A new study links 151 million instances of psychiatric illness to leaded gasoline.

Summary

Childhood lead exposure from leaded gasoline caused 151 million additional psychiatric illnesses in the U.S. between 1940 and 2015, according to new research.

Peak exposure occurred for Generation X (1966–1986 births) due to widespread use of leaded gasoline before its 1996 ban.

The study links lead exposure to higher rates of depression, anxiety, ADHD, and altered personality traits, including increased neuroticism and reduced conscientiousness.

Lead pollution also caused a collective loss of 824 million IQ points in Americans.

    • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
      30·
      18 days ago

      I’m the same age - you Gen Xers can’t steal me… I had to endure decades of shitty avocado toast references and can’t afford a decent fucking home. I’m millennial to my core!

      • TimeSquirrel@kbin.melroy.org
        11·
        17 days ago

        I like to think a good way to tell if someone is one is asking if they’ve ever heard of or played the original Oregon Trail, or know what Pogs are.

        • fluxion@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          17 days ago

          I was early 80s and grew up with those things too, but really I think if your childhood internet experience was “wtf is that” or BBS boards, then that’s the GenX cut-off, whereas millennials got the full WWW/AOL+ experience.

          Millennials were the “Information Age” generation, and being a part of that, when there was some thought that free access to information and true knowledge would connect us all and bring us all into a new world… Before that was all completely crushed by corporate/government manipulation… that really feels like the defining aspect of being a millennial to me.

          It becomes a far more defining characteristic to me as I see where the world is heading. That’s probably why a lot of us “older” folks are here, escaping enshittification and weaponized social media platforms, searching for some semblance of what we grew up with. It’s making me a bit emotional to be honest… another “millennial” thing i suppose.

      • fluxion@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        17 days ago

        I tried to resist being lumped in with millennials, meekly clung to “Xennials” for a time, but I’ve accepted my place finally.

        • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
          2·
          17 days ago

          Did you buy a detached house before you joined us? If not you’ll probably need to wait until at least 2060 to afford one.

          • fluxion@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            17 days ago

            Fortunately I did manage to exploit my then in-between status to purchase a home before covid, but i had to permanently sacrifice avocado toast to do it.

    • Thorry84@feddit.nl
      16·
      17 days ago

      With millenials often there’s a split made between the early millenials and later millenials. People born before 1990 will have gone through a lot of early life and education without the internet. Where people born in 1990 and later will have had internet for most their childhood and education. This means the early millenials are a lot like gen-X and the later are much more distinct.

      • TimeSquirrel@kbin.melroy.org
        18·
        17 days ago

        That part saddens me a bit. I’m part of the last generation of people that will ever know what the world was like before the net, without reading about it in a history book. It’s like being the person who was born before Tesla and Edison did their thing, and by the time they were an adult, the cities were lit up like giant inverted chandeliers with strange new loud self-powered vehicles starting to fill the streets.

        • RagingRobot@lemmy.world
          4·
          17 days ago

          Why are you sad? That’s an awesome thing to get to see. There were some points in history where you wouldn’t see much innovation in your lifetime but we will see tons.

          I wonder what things my kids will see that are similar to this? Maybe I’ll catch the start of whatever it is

          • AA5B@lemmy.world
            3·
            17 days ago

            It is a wonderful transformation that younger people will never be able to appreciate, but of course there are dark sides. We did also lose valuable qualities related to socialization, imagination, physical activity, attention span

    • Eldritch@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      18 days ago

      Generally it’s considered about 1965 to 1980. But nothing is exact like that. Culturally my millennial sibling only 5 years younger had a very similar childhood and the exact same parents. Ultimately generations are societal constructs just like race. And don’t really mean all that much.

    • KnightontheSun@lemmy.world
      6·
      18 days ago

      Eh, seems like it’s a little fuzzy depending on whom you ask. I’d still call you a Millennial and that jives with the Generation X Wikipedia page:

      “Researchers and popular media often use the mid-1960s as its starting birth years and the late 1970s as its ending birth years, with the generation being generally defined as people born from 1965 to 1980.”

    • intresteph@discuss.online
      63·
      18 days ago

      You’re a millennial. A definition I heard was that you were born before 2000, but not an adult. So… you could argue 1980-82

      ChatGPT says: The most commonly accepted year range for millennials is 1981 to 1996. However, definitions can vary slightly depending on the source, with some extending the range by a year or two in either direction.

      I trust that more than I trust some random writer.