Digital media related to depression among young adults

New York: The increased use of digital media could be partly responsible for the growth in the percentage of young adults suffering from certain types of mental health disorders in the United States over the past decade, suggests new research.

"More teenagers and young American adults in the late 2010s, as opposed to the mid-2000s, experienced severe psychological distress, major depression or suicidal thoughts, and more suicide attempts," said Jean Twenge, senior author of the study, professor of psychology at San Diego State University. in the USA.

"These trends are weak or non-existent in adults 26 years of age and older, suggesting a generational shift in mood disorders instead of an overall increase for all ages," added Twenge.

For this study, researchers badyzed data from the National Survey of Drug Use and Health, a nationally representative survey that tracks drug and alcohol use, mental health, and other health problems among people aged 12 and over in the United States since 1971. They examined responses to more than 200,000 adolescents aged 12 to 17 between 2005 and 2017 and to nearly 400,000 adults aged 18 and more between 2008 and 2017.

The rate of people reporting symptoms of major depression in the past 12 months increased by 52% between 2005 and 2017 – from 8.7% to 13.2% – and 63% among young adults aged 18 to 18. at age 25 from 2009 to 2017. 2017 – from 8.1% to 13.2%, showed results published in the Journal of Anormal Psychology.

"Cultural trends over the past decade may have had a greater impact on mood disorders and suicide outcomes in younger generations than in older generations," Twenge said. .

She believes that this trend may be partly due to the increased use of electronic communications and digital media, which could have altered enough social interaction patterns to affect mood disorders. In addition, research shows that young people do not sleep as much as in previous generations, she noted.