> What about modern society drives the need for such widespread use of antidepressants? Is that something we should be willing to give up? It hasn’t always been this way, has it?

It's completely possible that there's something messed up in modern society that causes depression, or in medicine that diagnoses depression and/or prescribes antidepressants, but the null hypothesis would be that before modern times, people were... just depressed. And then more recently that they'd try treating it with cocaine/meth/etc. Or that they'd fail to treat it, and some percentage of those people would commit suicide, and the remainder would never admit that there was anything wrong, both of which mean the outcome you observe wouldn't happen.

Again, this isn't to say there isn't a more interesting answer, just that you have to at least consider the possibility that it's not something about modern society.