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In the 90s, when I was a teenager, sullen seemed to be there. Dark hair corresponded to black moods, and I sometimes thought we had invented the depressed and disinterested atmosphere of teenagers.
Was I really depressed in adolescence? Well … yes, actually. J & # 39; was. This is where my long-standing fight against depression began to take shape, but I do not think we were all clinically depressed. Many of us just put this black eyeliner in the course of an act.
In the 90s, we found ourselves in the same room to say how much we hate our parents. We went to Blockbuster together. When our pager sounded a beep, we had to call someone instead of sending him an SMS. We even got in the same car. The majority of our interactions were face-to-face – and it turns out that teens were much happier at the time.
This will not shock those who will raise children in 2019, but 2010 teenagers will interact primarily online, which will have a huge impact on their mental health. According to a recent study of Journal of Abnormal Psychology"More teenagers and young American adults in the late 2010s, compared to the mid-2000s, experienced severe psychological distress, severe depression or suicidal thoughts, and more suicide attempts."
The lead author of this study, Jean Twenge, PhD, and professor of psychology at San Diego State University, said, "These trends are weak or non-existent in adults aged 26 and older, suggesting a generational shift. mood disorders instead of a radical change. overall increase at all ages.
My eldest is a teenager and, like all parents in this age group, these stats have a bit scared me. But what made me even more anxious was when I read the framework of this study and realized how much mental illness had increased. They looked at responses to more than 200,000 adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17 between 2005 and 2017, and to almost 400,000 adults aged 18 and over between 2008 and 2017. I do not mean to say anything but is a fairly large sample.
What they found was extremely alarming. The rate of individuals reporting symptoms corresponding to major depression in the past 12 months increased from 52% among adolescents from 2005 to 2017 and 63% among young adults aged 18 to 25 from 2009 to 2017 A 71% increase among young adults with severe psychological distress over the last 30 days from 2008 to 2017. The rate of young adults with suicidal ideation or other issues related to suicide increased by 47% between 2008 and 2017.
I suffer from depression and anxiety and I come from a long line of family members with mental illness. So I watch my kids very closely for signs of depression because I know how important it is to manage your mental illness. But what really struck me was that the authors of this study did not think that this increase was related to genetics or socio-economic status, but rather way of life.
"The cultural trends observed over the past 10 years may have had a greater effect on mood disorders and suicide outcomes in younger generations than in older generations," he said. Twenge. She believes that this trend may be partly due to the increased use of electronic communications and digital media, which could have altered social interactions enough to affect mood disorders in teens. This is by far the biggest contributor to this increase in depression.
But there was another factor related, and that was the lack of sleep. Of course, these two are related. This study found that teens spend more time awake late at night interacting online and that this contributes to their depression.
Now that I'm with you, as a father of three, the last thing I want to do is monitor my kids' online activities in the middle of the night. But I must say that just a few weeks ago, I found my teenager in our living room playing games and chatting live with her friend at 4:30 am on a school day. Who knows how many times he made this gesture and I slept there. He must now check all his devices before going to bed.
While all of this should make parents think, the good thing is that you can change a lifestyle much more easily than you can change genetics. And I know, I know, making teens do literally everything they do not want can be a serious challenge, and asking them to hang up their phone, even for a moment, gives them the impression of cutting themselves off. leg. But it is possible, and after reading this study, this could be very necessary. And that's exactly what the authors of this study concluded.
"Young people can not change their genetics or their economic situation … but they can choose the time they spend in their free time," writes the author of the study. "The first and most important thing is to get enough sleep. Make sure that the use of your device does not interfere with sleep … do not keep phones or tablets in the room at night, and store the devices less than an hour after bedtime . Overall, make sure that the use of digital media does not interfere with activities that are more beneficial to mental health, such as face-to-face social interaction, physical activity, and sleep. "
As a person who has learned to live with depression and anxiety, I can say with certainty that lifestyle changes can help (with medications and therapy, in some cases). And I understand, asking parents to add something more to their growing list of things beneficial to their kids may seem overwhelming. But what's sad is that the management of screen time and online interactions is what seems to be like raising teenagers in 2019 and, as this study points out, the challenges of managing online have never been so important.
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