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With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

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Re: With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

#11

Post by randomdrake »

Study: Increases in Depressive Symptoms, Suicide-Related Outcomes, and Suicide Rates Among U.S. Adolescents After 2010 and Links to Increased New Media Screen Time

Citation: Jean M. Twenge, Thomas E. Joiner, Megan L. Rogers, Gabrielle N. Martin. Clinical Psychological Science Vol 6, Issue 1, pp. 3 - 17. November 14, 2017.

Link: https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702617723376

DOI: 10.1177/2167702617723376

Abstract: In two nationally representative surveys of U.S. adolescents in grades 8 through 12 (N = 506,820) and national statistics on suicide deaths for those ages 13 to 18, adolescents’ depressive symptoms, suicide-related outcomes, and suicide rates increased between 2010 and 2015, especially among females. Adolescents who spent more time on new media (including social media and electronic devices such as smartphones) were more likely to report mental health issues, and adolescents who spent more time on nonscreen activities (in-person social interaction, sports/exercise, homework, print media, and attending religious services) were less likely. Since 2010, iGen adolescents have spent more time on new media screen activities and less time on nonscreen activities, which may account for the increases in depression and suicide. In contrast, cyclical economic factors such as unemployment and the Dow Jones Index were not linked to depressive symptoms or suicide rates when matched by year.

Re: With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

#12

Post by deckard1 »

They did a study using Facebook. But I'm more curious about Instagram. "Look at all these rich beautiful people with millions of followers sailing around the world on their yachts." Ten minutes on Instagram is enough to fill any sane person with existential dread and bring about severe depression.

Re: With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

#13

Post by lazyasciiart »

lisper wrote: post #3
lazyasciiart wrote: post #2

tl:dr correlation between them all getting mobile phones and facebook. Perhaps because of the need to reduce it to six paragraphs, it is a very unconvincing piece.

It might be an unconvincing piece, but it still seems like a very plausible hypothesis to me.

I didn't say otherwise. Plausible hypotheses are a dime a dozen.

Re: With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

#14

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #2

tl:dr correlation between them all getting mobile phones and facebook. Perhaps because of the need to reduce it to six paragraphs, it is a very unconvincing piece.

Thanks for saving me a click, the title is clearly clickbait.

Re: With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

#15

Post by wincy »

CryoLogic wrote: post #7

Housing market is pretty bad factor. Most generations previous could afford a starter house on two minimum wage or a bit above minimum wage incomes. In many areas today you need two engineering incomes to pay off a 30 yr mortgage.

My wife moved away from Long Island because it’s definitely true there. All her friends that stayed are either just now getting married and buying a house and have finance or other professional jobs (at 31-32), or live with their parents.

I feel like a broken record but in a place like Kansas City (where I live) you can easily get a mortgage on a house if you make $40,000 a year.

Re: With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

#16

Post by TeMPOraL »

lisper wrote: post #3
lazyasciiart wrote: post #2

tl:dr correlation between them all getting mobile phones and facebook. Perhaps because of the need to reduce it to six paragraphs, it is a very unconvincing piece.

It might be an unconvincing piece, but it still seems like a very plausible hypothesis to me.

I've got a plausible (to me) hypothesis of my own - namely, that the "kids these days are getting worse and worse" is something people have been thoughtlessly regurgitating for as long as we have historical written records, and that new customs or technologies are easiest to blame. Today it's Facebook, previously it was TV, earlier still it was walkmans and metal bands. Hell, if I'm to believe random quotes from the Internet, even earlier it was paper/pens and... books. "Facebook is bad for the kids" seems to be the cheapest thing you can write these days while being sure you'll have an audience that agrees with you.

Re: With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

#17

Post by adamnemecek »

Pxtl wrote: post #10
adamnemecek wrote: post #6

Im sure smartphones could be a possible factor however one must not forget how depressing the whole high school experience is. I think that the pressure has increased quite a bit. The amount of hw has also increased. I don’t think that this suicide increase has been observed in say Finland.

Well, remember that we're talking about an uptick. High school has always been soul-crushing for a certain percentage of the student body. The question isn't just what's wrong, but what's changed to make it worse?

I know we are talking about an uptick. He this been observed outside the us?

Re: With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

#18

Post by dajt »

purple-again wrote: post #4

Except from 2010 - 2015 many teens did feel a crushing sense of economic dread as they dealt with the realities of student loans, an out of reach housing market, devalued college degrees, the gig economy, promises of no retirement, etc. The article just skims over it with a quick this is why economics couldn’t have been the reason.

Only the oldest of teens would worry about those things. I agree they're all bad but I'm not convinced they'd have much of an impact on under 17 year olds.

I'm extremely hacked off that the high school I'm sending my kids to requires students to have an ipad. It's expensive for me, of no benefit to the student, and makes it difficult for students and parents to figure out what homework is due becuase it's scattered around various websites depending on the teacher's whim. It also means he has a screen to fight with us over that he would not have had otherwise. Then the younger kids get annoyed he has one and they don't. There is no upside.

I asked my oldest son why he doesn't invite his friends around more often and he said 'I can talk to them online'.

Re: With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

#19

Post by jotm »

randomname2 wrote: post #9

Is it possible this is also in part due to EMFs from their phones (and environment) and circadian rhythm disturbances from screens? Some studies suggest the radiation can be risky to kids: Christ A, Gosselin MC, Christopoulou M, K’uhn S, & Kuster N. (2010 Jan.). Age dependent tissue-specific exposure of cell phone users. Physics in Medicine and Biology, 55: 1767-1783. Retrieved from http://iopscience.iop.org/0031-915…

Ah, whatdya know, I said the same thing a while ago - we don't actually know the effects of long term exposure to so much radiation.

But I think it's mostly the Internet - too much information, endless info streams, endless mindless entertainment, endless feeds of successful people (so it seems that everyone is successful, or making 50K/year, or pretty, except you and your family/friends/hometown).

Re: With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

#20

Post by davito88 »

randomdrake wrote: post #11

Study: Increases in Depressive Symptoms, Suicide-Related Outcomes, and Suicide Rates Among U.S. Adolescents After 2010 and Links to Increased New Media Screen Time Citation: Jean M. Twenge, Thomas E. Joiner, Megan L. Rogers, Gabrielle N. Martin. Clinical Psychological Science Vol 6, Issue 1, pp. 3 - 17. November 14, 2017. Link: https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702617723376 DOI: 10.1177/2167702617723376 Abstract: In two na…

correlation does not imply causation
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