• American teenagers, especially girls and LGBQ teens, are experiencing historic rates of anxiety and sadness.
• The Youth Risk Behavior Survey found that the share of teenage girls who say they experience “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness” increased from 36 to 57 percent from 2011 to 2021.
• LGBQ teens are more likely to experience poor mental health, unstable housing or homelessness, bullying, and suicide attempts.
• The surge in teen anxiety has coincided with other behavioral trends that aren’t obviously bad, such as a decline in smoking, drug use, and drinking.
• Possible explanations for teen anxiety include social media, school shootings, climate change, and changes in parenting.
• The best evidence suggests that social media is not like smoking, but more of an attention alcohol.
• The relationship between rising LGBQ self-identification and rising LGBQ anxiety is complicated, with liberal and conservative explanations that are irreconcilable.
• Despite the ubiquity of “therapy-speak” on the internet, modern internet culture has adopted therapy-speak while repeatedly setting fire to the actual lessons of modern therapy.
Published February 16, 2023
Visit The Atlantic to read Derek Thompson’s original post The Tragic Mystery of Teenage Anxiety
