The video addresses the rising crisis of mental health challenges among American adolescents, highlighting the alarming increase in teen suicide rates and the growing prevalence of depression and anxiety. It emphasizes the dramatic shift from previous health concerns like binge drinking and teen pregnancy to more pervasive mental health issues. The video examines how these problems, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, have prompted pediatric organizations to declare a national emergency, questioning whether social media plays a significant role.

Drawing on current research, the video discusses how adolescence has changed as puberty starts earlier, extending the period of adolescence and affecting neurological development. This transformation makes young people more susceptible to the rapid influx of social information, increasing their vulnerability to emotional and psychological stress. The video explores the complex relationship between social media use and mental health, suggesting that while it serves as an amplifier, it is not the sole cause of problems for every teen.

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Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. adolescence [əˌdɑːˈlɛsəns] - (noun) - The transitional period from childhood to adulthood characterized by physical, emotional, and social changes. - Synonyms: (youth, teen years, puberty)

American adolescence is in crisis.

2. neurological [ˌnʊrəˈlɑːdʒɪkl] - (adjective) - Relating to the nervous system and its diseases or disorders. - Synonyms: (nervous, cerebral, neurogenic)

Brain development itself has been changing for decades, and now key neurological transitions are happening earlier than ever.

3. hierarchy [ˈhaɪərɑrki] - (noun) - A system or organization in which people or groups are ranked one above the other according to status or authority. - Synonyms: (ranking, order, ladder)

When puberty hits, a neurological system called the social brain is put on high alert, making teens more sensitive to social connections and hierarchy.

4. prefrontal cortex [ˈpriːˌfrʌntəl ˈkɔteks] - (noun) - The part of the brain involved in complex cognitive behavior, decision-making, and moderating social behavior. - Synonyms: (brain region, cerebral part, frontal lobe)

But other regions of the brain, including the prefrontal cortex, that help regulate self control, mature later.

5. cyberbullying [ˈsaɪbərˌbʊliɪŋ] - (noun) - The use of electronic communication to bully a person, typically by sending messages of an intimidating or threatening nature. - Synonyms: (online harassment, digital bullying, internet trolling)

But they're not just on Instagram and other social media platforms. It's also video games, porn, cyberbullying...

6. rumination [ˌruːməˈneɪʃən] - (noun) - The act of thinking deeply about something, typically something distressing or troubling. - Synonyms: (reflection, contemplation, pondering)

So many ruminate, trying to quiet the emotional noise, looking for ways to take control.

7. vulnerability [ˌvʌlnərəˈbɪləti] - (noun) - The quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally. - Synonyms: (susceptibility, defenselessness, openness)

Poor sleep is a really critical factor in vulnerability to mental health difficulties.

8. limbic system [ˈlɪmbɪk ˌsɪstəm] - (noun) - A complex system of nerves and networks in the brain, involving areas near the edge of the cortex concerned with instinct and mood. - Synonyms: (emotional brain, mood network, instinctive system)

Puberty also awakens the limbic system, making young brains more responsive to emotions, rewards, and threats.

9. amplifier [ˈæmplɪˌfaɪər] - (noun) - Something that intensifies or increases strength, power, or efficacy. - Synonyms: (booster, enhancer, magnifier)

One of the things we really do understand about social media is that it often acts as an amplifier of what's already going on in your life.

10. resilience [rɪˈzɪliəns] - (noun) - The capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness. - Synonyms: (perseverance, endurance, adaptability)

adolescence is also a time when the brain is being rewired and is capable of developing resilience.

Teens Are In Crisis. Here’s Why. - The New York Times

Yeah, I was suicidal for years, and that was just normal. It was just constant pain, and I would do anything for it to stop. American adolescence is in crisis. Within the past decade, the teen suicide rate has surged by nearly 40%. And close to one in five high school students reported they'd seriously considered killing themselves. Everybody's miserable, and everybody's more miserable when they think that everybody's having a great time, but everybody's miserable because they're looking. Everybody be miserable. Looking like they're having fun. Every generation has its issues, and I think mental health has been a massive one for our generation.

Get in, loser. We're going shopping. adolescence, the angsty, awkward transition from childhood to adulthood. The time spent experimenting, getting away from your parents, and figuring out who you are. Toss in some sex, drugs and rock and roll. But that's changing. For earlier generations, the biggest health challenges for teens were binge drinking, teen pregnancy, and driving under the influence. They're all declining at the same time. Teen depression, anxiety, and suicide rates are all rising.

Mental health issues were already on the rise prior to the pandemic, and early indications suggest that isolation has only worsened the problem. In 2021, leading pediatrics organizations jointly declared a national emergency. Why are people killing themselves? Why is depression going up? Wait, isn't this all social media's fault? Does spending too much time on social media, like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, actually increase loneliness and depression?

Emerging science shows a more complex picture. Social media is a real thing that has a real impact on teenagers lives. The extent to which that impact is bad or good, we don't know. So what is happening? Researchers say it's a combination of things. Brain development itself has been changing for decades, and now key neurological transitions are happening earlier than ever, making these young brains more and more sensitive to an accelerating flood of information. Changing adolescence as we know it.

Lots of people think of adolescence as being equivalent to the teenage years. Not anymore. It's actually much longer, because adolescence starts at puberty. The physical growth and change that bring sexual maturity and the age of puberty for both boys and girls has been falling. Why? Researchers are investigating changes in nutrition, rising obesity, and exposure to certain chemicals and even light.

In the mid 18 hundreds, girls in western countries started puberty around age 16. It's been dropping for decades. Today, it's age twelve. Let me tell you about turning nine. I hit puberty so crazy early, and I was still in elementary school. I got my period really early, and that was terrifying. I broke out all over my forehead. I looked like a little gremlin my eyebrows came in way bushier.

I had a unibrow. It felt disgusting. I was so used to being a boundless child. I was like, growing into this adult body, and it was horrifying. But it's not just outward physiological changes. When puberty hits, a neurological system called the social brain is put on high alert, making teens more sensitive to social connections and hierarchy. Where do I belong in the social world? Who are my friends? What value do I have?

Suddenly, my brain is, you know, working like 20 times faster. Everything was a million times scarier, and I didn't know why. Puberty also awakens the limbic system, making young brains more responsive to emotions, rewards, and threats. But other regions of the brain, including the prefrontal cortex, that help regulate self control, mature later. And so kids are experiencing these stressors before their coping skills are mature enough to handle them. Kind of like having the accelerator pressed down to the floor before there's a good braking system in place.

And today's adolescents are bombarded with social information. By 2018, 95% of american teens had a smartphone, and nearly half reported being online almost constantly. I was getting dick pics, I was getting, you know, sexual remarks in my DM's constantly, and I was ten years old. But they're not just on Instagram and other social media platforms.

It's also video games, porn, cyberbullying, college admissions prediction sites, news alerts, makeup tutorials. Just the volume of, like, unattainable beauty in a world that kind of seems like it's ending is really hard to process. It becomes a lot for your little monkey brain to handle. We're just seeing more stuff, way more stuff, and it's getting more complicated.

For some adolescents, it's too much. I was learning about minstrelsy and blackface going down these rabbit holes, and all of this was just eating me alive. When it came to my identity, I was just all over the place. I would describe my mental health in middle school as walking across a tightrope, unstable, unbalanced. I didn't ever really feel good.

So where exactly does social media fit into all of this? I don't think that we can say that use of social media is inherently going to lead to mental health problems or depression or anxiety. The majority of kids report feeling better about themselves as a function of social media. Researchers are still determining whether social media has a different effect on adolescents than other forms of digital information.

One of the things we really do understand about social media is that it often acts as an amplifier of what's already going on in your life. It's not that social media is having a negative effect for everyone, but there is likely to be a subset of kids who are more vulnerable. I would say my childhood could be described as caring, but also very anxiety ridden. Oh, God, I can't look at myself in this and imagine myself struggling. But, like, I know I was. When I was like eight or nine, I started to realize more about myself, sexuality.

My anxiety stemmed a lot from that. How easy and how accessible social media and the Internet was at that age. It was a pretty easy pathway to lead into maybe darker thoughts. Just felt really lonely. Loneliness is one of the most important predictors of depression and suicide. And studies show the most connected generation feels the loneliest. We have to stop and think about sort of the types of connection that are really meaningful and supportive for kids because they are overly, virtually connected.

Everything is curated. Nothing is actually real. And I think it up your self image because you're not that and you know that you're not that. But it's not just what screen time does, it's also what it displaces. Teens used to cope with loneliness or anxiety by getting together, processing, being in nature, and they got more sleep.

And we know that adolescents need a lot of sleep, and when it's disrupted, then you're missing out on, like, key time to allow the brain to develop. I would play video games in high school and middle school, 6 hours. I played video games straight, 6 hours. Video games made it easier to repress my emotions. So, yeah, I definitely, like, wasn't sleeping that great? When you're not sleeping well, you tend to be less good at controlling your emotions, social relationships and dealing with other people, and you tend to be more irritable as a result.

Poor sleep is a really critical factor in vulnerability to mental health difficulties. To put it all together, adolescents, many with underdeveloped coping skills, face an information onslaught, flooding their still maturing brains. So many ruminate, trying to quiet the emotional noise, looking for ways to take control. In just one decade, er visits for young people who tried cutting and other forms of self harm rose by 329%.

Right there, you can kind of see, like, I got really thick black ink tattoos on my arm to kind of offset the pattern of what I had going on here because I'm a righty. My parents knew that I was self harming and they were horrified by it. There's no classes that teach you how to deal with your kid when they're self harming. You know, the darkest period of my life in regards to mental health was definitely freshman year of college, can't get out of bed.

Stomach hurts. I could not process in a way that made me feel like anything was worth anything, that anything mattered. I call it my anxiety voice. Just like a big bully in your head and you're being too loud, or you're sitting too weird, or maybe you should just shut up and not say anything. Hard to have any confidence in myself when there was that going on. For parents trying to help their struggling children, it's hard to know what to do, even for those most experienced.

So my dad is a research psychologist. You know, Millie's my third child. It very rapidly went from her being a pretty happy, if anxious, young woman to feelings of depression, thoughts of self harm, and suicide. There was a specific month where I tried about four times. You know, I just wanted that pain that I'm feeling to go away. That was a very frightening time. I'm a clinician and I've worked closely with young people and their families who've been through this. But the absolute terror of feeling that your child may not be okay is a form of knowing that you can only have through personal experience.

I sold my PlayStation. I told myself I was going to devote the time that I spent playing video games into polishing my craft as an artist. I don't know where I'd be if I didn't have this. I don't think that we do a good job talking to kids about these things early. Like, talking about suicidality is scary for parents. Like, if I broach this topic with my kid, will it then manifest in my child? Right. Which we know is not true.

Right? Talking to your kids about things like substance use and depression and anxiety and suicidality early will not then make them go on to have those things or do those things. And so we have to do a better job of sort of breaking down the stigma around mental health issues. And for policymakers, the pressing need is to develop effective ways to reach kids in distress. This is drugs. And to update messaging to reflect the current challenges.

Any questions? It was always talked about drinking and driving and don't get pregnant. When you're in high school, you know, it's like you're told those things, but you're not told. Like, if you have panic attacks, this is how you can cope with it. There is hope. Despite the challenges it brings. adolescence is also a time when the brain is being rewired and is capable of developing resilience. With a timely intervention and the right coping skills and support, mental health issues are treatable and even preventable.

Finally, at 18, I had an adult, a doctor, be like, you're not being selfish. Like, your brain is working this way. You need more than just meds. You're struggling, but you're not broken forever. You know, you can live a full, wonderful life. And that blew my mind. And that was when I started actually getting better and experiencing joy and, like, having fun with my life.

Mental Health, Adolescence, Technology, American Crisis, Social Media Impact, Youth Vulnerability, The New York Times