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mid-day editorial: Mumbai has more money, but no peace

Updated on: 24 October,2017 06:06 AM IST  |  Mumbai
mid-day correspondent |

The statistics are here. And, they are grim. Mumbai has the maximum number of unhappy people, those requiring psychiatric treatment, loosely proving Martin Luther King Jr's famous line true - the richer we have become materially, the poorer

mid-day editorial: Mumbai has more money, but no peace

The statistics are here. And, they are grim. Mumbai has the maximum number of unhappy people, those requiring psychiatric treatment, loosely proving Martin Luther King Jr's famous line true - the richer we have become materially, the poorer we are spiritually. Disposal incomes of Mumbaikars have risen manifold over the years, yet the quality of life has not kept pace.


Even more worrying is that earlier, patients were mostly among the elderly, with mental illness being a natural progression of age, but today, children as young as ten are being brought in for diagnosis and treatment. Low self-esteem among children, thanks to absentee parents, over-exposure to multiple media, high-earning parents overcompensating with expensive gadgets, unmindful of the fact that their child would need careful monitoring with its use, are the basis for the eventual mental decline. Today, selfie addiction, Internet addiction and cyber bullying are very real and very big problems.


Psychiatrists say children brought in for treatment seem unable to function without peer approval online. The number of 'likes' on social media determines how the child will feel about himself or herself. It's not just children, adults who find themselves battling loneliness, away from family, in this migrant city, turn to the virtual world for comfort. Negative comments and harsh words from trolls online only serve to push them further into their void.


Thankfully, with more and more celebrities speaking up about their own experiences with mental illness, people have become more willing to seek treatment. With awareness will come a greater and faster understanding of the illness. For our part, we can try and be more aware of the lonely among us and lend a helping hand before it's too late.

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