It’s no secret that our young people are more anxious and depressed now than perhaps ever before. The National Institutes of Health estimates that nearly 1 in 3 adolescents between the ages of 13 and 18 will experiences an anxiety disorder, while the Pew Research Center estimates that rates of depression in adolescents has risen from 8% to about 13%, an increase of about 1.2 million teens.
We know all these things, but what can we do about it? Are we just helpless to these rising rates of anxiety and depression amongst our children? Research continues to show that there are things that we can do, but that they might seem more and more radical to us.
One compelling study published in the National Library of Medicine seems to link smartphone use to the decreases in mental health amongst teens. The study looks at the way that high school students responded to questions about their psychological well-being (measured by self-esteem, life satisfaction, and happiness) that have been asked each year to 8th, 10th, and 12th graders from 1991 up through 2016. The results note that there was a sudden decrease in 2012 of adolescent well-being, and it looked at the behaviors that led to an increase in happiness and well-being as well as those that led to an increase in unhappiness.
So, without further ado, here are the results!
The top thing that led to happier teens was getting sufficient sleep each night (at least 7 hours). So, if there’s one thing that you harp on as a parent, push for your child to go to sleep each night!
The study found that the second-best thing that led to happier children was playing sports or exercising, while nearly as important was attending religious services and engaging in in-person social interactions. Three more things also had positive effects on well-being: reading “print media” (so non-electronic reading), having a job, and even homework (although some parents might disagree on that last one).
What’s the common thread for all these things? They are in-person activities that encourage teens to work towards something, whether physical health or a sense of accomplishment in doing a job or finishing a task.
Equally informative are the things that the study found lead to unhappiness in teens. Those things were all related to technology: internet use, social media, gaming, texting, television, and video chatting all led to an increase in unhappiness amongst teens. Again, the common thread with these things is the opposite of the things that led to happiness: a lack of in-person interaction in settings in which it’s very easy to lose focus or switch from doing one thing to the next.
Does this research mean that we should all get rid of our computers and smartphones? I don’t think so. I do, though, think that it shows the importance of regulating our children’s access to technology and pushing them to do things like sports, religious services, and work. After all, while the internet itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing, can we really expect a teenager to self-regulate their time on the internet? Teens need their parents to force them to do things that the teens might not want to do but are actually good for them.
So, as a new generation of children will probably get a phone this Christmas, be vigilant in policing your kids’ access to their phone!
Mischa McCray is a licensed professional counselor and licensed marriage and family therapist in Greenwood. He can be reached at mmccray@wpcgreenwood.org.
