Anecdotes are not a very useful tool in discussions about generalisations. They provide little evidence aside from saying that it's a category of event that can exist. No one at any point has said citations are gospel. Just that anecdotes aren't adding much to the discussion at hand. If you've got issues with the cited data, be precise instead of casting general aspersions on academia.

Given that this is just a discussion between random strangers on an internet forum, I personally find both statistics and clear anecdotes, which GP provided, valuable in creating the richest perspective.

This isn't Proceedings of Hacker News or parliament: we're writing ephemeral internet words and trying to enrich each other.

Cited data on broad human population shows correlation at best, not causation.

I posited a cause based on the lived experiences people shared with me.

You're free to disagree with my conclusion, or to suggest an alternative cause. None of the cited data has actually done either of those things.