In January 2024, when the “Sesame Street” puppet encouraged mental health check-ins on social media, thousands of people responded seriously to Elmo, asking, “How’s everyone doing?”
The same week, in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee about social media’s harm to children, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham called Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the CEOs of other social media sites “bloody.” “He acted in a way that was disgusting.” [their] In the case of “products that are killing people”, it is “hands”.
Mr. Zuckerberg spoke directly to parents who have lost children due to outrageous behavior on social media. No one should have to go through what your family went through. ” According to an internal study released by the company in March 2020, Instagram usage increased rates of anxiety and depression among some teens, and 32% of teenage girls said they felt bad about themselves because of Instagram. of respondents said their body image had worsened.
A similar proportion of teens (35%) said they use social media “almost always,” according to Pew data collected in late 2023. Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco found that the prevalence of conduct disorder in children increased by 62% with each generation. Time spent on social media. As of November 2021, Forrester Research reported that a staggering 63% of 12-17 year olds use TikTok on a weekly basis.
Sandstone Care analyzed data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to reveal the most common mental health diagnoses among U.S. teens in 2021 (latest data available).
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 15% of U.S. teens received mental health services in 2021. In 2021, the National Council on Mental Welfare noted that the average wait time to see a therapist is 48 days, but “60 minutes.” ” According to the 2023 report, wait times for children are often even longer.
Mental health problems among young people have been on the rise for over a decade. When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, many Americans’ sense of safety and security in their communities, workplaces and schools, and bank accounts was upended.
Celebrities like Selena Gomez, Simone Biles and Billie Eilish sharing their mental health struggles reduces mental health stigma, according to a 2022 study published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Psychiatry. It is said that it will be done. This trend may prompt more young people to seek diagnosis.
However, because the symptoms of many mental health conditions overlap, diagnostic tests for mental health can be complex and inaccurate. For example, symptoms may initially seem like two separate diseases, but in reality he may have one disease, thereby causing your teen to develop another disease. There are risks involved.
The most common mental health diagnoses among U.S. teens in 2021, analyzed by Sandstone Care from SAMHSA, are from age 12 with a primary diagnosis of the disorder in a state-supervised mental health facility. It was determined by calculating the proportion of individuals aged 17 years. . Florida, Maine, Ohio, and South Dakota were excluded from this report because they did not report sufficient data.
