Is it an actual thing, or just people being catered too much, or is it just that they are using it as an excuse to get away with things? Or are people just using the word "Depressed", without really knowing what it means?

When researched in the dictionary I got this as a definition for depression: "a serious medical condition in which a person feels very sad, hopeless, and unimportant and often is unable to live in a normal way." I got another definition that stated "extreme sadness" basically, but I am talking about the first type (Clinical depression)

My thoughts on the matter are that too many people are calling themselves clinically depressed, when they are only in a type of sadness that isn't that big of a deal. "I failed my test, I'm going to be depressed now" is understandable if the person uses "depressed" as a type of normal sadness. However, some people try to say they are clinically depressed over it, while only feeling somewhat sad for a short amount of time, and it doesn't get in the way of their personal lives. Crying once is not the same as a clinical depression, and yet people are saying it is.


I want to hear everyone's opinion on this.


EDIT: some numbers according to research.
I looked at 5 websites online, and according to every single one depression has gone up by a lot in recent times. One even said that ten times more people suffer from major depression now than in 1945, Time magazine states that there has been a 400% increase in antidepressant usage in 2011 compared to 1988.

I am also NOT saying that depression isn't increasing, it very well may be, however I AM saying that a lot of reported depression is over-reactions.
There's no reason it can't be both of those things.

Alternative explanation: Couldn't it be the case that plenty of people have always been depressed, just that now it's more "socially acceptable" to admit to it and seek help?

Another alternative explanation: Could it be the case like with ADD and ADHD that doctors are overdiagnosing it?

All that aside, there is definitely something to be said with people oft mixing up clinical depression with the colloquialism, but I don't see much reason to assume that a lot of people are just "falsely assuming they're depressed just because they were sad at one point", or something.

This is a topic I was wondering about earlier today, actually. It may be simply because of the internet allowing people to share their private feelings with strangers, but it seems that things like social anxiety, heavy introversion and aforementioned depression have all become a lot more common. Is it from decreased human interaction thanks to technology? Is it an intended or inadvertent side effect of constant advertisement made to make viewers feel inadequate? Or like I said, maybe it's been here all along and we just now have ways of seeing it.

However, I don't see a lot of people claiming to be seriously depressed over minor things. That definitely seems to be the minority.

Truth is, the only proof I have of people overreacting to their sadness is personal experience, I've seen it a lot around me, like half of the people around me always said they suffered from depression just because they were a little sad.

However, I don't think there's only ONE reason real depression is on the rise. Money problems are a lot worse in most families, work is more stressful, we are in a more negative society, people CAN be more free with their emotions.
One thing that may be possible, what if the technology was not the reason for decreased interaction in and of itself, but only because it's used as an escape by people who already want to stop interacting with people? Just like it's not a forest's fault for hermits living in them to get away from people.

you might be right, it might be hypochondria, and that being sad and pitiful is trendy right now.

pity is the easiest form of attention. Just ask jutsu

The excercise notion by gunni could be a big factor, but I doubt it to be as big as you'd assume. I think it's simply that we are becoming more aware of each other due to being connected and more open than times before.
Or it could be relevant to the decreasing amount of spirituality people have as we know more and more about the world, seeing their lives as pointless, limited, and will never get better? Whether or not it is legitimate or not, spirituality of ANY kind always helps people through rough times, and gives them a positive outlook on things and an explanation as to why certain bad things could happen.
Personally speaking, despite not being religious in the traditional sense anymore, I do think there's more to life than the "physical" world, even though I have no idea what "it" is. This has undeniably helped me out a lot from a psyche point of view.

I don't think the cause of the increase can be described "simply" in one or two sentences. Pretty much every response so far sounds like a reasonable guess.

That and there are probably other measurements of society that suggests we're happier, more comfortable and more content overall than we used to be at some relatively recent point in history. There's been an increase of clinical depression cases but that doesn't mean we can make generalizations about society based on it.

People have always been fucking miserable, it is hardwired into us. Evolutionarily speaking, any species that is ever content or happy will eventually die out. We always need to keep striving forward, to claw our way out of misery. We no longer need to worry about hiding from animals, or the next harvest or taming new lands to live in, so we find other things to be miserable about and we keep finding new ways to combat it. Exorcisms, religion and metaphysics has been replaced by over-diagnosis, over-medication and self-pity.

More specifically our brain is hardwired to look for and recognize problems. Very useful when we had to struggle just to survive on a daily basis. Now we make up a lot of the problems we have just because it takes active practice and effort to not fall into that automatic subconscious drive to look for problems where none exist.

Yes, I was reading an article the other day that the problem solving tool in our brains is technically creating some unintended side-effects, this being one of them. I need to try and find that article. You guys should see it, its actually quite on-topic.

dpresed people like us or you can just say me, have diffrend mentalty about it, its much like not wanting to have frends, company, love or girlfrend, family or something else of any kind but still have someone to speak with to share the "pain", but what is happeing people are using that term for any kind of sad fealing but in realty you are just sad for a while tilt you share it with someone else or the first guy/girl who ask you "what is wrong"

i can say it like that cuz i have personalty problems my self, but anyone who is in my state had or still have that, doctors diagnose that automatily so you dont go somewhere or do something dumb like suicide but now i going bit overboard on subject.

TL;DR people lost the real meaing of deprecions while there are diffrend types of depresion witch has name on its own but the whole grupe is caled depresion

sry for grammar shit

^I agree with your general principle that it has now become over-segregated.

But I still think this is nothing new and simply an extension of who we are biologically and evolutionarily.

Quote from Nish

People have always been fucking miserable, it is hardwired into us. Evolutionarily speaking, any species that is ever content or happy will eventually die out. We always need to keep striving forward, to claw our way out of misery. We no longer need to worry about hiding from animals, or the next harvest or taming new lands to live in, so we find other things to be miserable about and we keep finding new ways to combat it. Exorcisms, religion and metaphysics has been replaced by over-diagnosis, over-medication and self-pity.

I agree with what you're saying, but this is different from depression. Clinical depression doesn't lead to people striving forwards - it leads to them giving up. Depressed people don't get out of bed for days at a time, don't shower, don't take care of themselves. It only becomes a diagnosed illness at the point where it's causing you to do yourself physical harm. (This does not necessarily mean cutting yourself which is a whole separate issue.)

this is more of a guess than anything, but i strongly suspect the "work 9-5 for 5 days a week to earn money and then spend that money on things you don't want or need on the weekend" lifestyle has something to do with it.