Keeping Kids Safe From the Wrong Dangers

You read the news about that poor football player, right? The University of Pennsylvania lineman who killed himself? And the autopsy, which showed that his head had been rattled by all those blows over the years? And the fact that the damage may have caused depression and lack of impulse control, which may have resulted in his suicide?

Now, what do you do with this information?

Whether the growing attention to concussions in young athletes will lead to an exodus from the football field (or the basketball court, or the hockey rink) will say a lot about how we humans process risk. Which means it’s anybody’s guess.

If history is any guide, we seem to veer between overreaction and underreaction ”” all while defining our own response as “moderate.”

Read it all.

Posted in * Culture-Watch, Children, Marriage & Family

2 comments on “Keeping Kids Safe From the Wrong Dangers

  1. John A. says:

    The obvious question is: “Does playing football reduce the risk of car accidents and homicide?”.

  2. Isaac says:

    The basis of the article is silly. Brain injury causes brain damage. Brain injury does not cause depression and suicide. The symptoms of depression in the football player aren’t caused by depression; they’re caused by the injury. He might have been depressed, but it’s incidental to the brain injury. There’s a reason that Axis III exists.

    The whole thrust of articles like this are to create moral panic about something that is beyond our control to give us the illusion that we have control of everything. Has anyone found that the rate of suicide, depression, etc. is any greater among long-term football players than the general public? Why are we shocked to discover that repetitive brain injury causes a decrease in executive cognitive functioning? Why is it that when a handsome young athletic guy kills himself there’s a series of articles in the NYT, but when the spotty teenager who’s home life is a wreck kills himself, it’s ignored? Because you’ll buy the paper with Handsome Football Player and The Mysterious Head Trauma rather than the spotty kid that fits the narrative of mental illness and suicide.