Shocking Centers for Disease Control data should radically change the entire debate over social media, teens, depression, suicide, self-harm, and cyberbullying

It’s past time to stop screwing around with feel-good crusades and get serious about the sobering reasons many young people are depressed.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control does by far the largest, most definitive, and only comprehensive survey of adolescents used to define their risks and “mental health crisis.” In 2021 and especially in 2023, the massive CDC surveys introduced new questions that suddenly revealed powerful new issues — ones established political and professional interests didn’t like.

So, they shamefully ignored them. They allowed anti-science crusaders to drown out discussion of anything but social media as the cause of why 3 in 10 U.S. teens (4 in 10 girls, 2 in 10 boys) report suffering frequently poor mental health.

To be persuasive on this issue, this substack will bias the analysis below to favor the case that social media is the major cause of teens’ poor mental health. To do this, I single out (a) ONLY those teens who use social media many hours a day AND ALSO (b) report frequently suffering poor mental health, attempting suicide, harming themselves, and/or being cyberbullied.

These are the supposed “social-media-damaged teens” everyone is hollering about. The image barraging us every day in media and political forums is monolithic and relentless: these teens are depressed and self-destructive solely because of social media and cyberbullying peers, all to the horror of their healthy parents, experts, and concerned politicians.

That image is utter garbage.

What does the CDC survey tell us about these troubled teens?

Of the teens (n = 2,893) who spend many hours daily on social media and also report frequently poor mental health:

· 26% have parents who have been jailed

· 35% witness violence by parents/caretakers

· 45% have parents/caretakers who abuse drug/alcohol

· 46% have been violently abused by parents/caretakers

· 54% have parents/caretakers with “severe” mental illness, including suicide attempts

· 85% have parents/caretakers who are emotionally abusive

· 91% have parents/caretakers with one or more of the above troubles.

Of teens (n = 951) who are constantly on social media and also report attempting suicide:

· 35% have parents who have been jailed

· 50% witness violence by parents/caretakers

· 57% have parents/caretakers who abuse drug/alcohol

· 64% have been violently abused by parents/caretakers

· 64% have parents/caretakers with “severe” mental illness, including suicide attempts

· 87% have parents/caretakers who are emotionally abusive

· 95% have parents/caretakers with one or more of the above troubles.

Of teens (n = 203) who are constantly on social media and also report cutting or otherwise harming themselves:

· 46% have parents who have been jailed

· 59% witness violence by parents/caretakers

· 56% have parents/caretakers who abuse drug/alcohol

· 73% have been violently abused by parents/caretakers

· 72% have parents/caretakers with “severe” mental illness, including suicide attempts

· 86% have parents/caretakers who are emotionally abusive

· 97% have parents/caretakers with one or more of the above troubles.

Finally, of teens (n = 1,667) who are constantly on social media and also report being cyberbullied:

· 27% have parents who have been jailed

· 39% witness violence by parents/caretakers

· 48% have parents/caretakers who abuse drug/alcohol

· 49% have been violently abused by parents/caretakers

· 56% have parents/caretakers with “severe” mental illness, including suicide attempts

· 84% have parents/caretakers who are emotionally abusive

· 93% have parents/caretakers with one or more of the above troubles.

In all the billions of deplorings of cyberbullying, when has anyone pointed out that being bullied online and being bullied at home by adults are the same thing?

Is severe dysfunction simply the state of American grownups?

Bizarrely, some social-media-blamers like Jean Twenge hint that the troubles teens face at home aren’t so bad; they’re exaggerated; and in any case, this is the way families always have been. Therefore, she insists, we should focus “not on how much social media might matter in the universe of all causes” of teens’ depression, but “why depression increased so suddenly.”

This strikes me as weird logic. If social media is not an important cause of teens’ poor mental health, then it can’t be the major cause of the increase in teen’s poor mental health. In addition to its illogic, Twenge’s factual assumption is wrong.

Grownups’ suicides and, especially, drug and alcohol deaths and hospitalizations (reaching over 5 million among parent-aged adults 25-64 in 2022) did rise sharply during the 2000s and could – as teens report and the CDC’s own analyses show – indeed account for “why depression increased so suddenly."

Aren’t the widespread household dangers teens report on the CDC survey alarming to professionals, leaders, and reporters? Why, then, in the avalanche of commentaries on teens’ poor mental health, suicide, self-harm, and cyberbullying do they never mention them?

Why do all commentators instead pretend TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and bullying peers are to blame? These authorities certainly believe teens who say they were cyberbullied. Why do they dismiss those same teens’ reports of household abuses?

No, the above is not the typical American parent

Consider now a completely different, actually larger group of teens (n = 3,139) the CDC survey revealed who aren’t supposed to exist: teens who use social media many hours a day, rarely or never suffer depression, and never attempt suicide or harm themselves. What are their families like?

Not perfect, but not nearly as troubled as the families of depressed teens. Of youths who constantly use social media but aren’t depressed, 13% have had jailed parents, 14% suffer violent households, 17% have parents/caretakers with severe mental illness, 19% have parent/caretakers with drug/alcohol problems, 42% have been emotionally abused by parents/caretakers, and 58% have experienced at least one of these troubles at home.

It would be useful to research how the situations of these teens and their parents differ from those of their depressed peers and what the sources of their resilience might be – but first, experts would have to admit such teens exist.

Depressed, suicidal, self-harming, cyberbullied teens are abused by parents much more frequently and intensely

Teens clearly can deal with infrequent, milder abuses, some parental depression and occasional overdrinking or a good family blowout now and then (who among us, like “Modern Family,” hasn’t experienced those?), just as parents deal with imperfect teens. We certainly hear about the teen-afflicted parent (every day) far more than the parent-afflicted teen (never), but that’s only because grownups selfishly exploit our political and media power to suppress uncomfortable introspections.

Of the teens who use social media many hours every day and report good mental health, 42% do report emotional abuse by parents – but of these, two-thirds report the abuse occurred only rarely. That is, among happy social-media-frequenting teens, 83% report emotional abuse by parents occurs rarely or not at all, and at least some instances may be in the past and no longer occur.

In contrast, of teens who use social media hours every day and report frequently poor mental health, 84% report emotional abuse by parents – and of these, three-fourths report the abuse occurs regularly or very often. Overall, 62% of unhappy social-media-frequenting teens report regular and serious abuse by parents, a high proportion indicating these abuses are still occurring.

So, another reality that leaps out of the CDC numbers: depressed teens, as well as suicidal, self-harming, and cyberbullied teens, are victims of much more frequent, intense, and recent household abuses. The goal should not be to create the “perfect family” where abuses and troubles never happen (which sounds scary in an AI-type way), but the reasonably healthy household where problems are dealt with and abuses are rare.

So, yes, there is cause for alarm about the deteriorated state of American adulthood, the effects on children and teens, and how teens are coping with family problems. Unfortunately, grownup deterioration is not just within homes but also prevails politically and professionally in a culture of authoritative denial and scapegoating.

And now, an unprofessional blowout of my own

I’ve been analyzing the rich CDC data set involving 106 questions surveying 20,000 13-18-year-olds ever since it emerged last October. It destroys the popular discussion – or, rather, non-discussion. Here is my conclusion:

· We do not have a teenage “mental health crisis.” Teens are reacting normally to increasingly seriously troubled grownups in their homes, communities, and authority.

· We do have a devastating mental illness epidemic debilitating American political leaders (especially congresspersons, legislators, governors, and attorneys general), professionals, and media reporters, who seem to have lost all semblance of analytical logic and normal, humane concern for younger generations.

How many meta-analyses have to show social media, even at worst, is a trivial issue afflicting very few teens and adults who would benefit from individual treatments, not mass bans? How many broader analyses have to show grownup and family troubles are the huge, glaring drivers of teens’ poor mental health before these “authorities” break their cowardly, criminal silence?

I want to say directly to the “experts,” politicians, and media sycophants bombarding us with loud, incessant “social media endangers teens!” rantings while shrinking from publicizing the powerfully obvious family abuses that really drive teen problems: You are a disgrace. Find another hobby.

Of course, if I said these things in a public forum in the tone appropriate to their outrageousness, I would be branded as unprofessional and emotionally abusive.

But young people deserve healthy, reasoned academic and political advocacy, not shameful indulgences of power and culture-war panics to evade distressing social realities our teenagers enjoy no similar luxury to evade.