April 8, 2024 - 6:30pm
Youth mental health is in sharp decline, with girls and women leading the surge in depression, anxiety and worry, a new study has found.
Mental wellbeing over time traditionally follows a U-shape — rising in youth, declining in middle age and rising once more later in life — a finding that has been replicated more than 600 times. But that trend is quickly disappearing due to a decline in youth mental health, particularly for girls, that began about 15 years ago, according to the Dartmouth College-led study. That decline is mirrored by a rise in mental ill health for this cohort.
The study fits with a growing body of research suggesting that social media and internet usage is behind declining youth mental health, particularly for young women. Instagram was founded in 2010, and mental health researchers including Jonathan Haidt have argued that comparison and public judgement on the app harmed girls by increasing self-consciousness.
Daily hours spent online and smartphone popularity rose beginning in 2010, closely matching the rise in youth mental health problems. In 2011 only 10% of young women spent at least five hours a day online, per the study. A decade later that figure had more than quadrupled to 43%. While male and female youth mental health issues have both increased since 2010, the rise among girls was much steeper.
Suicide among those aged 15-24 has risen conspicuously since around 2010 for both males and females, with females exceeding males in several recent years — an unusual occurrence. Despair for this age group has also risen considerably for both sexes since 2009, though females had a higher starting point and saw a slightly sharper increase.
Whereas women under 25 historically had lower rates of despair than their older counterparts, this began climbing in 2010 and exceeded despair for other female age groups by 2018. Despair for males under 25 rose beginning in 2009 and has been close to that of older male demographics since 2017. Despair for all ages of women remains higher than that of men.
The great recession and Covid shutdowns also appear to play a role, though the latter merely exacerbated an existing trend, and the former created lasting career and financial woes. The study did not determine causality, but noted that randomised trials restricting smart phone access demonstrated increased wellbeing.
The social media and mental health connection has been gaining widespread attention in recent years, and several states are pushing to restrict childhood access for this reason, with measures including parental consent requirements and outright bans on accounts for younger kids. These efforts have been met with fierce resistance from the tech industry. “The big question”, as researchers note in their conclusion, “is what to do about it.”
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SubscribeYou could start by correctly labeling incessant ‘judgment and comparison’ as sexual harassment and psychological abuse, which it is. Then stop allowing it.
Easier said than done to “stop allowing it”, as though it can be waived away with a magic wand. Moreover, in my experience, girls and young women are their own worst enemies when it comes to incessant judgement and comparison, mainly amongst themselves.
Spot on. Social media just seems to have sent it into overdrive. It was bad enough in those awful women’s magazines which focussed on things like celebrity cellulite. Now it’s out of control and women are paying the price.
Yes, you have a good point there. We women are frequently our own worst enemies. This phenomenon predates social media, but has been exacerbated by being online and exposed to so much toxicity. Some of it comes from males, but a significant portion is driven by other females.
Is it “sexual harassment” if it is carried out by other women, and without any sexual intent? And much of the problem seems to be women projecting overly positive self images (“living my best life”) while simultaneously making negative comparisons between their own real life and the fake projections of other women.
I agree it’s destructive, but to try and stop it, as you say, would be like launching a war against modern female culture. You might as well try to outlaw Botox, cosmetic surgery and the rest.
You might as well try to outlaw Botox, cosmetic surgery and the rest.
.
It would be great not to see those monstrously huge shapeless lips
If you compare you are either better or worse. Both miss the point that you have to find value in yourself. The one who has to stop allowing it is yourself. And responsible adults – parents – should show that by example. Basically young females need to be contained. Father’s work. But many fathers are weak nowadays.
Or absent.
Boundaries and limits are important for boys and girls when growing up! As is taking responsibility for your actions and behaviour. Unfortunately, many parents just want to be their children’s friends, and fear that setting limits will make them unpopular. Parenting is work, and having children isn’t a walk in the park.
When young men are expected to initiate contact with women and face the risk of rejection, humiliation, judgement and being insulted, does that also count as “sexual harassment and psychological abus’
What’s the point of being a woman now? The goals that young women are told to aspire to are just worn out male pattern defaults for work and play.
Put them in full Islamic dress an keep them indoors and out of public discourse. They are not, and never will be competent in this world.
An arresting idea, but not one that chimes with my hopes for the future.
Somebody put some posters around a town saying “islam was right about women” (think in the US).
None of the women interviewed had the guts to disagree. But of course they would happily denounce western society and white men.
Which ironically does prove that those posters were right. Islam was right. Western women are proving that in front of our eyes.
“worn out male pattern defaults for work and play.”
Worse.
Men worked for the satisfaction of building a home and family, played because they enjoyed sports, gaming, etc.
Women today do the career but without the responsibility of being the breadwinner, which is am empty hollow shell of a life, just trudging to office
They also refuse things like having children or taking care of their homes, because it’s “unpaid labour’ and “slavery”, and wallow in resentment that the “patriarchy ” stops them from entering spaces such as sports that they don’t even care about.
Inept article. Jonathan Haidt has just produced The.Anxious Mind with a 4 step plan clearly outlining what we need to do about it. Any major podcaster in the past 14 days has carried an interview with Prof Haidt. It’s not difficult, but it does require collective action given the social pressures to engage with SM.
I do sense that society is getting ready to take action on this topic. At last…. the evidence has been clear as a lightbulb since 2016 and Twenge’s work.
Nobody’s going to do anything meaningful because to make a difference you have to destroy several of the largest corporations in the world.
A great start would be to permanently shut down Facebook, Instagram, and Tik Tok, and anyone who tries to mimic them. They are clearly a huge net negative for our society.
Right on cue, several district school boards in Ontario are suing social media companies for damaging the minds of the young, particularly young girls, and impeding their education. Columnist Jamie Sarkonek in the National Post this day takes the teachers and their boards to task for their failed experimental methods in pedagogy, the elimination of merit streaming and performance standards, and for turning the schools into venues to propagandize the young with their anti-traditional ideology and radical views on sex and race – amongst other professional failings, like neglecting to discipline bad behaviour.
Those are my words on Sarkonek column but I believe with him that these practices have done more to harm young people than smartphone usage. Not that those devices haven’t done their part. I have a high regard for Jonathan Haidt, and those devices are certainly bad habit forming, but how can young people not be confused by the norm-busting going on all around them?
Social media should be sued out of existence. If Facebook, Instagram, and Tik Tok, and ever site like them disappeared tomorrow and weren’t replaced the world would be massively better off.
“Adolescent conditions—depression and anxiety, psychological distress, and suicidal behaviors—are increasing in many countries worldwide, and that growth is occurring most markedly among girls, according to a new survey of research published by researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and the University of Iowa.
“The research review article, published August 8, 2023, co-authored by Katherine Keyes, PhD, professor of Epidemiology at Columbia Mailman School and Jonathan Platt, PhD, assistant professor of epidemiology at UI, summarizes studies published since 2010 from around the world. The paper is published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.”
https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/news/new-evidence-rising-youth-mental-health-concerns#:~:text=Adolescent%20mental%20health%20conditions%E2%80%94depression,University%20Mailman%20School%20of%20Public
Just another front in the Left’s war on western culture: “Of course you’re miserable, girls, (gays, transexuals, poor, African Americans, Indigenous people, etc.) you’re being victimized by (basically adult white males) and despairing alienation SHOULD by your mindset.
Gosh, isn’t this the same group that other studies have discovered to be far more left wing or radical left-wing than the other sex/gender? Could there possibly be a connection between left wing ideology and mental health? I thought this connection was well known by now! Search for dark triad character traits and left-wing activism/authoritarianism in Google Scholar!