Mental Health

MENTAL HEALTH

We’ve gotten the “teenage mental health crisis” dangerously wrong By Mike Males | July 2023 | Depression drives social media use, not the other way around, while we ignore the real struggles young people face

The Teenage Brain, New Science or the Same Old Prejudice?
“Teen brain” malarkey isn’t “new science.” It’s just the latest recrudescence of 19th century biodeterminist notions that has already been debunked.Very few teens suffer eating disorders
New study finds that contrary to the panics spread by media and interest groups bent on convincing teenagers they’re all crazy, very few teenagers suffer from eating disorders.

Critics of students’ critical thinking ain’t either
Strange, isn’t it, how all the academics, experts, news reporters, and commentators deploring the lack of “critical thinking” and “rigor” among today’s students fail to display rigorous critical thinking themselves?

More horrific news!
New Centers for Disease Control statistics show teen suicide fell in 2007 to its lowest level in more than three decades. And if past undercounts are figured in, perhaps its lowest level ever reliably recorded for both younger and older youth. Will America’s panic industry, led by the news media, psychiatric/drug lobbies, and culture-war fear mongers who desperately need more distressed teens to push their agendas continue lying about it, or try to grab credit?

Teen suicides decline in 2005
Just released government figures show teen suicide declined in 2005, particularly for girls, casting strong doubt on the dubious media-pharmaceutical-industry panic that 2004’s temporary suicide increase was caused by warning labels on antidepressants. What terrible news for the teen-fearing industries! Le’s see how long it takes the pharm-captive news media to mention it! More bad news! The American Freshman, UCLA’s latest survey of 400,000 first-year students entering in 2007, finds just 6.5% reported any depression in the previous year–the lowest level since the question was first asked in 1985, challenging the psychology industry myth and media herd mentality that college is a misery-pit of depression, drunken violence, and suicide.

Terrifying news
Teens are happy…and getting more so: Girls and boys are happy–happier than ever before–our best surveys show. What terrible news! Look for culture warriors, popular authors, psychiatric and pharmaceutical industries, agencies, and news-media panic mongers to step up efforts to convince teenagers that, despite their optimism, they’re really miserable and depressed.

The “teen brain” craze
New science, or ancient politics?: The handful of “experts” who claim “science” has “discovered teenagers act as they do” are stretching neurological studies far beyond their bounds, indulging primitive strereotypes about adolescents, and generally demonstrating their own lack of cognitive development.

The mental health crisis that isn’t
The mental health crisis that isn’t! Statistics don’t support fears of a psychological emergency on our college campuses.

Kids not so suicidal after all
Teenagers are the least likely of any age group to take their own lives, and their rates of self-destruction (suicides and other deaths indicating suicidal intent, such as accidents by guns, poisoning, hanging, and undetermined intent) have plummeted in recent decades. A high schooler is three times more likely to suffer a parent’s suicide than the other way around. Why, then, are teens stereotyped as suicidal risk takers?…

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