By Hayley Dunn
NPR calls it a “silent epidemic.”
It can’t be seen, and it’s not something that people talk about on a daily basis.
According to the Mayo Clinic, “Mental illness refers to a wide range of mental health conditions — disorders that affect your mood, thinking and behavior. Examples of mental illness include depression, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, eating disorders and addictive behaviors.”
There are over 50 million public school students in the United States. As many as 1 in 5 show signs of mental illness.
Smart phones and social media use are an integral part of almost every teenager’s life, and those factors may be contributing to student stress and mental health problems. “All signs point to the screen.” says The Washington Post.
Upper School guidance counselor Lindsey Bradley commented on the rising problem of teen’s social media use: “I think, with anything, it’s moderation. It’s how you’re using the tools that are available to you. It’s not specifically social media, but a smartphone in general. It’s that constant access, that constant need to be connected to everything. So I think one of my concerns is that students often express to me that they feel a level of discomfort or anxiety when their phone is not with them. And it’s not isolated to teenagers. We all have an interesting attachment to our devices.”
Fellow Upper School guidance counselor Andrea Miller adds that, “The constant connection with the digital world isn’t helpful or healthy. It’s so much easier to say something hurtful over text than face-to-face.”
Lucy Thornton (‘19), who has been diagnosed with a mental health disorder, believes that one of the leading factors that contribute to mental health issues in teenagers is “the internet. Not all of it. There are negative and positive aspects, but I think that in the early teen years it’s harder to find those positive parts of the web, and you are more focused on ‘being cool,’ and it seems like all the ‘cool’ people are beautiful and skinny and perfect. For me, I know that I couldn’t relate to that and had definitely been picked on for most of my younger life, making me think I had no chance of ever being accepted because I wasn’t like the perfect people on the internet. As I’ve grown older, I know that that’s not the case, and people are more accepting on the internet than I have previously thought, but it has taken time to get to that point.”
A study reported on in The Washington Post found that “teens who spent five or more hours a day online were 71 percent more likely than those who spend only one hour a day to have at least one suicide risk factor (depression, thinking about suicide, making a suicide plan, or attempting suicide).”
The more time that we spend on our devices, the less time we spend on socializing with the people around us. We replace the face-to-face interactions with face-to-screen time. Regardless, the use of phones isn’t going away, so it’s important that society learns how to use the devices we have in moderation.
Instagram is one of the most popular social media sites for young people. Their number of users has steadily been rising since 2013. Image courtesy of Statista.com.
Thornton went on to say that the downsides to social media “are that people only post their happiest best moments… on their rinstas… [the] upsides are finstas!! Normalizing down days!! Talking about your problems on a social platform and being able to relate to others. Being able to talk to your friends online if you’re at home and can’t leave really helps. If I’m in an argument with my parents and need someone to talk to, I can text or DM [Direct Message] or snap [via the app Snapchat] a friend, and I have immediate help.”
Finsta’s are a form of Instagram that some young people use. It’s the side of yourself that people get to see, and as Thornton said, you can talk about your problems openly to your followers. Ironically, a “fake Instagram” is showing your true side to your followers, while your “real Instagram” shows the altered version of yourself.
However, even though these interactions with people who are experiencing the same things you are, it’s important that people understand that “online media provides a wealth of opportunities to interact and connect. But they do not provide the basis for personal relationships,” says Melissa Healy of the LA Times in an article about mental health and school shootings.
Teens are also sleeping less and less. Margaret Davenport’s (‘16) 2015 Honors feature article for The Match, “Caffeine and Fall Out Boy,” detailed the difficulties of getting a good night’s sleep as a Collegiate Upper School student. Three years later, little has changed.
“One thing that I think is pretty universal is lack of sleep, and that contributing to mental health,” says Miller.
Bradley adds that, “I try to tell students that sleep is a fundamental need, just like food and water. If you’re depriving yourself of that, you’re not laying a firm foundation. Typically, what I see when students are overloaded, something’s going to give. That’s either sleep, grades, or mental health. Something starts to sacrifice if you don’t learn to balance a little bit better. Sometimes you have to have those hard conversations and let something go. You have to lessen the load in order to be healthy and do things with integrity.”
“By 2015, 43 percent of teens reported sleeping less than seven hours a night on most nights – meaning almost half of U.S. teens are significantly sleep-deprived,” says San Diego State University professor of psychology Jean Twenge in an article on the news website The Conversation.
This lack of sleep can stem from multiple problems; however, the most apparent problem is the amount of schoolwork assigned daily. Homework can have students working into the early hours of the night.
Business Insider says that “more homework doesn’t necessarily mean a better education.” South Korea’s education system was ranked #1, according to a 2014 report from the education and research firm Pearson, and there students are doing only an average of 2.9 hours of homework a week. The United States was ranked #17, and students are doing an average of 6.1 hours of homework a week.
Homework is beneficial and helps students to learn skills like time management and responsibility. There are, however, downsides. Oxford Learning, a tutoring service started in 1984, says that 72% of parents feel homework is often a source of household stress. They also say that 1 in 5 students reportedly suffer from rising levels of anxiety, stress, depression when dealing with homework.
Homework and school, in general, can cause stress in students. Because of this, teachers have a very important role in helping students with mental health issues, and also knowing the warning signs. A 2016 report on National Public Radio said this about the role of the teacher:
The teacher
The role: During the week, many students see their teachers even more than their own families. Teachers are in a prime spot to notice changes in behavior. They read essays, see how students relate with other kids and notice when they aren’t paying attention.
The reality: Teachers already have a ton on their plates. They’re pressured to get test scores up, on top of preparing lessons and grading assignments. Plus, many teachers receive minimal training in mental health issues. But when they do see something concerning, they can raise a flag.
Thornton says, “I think teachers should be able to notice things in a student, and I have had teachers come to me about my mental health to see if I was ok, but they didn’t do it well. I think they should be trained at least somewhat, because just going up to a student and taking them off guard to ask them if they’re suicidal is not the right way to go about it. Teachers should also know that insisting you do homework on a mental health day is NOT going to fly because school stress is a big factor in mental illness ‘flare ups’ (like when it gets overwhelming). Missing a ten-minute homework assignment… isn’t going to ruin your life.”
Jay Mai (‘20), another student diagnosed with a mental health disorder, says that a “handful [of teachers] that come to mind… are incredible at making kids feel like they are valid. I think, as a teacher, that’s one of the biggest things you could do for us. [Upper School English teacher] Mr. [Josh] Katz is the top person that comes to mind, because speaking from my own experience, he has helped me in a way that I’m not sure how to describe. Any kid who knows him well enough knows that they can talk to him about anything, and that he will never make you feel invalid, while still giving his honest views.”
Student mental health concerns have also been connected to the rise of school violence and shootings in the US in the last decade.
Healy, in her Los Angeles Times article about school shootings, says that both Adam Lanza, the perpetrator of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012, and Nikolas Cruz, the gunman at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida this February, appear to have had identifiable mental health problems. How is it that they seemed to fall through every crack?
“We all need to think about what are we asking of the mental health system. The mandate to providers is to help individuals and families when they’re having acute psychological problems and to help individuals with more long-term persistent problems — such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or chronic severe depression — to maximize their quality of life and their safety.
But in between those acute crises and chronic psychiatric disorders, there are many individuals who go through their childhood and adolescence feeling disconnected from person-to-person relationships, or essentially have no meaningful personal relationships. Conventional mental health treatment is not always designed to address this.
There’s this big gap, and that crack is where these young men seem to have fallen through.
That “gap” is the area between noticeable mental health issues and the ability to maintain the appearance of fitting it.
While mental health issues cannot be “cured,” there are ways to eliminate or reduce the symptoms that people have to experience.
Thornton says that “One way I have found to cope with it is to doodle in class. Normally frowned upon, I try to let my teachers know early in the year that I tend to doodle during lectures, or any class time, really, but that I am still paying attention and will participate when I have input into the conversation or know an answer. Many teachers have put this in my comments, that while I doodle, I am able to participate in classes without it being a distraction.”
Mental health is just as important as physical health. While research is still being done on the long-term effects of social media on teenagers’ mental health, it’s still important to be educated and know the warning signs of mental health problems. Counselors like Bradley and Miller are always available to help students deal with the various stressors in daily life, and seeking guidance from a mental health professional is often the first step in dealing with mental health struggles.
Featured image courtesy of LA Johnson/NPR.
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