Teen mental health crisis points to tech
The most startling number in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s startling report on teenage mental health is this: In a study conducted in the first half of 2021, 9% of high school students said they had attempted suicide during the previous year.
It’s an almost unfathomable figure thatpoints to an urgent crisis. And the primary policy response on the table — hiring more school psychologists — is clearly insufficient.
The deeper connection isn’t to the availability of counselling; it’s to the availabilityof smartphones and social media.
This isn’t to question the importance of mental health care for young people; it couldn’t hurt to hire more school counselors. The National Association of School Psychologists recommends having one school psychologist for every 500 students; in Pennsylvania there are less than half that many.
But the hard truth is that kids’ mental health has been declining, precipitously, as our society’s attention to mental health has expanded. There’s more understanding of and investment in mental health than ever, but anxiety and despair keep growing.
In 2009, according to the CDC, about one in four American teens reported “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness that prevented them from participating in normal activities.” By 2019, it was more than one in three. And last year, it was nearly one intwo.
Pennsylvaniahas a special window into this crisis, courtesy of the Safe2Say Something PA program, an anonymous hotline that began in 2019 as a way for the state to collect and act on threats of violence in schools. But it quickly began to attract calls of a different kind: 32% were for bullying or cyberbullying, 30% for suicidal thoughts, 20% for cutting and selfharm, and 12% for anxiety and depression.
More school psychologists would be able to identify the signs of distress and connect young people to resources more quickly. But they can’t solve the deeper problem of why so many young people are so despairing to begin with. For that, there’s little thatpublic policy can do.
Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007, two years before teenage depression began to spike. In 2004, fewer than 50% of teens had a cell phone at all; now, over 90% have access to a smartphone.
This isn’t a conspiracy theory; it’s common sense. Every parent and teacher knows that the constant connectedness made possible by new tech amplifies all the anxieties and insecurities of adolescence. There is no longer any escape, no place to find the peace to be able to collect oneself. There isn’t even an “off” button on the iPhone.
There are signs of hope, however. To Apple’s credit it has been ahead of the curve with its screen time monitoring options, among other capabilities, but of course they are useless if they aren’t used. Low-capability alternatives continue to try to dent the market, such as the Light Phone, which is designed to make and receive phone calls — and that’s about it.
Ultimately, though, it will be up to young people themselves and those who care for and about them. As the costs of connectedness continue to be more apparent, they will have make the hard choice to disconnect and do the hard work of building social networks with low-tech tools, or the crisis will only deepen.