Teen mental health is plummeting and social media is a major contributing cause [pdf]
Unpopular opinion: Social media is a great scapegoat, but it is not the source of the problem. It is where they go to communicate and cope. My sole qualification to post this: I have four kids that are either teens or in their early 20s, and one who will be a teen next year. Here is what I see out there:<p>1. Kids have little or no slack in their schedule. This means very little freedom, and very little time to work things out mentally. School, practice, volunteer, homework, bed, do it all again. This builds up to a very difficult to unwind ball of stress, anger, fear and despair.<p>2. Everything is conflicted and unclear. Schools teach cultural tolerance while enforcing zero-tolerance policies. Diversity is good, but being ____ is bad. So many areas where what we teach and preach are the opposite of what policies and actions actually do.<p>3. The stakes are too high. View the wrong website on your chromebook and get referred to law enforcement. Have a kid send you the wrong selfie and get charged with a sex crime. Get a bad grade and you are off the volleyball team, and you won&#x27;t make the team next year - so done forever. Misbehave and you&#x27;ll be arrested by the resource officer and face time at juvi, and potentially a conviction that will be held against you for a very long time (in some states juvi convictions count against three strikes laws).<p>3. Kids are targeted. Sexual predators, gangs, fringe and mainstream ideologues looking to recruit followers, sports agents and talent scouts all have one thing in common: they want to exploit kids or sell them something.<p>It&#x27;s really hard to be a kid right now, and that needs to change. We need to lower the stakes, the stress and have something that resembles consistency.