Mike Males “The girls are not alright?” The adults are even less “alright.” If I were dictator, the following disclaimers would head all commentaries (citing ages of regular posters on here as examples) deploring teen mental health, suicide, self-harm, and/or social media:
Thanks for the note, and I did to Melanie Hempe's substack... who knows if it will do any good.
Seriously -- it is time for grownup America to end this silliness. Smartphones and social media are not the problem with teenagers. Scientific studies, including CDC, Pew, meta-analyses, and serious reviews such as in Nature show being online generally benefits teenagers, including younger ones, in terms of sharply reduced suicide attempts, self-harm, and other major risks. If you don't believe this, I invite you to download and analyze these surveys and studies yourselves instead of relying on pop-media and pop-psychology splashes. What, then, is driving higher teen depression and suicide? Again, the surveys and statistics are distressingly clear, even as escapist feel-good posters deny them. Widespread violent and emotional abuses by increasingly troubled, addicted, mentally troubled parents and household grownups are by far the biggest causes of teens' depression, suicide, self-harm, and other risks, the CDC 2021 survey conclusively shows. Teens use phones and social media to keep in contact with others who can help them deal with this epidemic of troubled grownups around them, the Pew and CDC surveys show. Sure, any individual teen and family may differ from these norms, but in general, parents and adults should focus not on controlling teens' social media use, but on addressing their own adult crises of addiction, abuse, and unstable behaviors that affect the most vulnerable teens the most. I know what I'm saying here is not popular, unlike the soothing, self-flattering messages grownups indulge in these forums. I also know social-media moguls who would love to boost their profits by exploiting adult and teen alike are no heroes. But if we are grownups, we have to stop this cult of self-praise and admit that where teens are troubled, the adults around them are even more troubled. Let me leave you with this statistic: during the 2011-2021 period when teens became more depressed, CDC figures show an appalling, record 722,000 American grownups of age to parent teens (30-59) died from self-inflicted suicides and drug/alcohol overdoses, equal to the ENTIRE population of Denver gone, just the iceberg-tip of messed-up grownups our young people have to endure today. Teens today are right to be more depressed at the family, community, and global challenges they face. Let them at least keep their social media contacts so they can find peer help for themselves.
And furthermore, if smartphones and social media are really as horrible as they claim, why won't the grownups just throw their own proverbial One Ring into the fires of Mount Doom for good and quit those things themselves as well? I mean, they really should be leading by example, right? And the specious idea that smartphones and social media are that unacceptably and categorically harmful for teens but yet somehow innocuous for adults above some arbitrary age limit (pick your poison) really strains credulity, to put it mildly.
Well-said as usual, Mike. I would also add the following advice to the fearmongering commentators: "Be a mentor, not a tormentor". As well as the famous quote by Gandhi, "Be the change you wish to see in the world".
Thanks for the note, and I did to Melanie Hempe's substack... who knows if it will do any good.
Seriously -- it is time for grownup America to end this silliness. Smartphones and social media are not the problem with teenagers. Scientific studies, including CDC, Pew, meta-analyses, and serious reviews such as in Nature show being online generally benefits teenagers, including younger ones, in terms of sharply reduced suicide attempts, self-harm, and other major risks. If you don't believe this, I invite you to download and analyze these surveys and studies yourselves instead of relying on pop-media and pop-psychology splashes. What, then, is driving higher teen depression and suicide? Again, the surveys and statistics are distressingly clear, even as escapist feel-good posters deny them. Widespread violent and emotional abuses by increasingly troubled, addicted, mentally troubled parents and household grownups are by far the biggest causes of teens' depression, suicide, self-harm, and other risks, the CDC 2021 survey conclusively shows. Teens use phones and social media to keep in contact with others who can help them deal with this epidemic of troubled grownups around them, the Pew and CDC surveys show. Sure, any individual teen and family may differ from these norms, but in general, parents and adults should focus not on controlling teens' social media use, but on addressing their own adult crises of addiction, abuse, and unstable behaviors that affect the most vulnerable teens the most. I know what I'm saying here is not popular, unlike the soothing, self-flattering messages grownups indulge in these forums. I also know social-media moguls who would love to boost their profits by exploiting adult and teen alike are no heroes. But if we are grownups, we have to stop this cult of self-praise and admit that where teens are troubled, the adults around them are even more troubled. Let me leave you with this statistic: during the 2011-2021 period when teens became more depressed, CDC figures show an appalling, record 722,000 American grownups of age to parent teens (30-59) died from self-inflicted suicides and drug/alcohol overdoses, equal to the ENTIRE population of Denver gone, just the iceberg-tip of messed-up grownups our young people have to endure today. Teens today are right to be more depressed at the family, community, and global challenges they face. Let them at least keep their social media contacts so they can find peer help for themselves.
Please be sure to comment on this study as well. Thanks :)
https://news.gallup.com/poll/512576/teens-spend-average-hours-social-media-per-day.aspx
https://ifstudies.org/blog/how-parenting-and-self-control-mediate-the-link-between-social-media-use-and-youth-mental-health?utm_source=link_newsv9&utm_campaign=item_512576&utm_medium=copy
Amen to that! Thanks :)
And furthermore, if smartphones and social media are really as horrible as they claim, why won't the grownups just throw their own proverbial One Ring into the fires of Mount Doom for good and quit those things themselves as well? I mean, they really should be leading by example, right? And the specious idea that smartphones and social media are that unacceptably and categorically harmful for teens but yet somehow innocuous for adults above some arbitrary age limit (pick your poison) really strains credulity, to put it mildly.
Bob Dylan said it best, I think:
"Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin'
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'"
David Stein has a new article you may want to read and comment on.
Jean Twenge is at it again today, this time referencing you specifically, Mike:
https://jeanmtwenge.substack.com/p/this-group-is-the-most-likely-to
Don't forget to check out and comment on Jean Twenge's latest gem as well:
https://jeanmtwenge.substack.com/p/suicide-rates-are-now-higher-among
David Stein has another couple of articles that you may want to review and comment on:
https://shoresofacademia.substack.com/p/odgers-versus-surgeon-general-natures
https://shoresofacademia.substack.com/p/the-alternate-reality-of-candice
https://shoresofacademia.substack.com/p/falsehood-and-no-consequences-natures
Also, have you heard of Melanie Hempe? Would you be able to write a witty rebuttal to her latest articles too?
https://screenstrong.substack.com/p/can-you-raise-a-teen-today-without
https://screenstrong.substack.com/p/how-to-delay-the-age-kids-get-smartphones
And this gem on her other website:
https://screenstrong.org/why-the-tech-talk-doesnt-work/
Well-said as usual, Mike. I would also add the following advice to the fearmongering commentators: "Be a mentor, not a tormentor". As well as the famous quote by Gandhi, "Be the change you wish to see in the world".