Is There A Mental Health Crisis Amongst Today's Youth?
The pandemic is not completely to blame for the increase in poor mental health in young adults. In fact, the mental health crisis in children and teens has been going on for much longer than you would expect.
It is not uncommon for teens to face some sort of mental health problem–anxiety, depression, stress, paranoia, substance abuse, and body dysmorphia–throughout the ages of 13-25. This can be caused by things like school, work, homelife, or as a side effect of the many problems that come with puberty. According to an article published by the CDC in summer of 2024 “A troubling pattern is on the rise. Suicidal thoughts and behaviors are increasing for many high school students”. After the Covid-19 pandemic there was a drastic rise in mental health struggles amongst youth. Many believed that after the lock down many people would return to normal but were instead faced with the exact opposite.
Numerous adults, mainly parents and teachers, blame the rise in mental health struggle on cell phones and the pandemic; claiming that lack of activity and socializing is the sole reason that modern teens struggle with their mental health. While cell phones and lack of socialization can affect many teens' mental health, especially those who were in elementary school during the pandemic, they are not the only culprit.
According to experts at Meridian healthcare “the pandemic is not completely to blame for the increase in poor mental health in young adults. In fact, the mental health crisis in children and teens has been going on for much longer than you would expect”.
The drastic amount of isolation and change that came with the pandemic left many kids and teens feeling loneliness in a way they never had before. This desperation led hundreds of teens to try out social media as a way to cope with everything. Posting and consuming media can be a very easy way to distract oneself from reality.
Social media can cause insecurity with its strict standards and vastly different opinions but the mass amounts of social media consumption that occurred during and after the pandemic caused completely different struggles for teens. The biggest reason that so many teens are struggling with mental health is because they are using things like social media to cope instead of trying to find the help that they truly need.
Many individuals that deal with their mental health are facing some sort of scrutiny in their day to day life. It is a commonly known fact that minorities of all kinds are more likely to experience some sort of discriminatory bullying in their teenage years. According to a 2019 study done by the PMC (PubMed Central) 7% of white students face some kind of discriminatory aggression while 16% of teenage minorities face some kind of discriminatory aggression.
Other groups of people that fail to align with more widespread ways of living are also more likely to face mental health struggles. Depending on the area where someone lives, the way that you dress, and act may lead to discrimination. Even things like hobbies can cause an individual to be singled out and bullied.
One other thing that has made the rise in mental health problems as bad as it has become is the lack of accessible care for those struggling. During the pandemic things like therapy were a thousand times harder to get. Even many of those who were going to therapy throughout the pandemic were stuck doing their sessions over Zoom or similar platforms.
This way of attending therapy is completely different than in person sessions. It can be a difficult adjustment for many. This fact caused many already struggling individuals to stop attending therapy sessions during the pandemic.
Even though this decision could have seemed temporary some teens found it hard to fit therapy back into their post-pandemic lives.
The social distancing part of the pandemic was not the only thing that made things like therapy inaccessible. For years now the US economy has been going through its own rollercoaster. This has caused many families to cut therapy from their monthly bill. Even though therapy can be an important thing for many kids and teens, not everyone needs it badly enough to pay as much as some families may need to. To this day families are finding it hard to fit therapy into their growing bills. This has caused therapy to appear more of a privilege than the right that it should be.
With all of these reasons one may believe that the pandemic really is the cause of the mental health crisis but they would still be half wrong.
A rise in something as general as mental health struggles is hard to blame on any one thing. It is even harder to make that one thing apply to all people. Yes, social media discrimination, and accessible health care are all reasons for a rise in mental health struggles but none of these things apply to every teen that struggles with their mental health. When people try to generalize the struggles of others it can be irritating and lead to resentment, making their struggles worse.
The best way to solve a mental health crisis is not by limiting social media access or giving every depressed kid medication but to encourage empathy and communication amongst teens and adults alike. Instead of allowing people to feel as if there is one or even a couple reasons that someone may be struggling, people need to listen and understand individual struggles and not try to lump them in with everyone else.