gene (1976) and The God Delusion (2006) said.
‘We do seem to, most of us, manage to cope pretty well with the astonishing rate of change in my lifetime,’ Dawkins opined.
A sprawling international study published last November in the Clinical Psychological Science journal, which used data from two million people between the ages of 15 and 89, would appear to bolster Dawkins’ case for optimism.
The researchers, whose cohort of two-million subjects spanned 168 countries, found smaller associations than would be expected if the internet or online social media were causing widespread psychological harm.
Professor Andrew Przybylski, of the Oxford Internet Institute, who led the research also published a similar study of Facebook usage last year.
In that study, published with the journal Royal Society Open Science, he and his co-authors used data on rates of anxiety, depression and self-harm from 2000-2019 in some 200 countries.
Wellbeing was assessed using data from face-to-face and phone surveys by local interviewers, and mental health was assessed using statistical estimates of depressive disorders, anxiety disorders and self-harm.
‘We looked very hard for a “smoking gun” linking technology and wellbeing and we didn’t find it,’ Przybylski said.
A sprawling study published last November, which used data from two million people between the ages of 15 and 89, appears to bolster Dawkins’ case for optimism. It found smaller associations than expected if the internet were causing widespread psychological harm
‘Actually, I think it’s amazing how resilient we are,’ said Dawkins, the author of groundbreaking books like The Selfish Gene (1976). ‘We do seem to, most of us, manage to cope pretty well with the astonishing rate of change in my lifetime’
‘The popular idea that the internet and mobile phones have a blanket negative effect on wellbeing and mental health is not likely to be accurate,’ according to Przybylski.
‘It is indeed possible that there are smaller and more important things going on, but any sweeping claims about the negative impact of the internet globally should be treated with a very high level of skepticism,’ the Oxford scholar concluded.
His research, nevertheless, runs counter to multiple studies which purport to show that social media and this bewildering era of technological change have worsened the mental health of the middle-aged and millennials as well as young people.
Dawkins said human genetic evolution was not happening as quickly as cultural evolution. Above, a model of a DNA strand
In his podcast appearance, Dawkins expressed more direct concerns with other aspects of human technology’s impact on evolution: climate change and basic self-reliance in the face of a new Dark Age.
‘The internet is a huge change, it’s gigantic change,’ he noted. ‘We’ve become adapted to it with astonishing rapidity.’
‘if we lost electricity, if we suddenly lost the technology we’re used to,’ Dawkins worried, humanity might not be able to eve ‘begin’ to adapt in time, without great social upheaval and death.
The biologist held similar views on the warming of the planet due to climate change, but cautioned that this was not his area of expertise.
‘It probably is a dangerous problem,’ Dawkins told the podcast, ‘and one that needs to be sorted.’
But as someone who has studied evolution in a variety of wildlife over his storied career, he commented more forcefully on humanity’s impact on other life on Earth.
‘Man-made extinction,’ he said, ‘it’s just as bad as the others. I think it’s tragic.’
