Teenage Girls are Sad

[Meclazine for Israel]

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/13/health/teen-girls-sadness-suicide-violence.html

I'm speechless.

"Nearly three in five teenage girls felt persistent sadness in 2021, double the rate of boys, and one in three girls seriously considered attempting suicide, according to data released on Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."

[T'Chenka]

Social media culture terrible for the mental health of teenagers, especially women. These kids are living their life "on stage" and "competing" with every other teen girl in the world. Performance anxiety and stress is inevitable.

[Comrade Funk]

No that it's realistic in any sense, but I think a show like Euphoria really captures the zeitgeist of modern teen culture in a similar way that John Hughes' movies did in the 80s. Despite it essentially being a well-acted soap opera, there's a kernel of truth in that show and I think it does a good job of displaying the effects of social media/smart phones have on teens (specifically girls).

[Fuzzy Bear Loves Christian Missionaries]

This situation has the potential to be the seed of a major  long-term mental health crisis in America, worse than what we've been experiencing.

[Ragnaroni]

How do we make them happy again?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Social media culture terrible for the mental health of teenagers, especially women. These kids are living their life "on stage" and "competing" with every other teen girl in the world. Performance anxiety and stress is inevitable.

Humans have yet to adapt to technology.
At some point in the future, people will have worked out how to handle these things healthily.

[Ferguson97]

How do we make them happy again?

Unfortunately I don’t think this is something you can legislate, beyond expanding access to mental health services. This is largely a cultural issue.

[T'Chenka]

Social media culture terrible for the mental health of teenagers, especially women. These kids are living their life "on stage" and "competing" with every other teen girl in the world. Performance anxiety and stress is inevitable.

Humans have yet to adapt to technology.
At some point in the future, people will have worked out how to handle these things healthily.

I think that's optimistic. It could just become the new normal instead. Maybe I'm just overly cynical.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Social media culture terrible for the mental health of teenagers, especially women. These kids are living their life "on stage" and "competing" with every other teen girl in the world. Performance anxiety and stress is inevitable.

Humans have yet to adapt to technology.
At some point in the future, people will have worked out how to handle these things healthily.

I think that's optimistic. It could just become the new normal instead. Maybe I'm just overly cynical.

Interesting. And I thought I had a cynical streak...
Not judging you either way, anyhow. Just kinda funny.

[Fuzzy Bear Loves Christian Missionaries]

Social media culture terrible for the mental health of teenagers, especially women. These kids are living their life "on stage" and "competing" with every other teen girl in the world. Performance anxiety and stress is inevitable.

Humans have yet to adapt to technology.
At some point in the future, people will have worked out how to handle these things healthily.

I think that's optimistic. It could just become the new normal instead. Maybe I'm just overly cynical.

Interesting. And I thought I had a cynical streak...
Not judging you either way, anyhow. Just kinda funny.

The overall breakdown of the nuclear family as an institution contributes to this.  That, however, is not the whole of the problem.   

[Ragnaroni]

How do we make them happy again?

Unfortunately I don’t think this is something you can legislate, beyond expanding access to mental health services. This is largely a cultural issue.

I didn't mean with laws smh. Do you seriously think I'd push for "be happy or else" legislation? It's clearly a cultural issue and many girls I know suffer from this. We should try to find out what the cultural issue is and finding "tricks" to avoid it or eliminate it altogether..

[DaleCooper]

How do we make them happy again?

Their parents should teach them to stop wasting energy and attention on stupid sh-t that makes them depressed and instead focus on their own well-being.

[Comrade Funk]

Social media culture terrible for the mental health of teenagers, especially women. These kids are living their life "on stage" and "competing" with every other teen girl in the world. Performance anxiety and stress is inevitable.

Humans have yet to adapt to technology.
At some point in the future, people will have worked out how to handle these things healthily.

I think that's optimistic. It could just become the new normal instead. Maybe I'm just overly cynical.

Interesting. And I thought I had a cynical streak...
Not judging you either way, anyhow. Just kinda funny.

The overall breakdown of the nuclear family as an institution contributes to this.  That, however, is not the whole of the problem.   

🙄

[Mr. Smith]

Adolescence is just an awkward and sad time, with many pressures, and very little empathy from fellow peers when it counts.

[BG-NY]

How do we make them happy again?

Ban cell phones, computers, social media. But not really practical or logical.

[the artist formerly known as catmusic]

Teenagers have unlimited access to the blue-light "here's all the ways the world is falling apart as you're nearing adulthood and pictures of everyone you think is prettier than you" device 24/7. I was a terminally online teenager. It is nearly impossible to have that experience and not end up depressed. Constantly wondering if you're getting enough likes and comments, wondering if people like you or are gossiping behind your back, and then you can read an article about how the world is falling apart and you have no future. Hard to find much of a point in life when that's literally with you everywhere all the time. Unfortunately it's an entirely cultural issue and I have no idea how to fix it. I'm also grateful for what the internet has given me, so...it's hard.

[Vosem]

Teenagers have unlimited access to the blue-light "here's all the ways the world is falling apart as you're nearing adulthood and pictures of everyone you think is prettier than you" device 24/7. I was a terminally online teenager. It is nearly impossible to have that experience and not end up depressed. Constantly wondering if you're getting enough likes and comments, wondering if people like you or are gossiping behind your back, and then you can read an article about how the world is falling apart and you have no future. Hard to find much of a point in life when that's literally with you everywhere all the time. Unfortunately it's an entirely cultural issue and I have no idea how to fix it. I'm also grateful for what the internet has given me, so...it's hard.

One solution I would recommend, which worked for me in high school in the 2010s, is having lots of confidence in your ideas about society

(Also, while this perhaps requires a high level of sophistication, it's easy to notice that there were famines as recently as the 1960s and that there has been lots of innovation in the very recent past; most Zoomers could listen to their parents' stories of growing up in the 1980s and notice that the median individual has a much higher standard of living.)

[the artist formerly known as catmusic]

Teenagers have unlimited access to the blue-light "here's all the ways the world is falling apart as you're nearing adulthood and pictures of everyone you think is prettier than you" device 24/7. I was a terminally online teenager. It is nearly impossible to have that experience and not end up depressed. Constantly wondering if you're getting enough likes and comments, wondering if people like you or are gossiping behind your back, and then you can read an article about how the world is falling apart and you have no future. Hard to find much of a point in life when that's literally with you everywhere all the time. Unfortunately it's an entirely cultural issue and I have no idea how to fix it. I'm also grateful for what the internet has given me, so...it's hard.

One solution I would recommend, which worked for me in high school in the 2010s, is having lots of confidence in your ideas about society

(Also, while this perhaps requires a high level of sophistication, it's easy to notice that there were famines as recently as the 1960s and that there has been lots of innovation in the very recent past; most Zoomers could listen to their parents' stories of growing up in the 1980s and notice that the median individual has a much higher standard of living.)

Ha! I think having confidence in your worldview is very helpful. Teenagers are especially good at that, regardless how wrong they may be. Sometimes I wonder if confidence in my worldview has produced more frustration than anything in recent years, but alas.

You're right about the standard of living being so much better. My parents grew up in the 1960s and just hearing stories as a kid about the "food" they ate growing up? God that me so grateful. I think a lot of this is unfortunately deep seeded in the brains of youngsters by now though. Not to mention Tiktok ruining their attention spans and making them think they have a litany of mental illnesses.