Los Angeles mental health authorities and media are hell-bent to convince teenagers they’re terrifyingly suicidal. Why? Mike Males, Principal Investigator, YouthFacts.org| April 2026 L.A.’s teens’ suicide rates are 60% below the national average and have plunged 40% since 1990 and 75% since 1970. Yet, LA experts and media frantically strive to persuade teens they’re suicidal.
High School and the Sports Spirit Complex Karen Sternheimer, Sociologist, USC| March 2026 I currently live about a block away from a large public high school. Students walk by sporting their school merch, including hats, t-shirts, and sweatshirts. During track meets, in addition to starter pistols, you can hear a wave of cheering from an
Jonathan Haidt, globally acclaimed expert and policy guru on teenagers, mental health, and predators, never mentions Jeffrey Epstein. That’s weird. Mike Males, Principal Investigator, YouthFacts.org| March 2026 Even weirder: Haidt’s crusade to ban teens from social media is enthusiastically backed by Big Tech, Big Money, and Big Government. In societies that actually cared about children
The High School: An Analysis of Yearbooks Karen Sternheimer, Sociologist, USC| March 2026 Michael Messner’s new book, The High School: Sports, Spirit & Citizens, 1903-2024 is a great example of how artifacts of everyday life can become data for sociological analysis. As a scholar of gender and sports, Messner realized that yearbooks serve as a window to
Perfect! Right and Left are rigidifying their superficial pet “explanations” for why a mass shooter did what she did Mike Males, Principal Investigator, YouthFacts.org| March 2026 Ideological bigots make ONE shooter the poster for Canada’s 100,000 transgender individuals and 5 million teens/young adults long before facts are known. Back in 2020, 51-year-old alcoholic, arsonist, and
Going Public “For Real” Anthony Bernier, Project Director, YouthFacts.org | March 2026 White young people just walked in the front door of the Greenville, South Carolina, main library in 1959. Not so for 18 year old Jesse Jackson (1941-2026). The books Jackson wanted to read during his freshman Christmas break from University of Illinois took
Generation Z’s real social media sin has nothing to do with “mental health” Mike Males, Principal Investigator, YouthFacts.org| February 2026 Allied government/Big-Tech powers pushing censorship, mass surveillance, and repression target teenagers and online freedom. But those are just the beginning. Their larger goals are truly terrifying. The emotional, trivial-effect anti-teen/social-media junk dominating legislative and popular
Election Lessons for Every Organization Wendy Schaetzel Lesko, Co-Founder, Youth Infusion| January 2026 Profound lessons emerge from Zohran Mamdani’s victory even though NYC is unlike any other city. A historic turnout and a whopping 78 percent of those under age 30 voted for Zohran Mamdani. Sure, he is young, energetic, and charismatic, but I believe
Authorities are recasting young people’s concerns about climate change, Gaza, social justice, family crises, etc., as “mental illness” Mike Males, Principal Investigator, YouthFacts.org| January 2026 Let’s start with the clueless condescension, because it gets scarier. National Public Radio’s 1A (First Amendment)’s lengthy 12/18 “Navigating modern adolescence” managed to dodge ALL the family, community, economic, and global issues
Social media isn’t driving the teenage “loneliness epidemic” Mike Males, Principal Investigator, YouthFacts.org| January 2026 Americans of all ages suffer a “loneliness epidemic,” former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy announced in 2023, fostering health damage rivaling smoking “15 cigarettes a day.” “In recent years, about one-in-two adults in America reported experiencing loneliness,” Murthy lamented. “Across many
