This is a popular narrative - phones are causing anxiety and depression in kids, especially girls. Sounds great, but there's only one problem.
I'm pretty sure it's false.
My daughter had mental health issues that manifested itself in late high school. That's been over a decade ago. Neither her, her friends, or the overwhelming majority of her peer group at the time had smartphones. They were just too new and too expensive for kids.
Her group therapy was comprised of almost all girls (so many that one girl didn't even realize it was a co-ed group therapy, the single guy had already graduated before she started therapy). In talking with the therapists they mentioned they were seeing a sharp rise in the number of girls with mental health issues.
Any guesses as to what the didn't blame? Smartphones. They practically didn't exist at the time. Tablets practically didn't exist at the time. Most households at the time still only had one computer and kids weren't typically allowed to use it for long periods of time. Yet the mental health crises of teenage girls was already in full swing.
I've never heard anyone explain why this crises began before smartphones, tablets, and laptops became as ubiquitous as they are today. Unfortunately, what you hear in group therapy you're not allowed to repeat, but I can tell you the underlying problem is far more sinister than some stupid smartphone.
Performance stress. The schools are stressing college to the kids. Living in a more affluent neighborhood they're afraid if they don't go to college then they'll be taking a considerable hit to their standard of living. Apparently they don't mention it every so often. I'm probably over-exaggerating a bit but they're pounding college! college! college! into these kids' heads every single period of every single day.
Making things worse, they can't get a reprieve in sports. If you've been involved in kids sports you know there's a huge push for kids to use sports to get a college scholarship. Even if they're not trying to get a scholarship they're using it to build their college resumé. Gotta get those extracurricular activities in!
In fact that's how all extracurricular activities are. All the joy has been sucked out. It's college! college! college! Become president of the club - looks good on the college resumé! Make sure you have the right variety of activities for your resumé!
I unwittingly signed my kids up for this nightmare. When I signed them up for sports I had no expectation they'd be star athletes - I just knew from my experience growing up playing team sports really helped me learn to work with others. The other activities were to engage the mind. Do things outside of school for both your mind and body. I knew the crazies were there, but I didn't realize the effect they were having.
Now it's becoming clearer what's happened. The girls and boys have responded to the stress in two different ways. The boys are dropping out. You see article after article trying to explain why boys aren't going to school, not getting jobs, and so forth. They've dropped out.
On the other hand, girls have freaked out. They've become an anxiety-ridden mess.
Meanwhile everybody is trying to figure out why the boys are becoming deadbeats and the girls are depressed. They blame video games, they blame phones. They blame everything but where the fault actually lies: stress.
The more interesting question then is why do today's kids feel the stress more than the kids from previous generations? I have ideas but this answer is already too long.
That's very helpful -- thanks for the detailed summary.
Come to think of it -- they may be turning to their phones in part to seek relief from all of the stressors you've mentioned. Just like us poor, harassed adults. Though I do suspect the phones are a probably co-factor (in introducing stressors of their own).
I too suspect the phones are probably a co-factor. I just don't think they're the root cause. It's an interesting observation we adults use our phones to take a break from the real world. Kids are too. We can turn this question on its head and ask whether the phones have enabled a higher level of stress? Maybe we're all having problems but as adults we're better experienced to cope?
I'm pretty sure it's false.
My daughter had mental health issues that manifested itself in late high school. That's been over a decade ago. Neither her, her friends, or the overwhelming majority of her peer group at the time had smartphones. They were just too new and too expensive for kids.
Her group therapy was comprised of almost all girls (so many that one girl didn't even realize it was a co-ed group therapy, the single guy had already graduated before she started therapy). In talking with the therapists they mentioned they were seeing a sharp rise in the number of girls with mental health issues.
Any guesses as to what the didn't blame? Smartphones. They practically didn't exist at the time. Tablets practically didn't exist at the time. Most households at the time still only had one computer and kids weren't typically allowed to use it for long periods of time. Yet the mental health crises of teenage girls was already in full swing.
I've never heard anyone explain why this crises began before smartphones, tablets, and laptops became as ubiquitous as they are today. Unfortunately, what you hear in group therapy you're not allowed to repeat, but I can tell you the underlying problem is far more sinister than some stupid smartphone.