The contradictions in teenagers’ mental health – yes, this is different

Teens from healthy families who ARE depressed… teens from severely troubled families who AREN’T depressed… what can we learn from the “weirdos”?

Psychologists Jonathan Haidt and Jean Twenge routinely avoid serious issues in teenagers’ mental health that demolish simplistic claims that social media is the big destroyer. Occasionally, they knock down straw alternatives but never fairly assess real situations teens actually face: widespread abuse, violence, depression, and jailings among parents and household adults, often linked to grownups’ soaring drug/alcohol abuse.

To avoid Haidt and Twenge’s escapism and bad science, let’s explore two instructive sets of teens at opposite extremes who don’t act like my analyses would predict: those who report having “perfect parents” but ARE depressed anyway, and those who have nightmare parents but AREN’T depressed. In neither case can parents’ and adults’ abuses and troubles (at least, not the ones surveyed) be blamed for their teens’ mental states. So, what is going on?

The Centers for Disease Control’s 2023 survey, which I rely on as the only one asking comprehensive questions, showed that of the 17,090 teens responding to relevant queries, 2,511 (15%) had “perfect parents” (caring presence along with zero abuse, zero violence, zero addiction, zero depression, zero jailings). Of these, 544, or 22%, reported feeling frequently depressed, or sad, or both.

At the other extreme, 2,257 students had parents and household adults who were repeatedly abusive and violent and suffered other problems such as drug/alcohol abuse, severe depression, and/or being jailed. Of these, 159, or 7%, reported never being depressed or sad.

These opposite-pole subsets of teens who (a) shouldn’t be depressed but are, or (b) should be depressed but aren’t, represent only a small fraction (4%) of all teens surveyed. Nevertheless, out of scientific curiosity and the lessons they might offer, we should want to know what’s up with them.

Let’s hear it for the unexpected

Source of data: CDC 2024. Analysis is mine.

We should not allow the anomalous “trees” of these small subsets to obscure the larger “forest”: Teens with healthy parents are remarkably safe from harm, and teens with “nightmare” parents and household adults are appallingly endangered. The dismissal of this crucial reality by officials, professionals, and commentators on “teenage mental health” is derelict, bordering on criminal.

Originally, I hypothesized that the 544 perfect-family-but-still-depressed teens are either the ones confirming the Haidt/Twenge insistence that social media must be the culprit and/or are the ones bummed out by larger, un-polled issues like climate change. Neither hypothesis holds up.

This subset is a bit older, more likely to be of color, and has social media, grades, and sleep patterns similar to those of teens overall. Regression analysis shows this fraction of teens is troubled by neighborhood violence, school violence, and other school problems; social media use and cyberbullying don’t matter at all. Even though their parents are exemplary (at least on the surveyed questions), these depressed teens – who disproportionately are Black, Hispanic, Native, and Pacific Islander, and less likely to be LGBTQ – still suffer outside problems brought on by poverty, difficult neighborhoods, and bad school environments.

In contrast, the nightmare-family-but-not-depressed-teens are a small sample, just 159. They are fascinatingly mixed. They are more likely to be boys, under age 16, and less likely to be LGBTQ. They are much less suicidal, less cyberbullied, less likely to be sexually assaulted, get more sleep than teens in general, and are far less at risk on every count than more depressed teens from nightmare families. However, this non-depressed subset is more likely to use drugs/alcohol, get poorer grades, get into fights, etc.

This fraction of mentally healthier teens from troubled families begs for research into the varied resiliencies. My speculation is that having been forced by bad home lives to choose alternative adult, peer, and online influences at young ages, this small group has veered in wildly varying directions.

Unfortunately, American and Anglo-nation social and professional insight into teenage mental health remains at such a primitive level, imposed by the deference awarded those who display the worst anti-youth prejudices and anti-technology fears, that authorities still cannot acknowledge even major factors – let alone delve into intriguing exceptions that suggest alternative thinking. Then, we wonder why America can’t seem to solve epidemic social problems.