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Does this study consider the modern ease of getting a work to be publicly available? Publishing, in some form, is so much easier now than it was 20 years ago. Is it possible that publishers of the past just said, "no, we don't want so much depressing stuff."?

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Now they have the analytical tools given to them by the tech industry to say "Yes, we need more of this depressing stuff because it's most profitable"

To make matters worse, journalism is not longer a career that provides a path to a respectable middle to upper middle class life, so you have an entire profession where those working in that profession have generally depressive prospects in life.

Want to make society content? Keep journalists content.

From the abstract:

> This pattern does not seem to be driven by changes in word meaning, publishing and writing standards, or the Google Books sample

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