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The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

jonathanhaidt.substack.com

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Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#161

Post by waboremo »

rychco wrote: post #124
nluken wrote: post #79

While I don't doubt that social media can drive some of these mental health issues, I think most teenagers are simply stressed from the constant work that's necessary for the college admissions process. I'm 24, so I would have been a teenager in 2012, but I didn't have a smartphone until I was 16 or so. My high school experience consisted almost entirely of school, studying, and running (my primary extracurricular).…

Completely agree with this opinion. Teens expected to attend college are under tremendous admissions pressure. You don’t even realize how much more difficult it gets every year for them. For some students, nearly every waking moment is spent on something to fill an application/study/practice. While this itself isn’t new, I’d wager that the number of students having this experience has grown tremendously. However, as…

Part of the distinction between why this process has been made harder is primarily due to finances. If you do not get a scholarship, you are expected to have a job. Not a good job either specifically crafted for 18 year olds so they can get used to work and also handle school properly. No, we throw them into the depths of dealing with ghoulish customers with no way to climb so of course they feel they have to go to school to get out. It's a self reinforcing cycle of pressure.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#162

Post by anikan_vader »

photochemsyn wrote: post #83

Poverty is correlated with suicide rates, for obvious reasons: https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/poverty-may-have-a-greate... There was a notable increase in poverty rates after the 2008 economic collapse, along with a decrease in home ownership and increased unemployment. https://poverty.ucdavis.edu/faq/what-current-poverty-rate-un... The fact that this article doesn't even mention this obvious contributing factor…

Child poverty has declined significantly since both 2007 and 2012 (although they did rise momentarily after 2008).

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#163

Post by rfrey »

tdesilva wrote: post #160
mouse_ wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guarantee most of these "high achieving high anxiety types" live with significantly less anxiety than customer service reps/bag handlers/food service workers.

Why do you think that?

Because most of us can afford food for our families, even in the last week of the month.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#164

Post by nluken »

nicoburns wrote: post #159
nluken wrote: post #79

While I don't doubt that social media can drive some of these mental health issues, I think most teenagers are simply stressed from the constant work that's necessary for the college admissions process. I'm 24, so I would have been a teenager in 2012, but I didn't have a smartphone until I was 16 or so. My high school experience consisted almost entirely of school, studying, and running (my primary extracurricular).…

That only works in the US though. Colleges outside the US don't tend to care about extra-curriculars, etc.

Agreed: the data in this article only discusses the US, so I was only discussing the US here. I'm not sure if there's a similar crisis in other countries. Some in this thread have indicated yes, others no.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#165

Post by browningstreet »

nluken wrote: post #79

While I don't doubt that social media can drive some of these mental health issues, I think most teenagers are simply stressed from the constant work that's necessary for the college admissions process. I'm 24, so I would have been a teenager in 2012, but I didn't have a smartphone until I was 16 or so. My high school experience consisted almost entirely of school, studying, and running (my primary extracurricular).…

So many people here want to say, "That's not it, it's {something else}."

Might be more fruitful to argue about a stack-rank of the things.

But, as the father of a son who is a freshman in college at a Research 1 university, I'll say that his college experience so closely mirrors my enterprise organization work bullshit experience it's shocking. And he doesn't have a social media account or a mobile phone.

So, my humble counter is: it's all of it. We've entered a peak bullshit culture moment in time. We throw a million negative and spurious cultural and professional expectations at young people and then couple that with the death of a reasonable middle class end-game, and then are shocked that so many of them, and the rest of us, are angry and unhealthy and impoverished in various "whole person" ways.

(Not to mention climate change...)

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#166

Post by Jun8 »

nluken wrote: post #79

While I don't doubt that social media can drive some of these mental health issues, I think most teenagers are simply stressed from the constant work that's necessary for the college admissions process. I'm 24, so I would have been a teenager in 2012, but I didn't have a smartphone until I was 16 or so. My high school experience consisted almost entirely of school, studying, and running (my primary extracurricular).…

I have a son who’s a sophomore (15 yo, second year in HS) and this comment absolutely rings true. He fences competitively (2 HR training four times a week plus a few hrs with physical therapist) and his life pretty much consists of school, homework and sports.

He has to be at school at 7:45am so gets up around 6am, goes to bed around 11am usually, so much for the 8 hrs of sleep per night!

And he hasn’t even started the college death March yet.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#167

Post by meragrin_ »

magicalist wrote: post #113
carabiner wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

40% of high school students don't go to college (of any type). Of those, only a tiny portion are focused on elite universities. Many are just going to Long Beach State, University of Redlands and other 4 year schools that you've never heard of. They have lax admissions. Among adult Americans, only a third have bachelors degrees. Certainly the high pressure scholastic environment of certain high schools is not common.

> 40% of high school students don't go to college (of any type). > Among adult Americans, only a third have bachelors degrees So clearly things have been changing in recent decades. I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss this as a factor.

Having a bachelors degree and going to college are different things. You can go to college and not get a bachelors degree.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#168

Post by jahsome »

mouse_ wrote: post #148
thatfrenchguy wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re going to get a bias in here because a lot of folks are STEM focused / high achieving high anxiety types :)

I guarantee most of these "high achieving high anxiety types" live with significantly less anxiety than customer service reps/bag handlers/food service workers.

Do you honestly see value in comparing scars? Does that matter in any meaningful way?

The worst stress of someone's life is the worst stress of their life. It's unproductive and petty to bicker about who has it worse.

If life is stressful for anyone, regardless of status, title, age, etc. there's a good chance it's undeserved.

The takeaway is to treat people better, not dismiss their stressors as less significant.

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#169

Post by pasquinelli »

nixass wrote: post #104
nluken wrote: post #79

While I don't doubt that social media can drive some of these mental health issues, I think most teenagers are simply stressed from the constant work that's necessary for the college admissions process. I'm 24, so I would have been a teenager in 2012, but I didn't have a smartphone until I was 16 or so. My high school experience consisted almost entirely of school, studying, and running (my primary extracurricular).…

I feel like this is because school, especially college, and particularly exams, is about as high-stakes as most people's lives ever get, so they look back at that time as peak-anxiety. Think about it: you're being evaluated and the result of that evaluation shapes the next step in the pipeline, and ultimately the trajectory of the rest of your life! Well, at least that's what the university officials, professors, you…

sounds like the process of becoming a civil servant in imperial china.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination

> During the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), authorities narrowed the content down to mostly texts on Neo-Confucian orthodoxy; the highest degree, the jinshi (Chinese: 進士), became essential for the highest offices. On the other hand, holders of the basic degree, the shengyuan (生員), became vastly oversupplied, resulting in holders who could not hope for office. Wealthy families, especially from the merchant class, could opt into the system by educating their sons or by purchasing degrees. During the late 19th century, some critics within Qing China blamed the examination system for stifling scientific and technical knowledge, and urged for some reforms. At the time, China had about one civil licentiate per 1000 people. Due to the stringent requirements, there was only a 1% passing rate among the two or three million annual applicants who took the exams.[3]

Re: The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

#170

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd »

nluken wrote: post #103
carabiner wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

40% of high school students don't go to college (of any type). Of those, only a tiny portion are focused on elite universities. Many are just going to Long Beach State, University of Redlands and other 4 year schools that you've never heard of. They have lax admissions. Among adult Americans, only a third have bachelors degrees. Certainly the high pressure scholastic environment of certain high schools is not common.

A good point that exposes some major bias behind my anecdote. With that said, if these expectations start at elite schools and slowly trickle down, would that not cause a rise in the aggregate across all teenagers over time?

“Trickle down” isn’t necessarily a good mental model here. Maybe the high achieving types from across the country and world are increasingly concentrating their attention into admission to a few top universities. So the max effort expended by the top students may be increasing, but the median effort could be unchanged or dropping.
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