This is a good discussion, but alas clouded in a judgment against American and Western societies.
If you were to look at the likes of Japan you will see that they too suffer from severe mental illness problems, but they deal with it in a different manner, there is a lot less care in dealing with people who suffer from it, and likewise in China, as such Japan has the tenth highest suicide rate in the world, and China has the seventh. South Korea is the second highest, but the odd nation at number one is Greenland, although SAD could possibly account for some of that.
If one were to look at the 'Age standardised Disability adjusted life year' then you'd indeed see America at the highest rate, but strangely enough it's then followed by Nepal, East Timor and Bangladesh which are not known for their westernisation or indeed highly modern ways of life. Greenland doesn't appear on this list, but South Korea which is the second highest for suicides, doesn't appear until number 120, so the rates of depression are lower than the rates of suicide, which points towards potential further reasons for people committing suicide than depression, however, equally, it also points at the possibility of errors creeping in to the figures. After all, how does one get the 'Age standardised Disability adjusted life year' from North Korea?
In all reality, I think the reason why rates of depression and mental illness are higher in the west than anywhere else is probably the same as the reason why the rates of cancer are higher, it's because we have a better system for detecting and treating it than other less developed countries.
Certainly there are areas in western nations that need to be improved in regards to the treatment of mental illness, the rates of school shootings in America have shown that their mental health system needs looking at, more so than their gun control laws in fact, but it is not necessarily an indication of a flaw in western society.
I do agree though, that there is definitely a sense that things were 'easier' and the pace of life 'slower' in the days before our mechanised world, but this is folly, things were just as hard, if not harder, and the consequences of failure were harsher than today. However, on general, today we have a lot more time to contemplate and think about ourselves and our lives in general than in the years past where time was spent mostly on work, sleep and occasional leisure. One could draw parallels with modern Japan where the ethics of work are starting to come to blows with the ethics of freedom and self-determination, particularly the gulf between the youth and the middle aged 'salarymen'. Does this make the Japanese work ethic better than the western ethic which puts greater emphasis on mental well being? For productivity, yes, but for life...well...I'll let you be the judge of that.
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