Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression - and the Unexpected Solutions

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2018

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Introduction

Part 1, Chapters 1-4

Part 2, Chapters 5-8

Part 2, Chapters 9-13

Part 3, Chapters 14-17

Part 3, Chapters 18-21

Part 3, Chapter 22-Conclusion

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Part 3, Chapter 22-ConclusionChapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 3, Chapter 22 Summary: “Reconnection Seven: Restoring the Future”

Hari acknowledges that current social and economic circumstances are a major obstacle to his ideas for reconnection: “Most people are working all the time, and they are insecure about the future” (298). He describes a social experiment the government of Canada conducted in the 1970s on the small town of Dauphin in Winnipeg. The government put the town’s citizens on a universal basic income, which gave them enough money to pay for basic necessities. The experiment ended after three years when a new political party came to power.

An economics student in Toronto, Evelyn Forget, and a group of researchers became the first to actually look at the data from the experiment after it was shut down. They found that people in Dauphin were able to start a business or get a postsecondary education, such as a woman who was the first person in her family to go to college and became a successful librarian. The number of babies with low birth weight declined, students performed better, and there was a 9% drop in serious mental illnesses, including depression (302). Forget argues that the need for a universal basic income has grown since the 1970s since it is harder to make a career and earn a pension after retirement, and the automation of jobs through technology has continued.

Hari talks to the economic historian Rutger Bregman, a prominent advocate for universal basic income. Various experiments offering universal basic income across the world have shown that people believe that others will use this income to do nothing, but individuals who receive it actually remain active and work. Universal basic income “empowers people to say no” to difficult or degrading jobs, and forces employers to offer more incentives to people who do work such jobs (305). Hari says that universal basic income is the latest in a line of political reforms that seemed ridiculous in the past but were proven to be just and necessary, such as legalized marriage between members of the same sex, women being allowed to have their own bank accounts, and civil rights for racial minorities and individuals with disabilities.

Conclusion Summary: “Homecoming”

While watching people coming in and out of a pharmacy in London, likely picking up antidepressants, Hari wonders what he would tell his teenage self. He would tell him about how, while some are helped by antidepressants, “social and psychological causes” are the real problem that “have been ignored for a long time” (312). Although depression hurts and is hard, it’s an “ally—leading you away from a wasted life and pointing the way towards a more fulfilling one” (314).

Hari reflects on Joanne Cacciatore, who said that some professionals equate grief with depression. It is an “insult” to say one’s grief is a disease caused by brain chemistry (316), and an insult to say that about Hari’s own pain when he was a teenager.

Hari writes that he has put into practice some of the reconnection strategies he described in the book, and that they have succeeded in reducing his depression and anxiety. However, Hari believes it is important not to only discuss solving depression through “individual changes” (317). Instead, the message from anxious and depressed people is that “something has gone wrong with the way we live” (319).

Part 3, Chapter 22-Conclusion Analysis

As he did when discussing meaningful work (244-45), Hari acknowledges that the systemic problems that contribute to people’s depression would be hard if not impossible to fix: “It’s hard to join a big struggle when it feels like a struggle to make it to the end of the day” (298). Hari sees universal basic income as the ultimate and necessary solution to the poverty and lack of independence that causes depression.

Universal basic income can only be achieved through mass political action. As Hari admits, he is calling upon people to “demand something that seems impossible” (309). Like with democratized workplaces (251-55), Hari suggests only a large, ambitious reform could address poverty. Hari admits that universal basic income is “a distant goal” and advocates that “we start to argue and campaign for it now” (306).

This fits with Hari’s argument that depression and anxiety are being driven by social problems and issues that have worsened in recent decades: “It’s a sign […] of how badly off track we’ve gone, that having fulfilling work is seen as a freakish exception, like winning the lottery, instead of how we should all be living” (309-10). Some issues may not be resolved through individual or even group action, but people can be made more aware of challenges and advocate for ambitious political change.

Some modes of reconnection can be done on an individual level or as part of a group or community. In his conclusion, Hari presents an optimistic view where understanding how depression and anxiety are rooted in disconnection, an understanding he lacked when he was a teenager, is part of the solution: “We have been tribeless and disconnected for so long now. It’s time for us all to come home” (318). However, it is clear not all of Hari’s proposed solutions can be achieved without changing society and government priorities on some level.