I suspect there is a correlation with tech adoption. This chart isn’t the end-all-be-all, but it’s a start. (The years aren’t consistent on the attached chart, btw.)
Yeah, the upward trend seems to be around the time that teens would have gotten smartphones with data plans.
It’s a known phenomenon.
As it happens, people don’t often post their failures on social media, so if you’re comparing your life to someone else’s, you’re at an inherent disadvantage because you only ever see results.
If you hang out with people in person and involved in their lives, then you get to experience the process leading to the results with all the failure baked in. It’s the difference between porn and sex.
I also think a lot of “doomer” content on social media can have a significant effect if you’re consuming a lot of it.
Imagine you’re a teenager and you’re constantly reading the most extreme takes about how everything is broken and terrible, the bad guys are always winning, you’ll never find love, you’ll never find a job, never own a house, never manage to have a family, etc.
An adult may have the life experience and perspective to recognize that the loudest voices aren’t always 100% accurate, but a kid might take it at face value and despair.
I mean, Millennials in the US showed the same stress coping mechanisms in high school as active duty military personnel (our gallows humor being one I specifically remember being cited as similar to the sense of humor of survivors from foxholes), and that was in the late 2000s. I think there’s a lot more to it than just social media access.
From the increased awareness of worldwide events through smartphones (combined with the 24-hour tragedy news cycle) to the increasing downward pressure on kids to grow up at younger and younger ages and the active removal of third places and public spaces where kids can just meet up in person, there’s a lot of things that all make me look at these graphs and go “no shit Sherlock.”
Toxic social media usage is just one, and it’s partly exacerbated by some of the others.
Nah we just knew how to hide it better sobs
I hope the 9th graders are doing well
Came to make a smartass comment like “at least they’ll grow out of it when they become adults, right???” but the more I stared at the chart and thought about what it was saying it started to hurt a bit.
I had a bad time largely growing up, and still to this day struggle a lot with depression. I’m front about the happiest time period on this chart.
I went and looked up the study, and there’s over 40 pages of charts similar to this one. All the things about depression seem up, and participation in school, activities, and dating/sex/drugs are all down considerably. It doesn’t sound like anything is better for kids.
I didn’t have children, mostly due to the bad time I had, so I’m curious to go back and read the study, though I didnt see any obvious conclusions skimming through. I feel my perception of if things are bad today is skewed due to my issues, so is the world really worse these days, or is something else going on?
There’s no hope anymore. Simple as that.
For a pretty long time, probably starting even before WW2 in some countries, there was this hope “tomorrow will be better, my children can have a better life”. And that hope was at least somewhat true.
But it’s gone now, and the children understand that. What is the positive narrative for a 16 year old child now? They know exactly that they’ll have a worse life than their parents in many regards.
this. I’m still grieving my lost childhood (extreme trauma) at the same time I’m grieving my lost future. i don’t understand the point of going on, but talk like that scares the ones i love. I’m not gonna do anything to myself, but I’m not that worried if something happens to me either…
Poor kids dealing with social media and all the propaganda, corporate brainwashing, and assorted shitposts before they hit puberty
