According to a new study published by Clinical Psychological Science–which you could read more about, if WordPress would allow my news links to link to any news–the number of American teenagers feeling “useless and joyless”–that is, depressed–increased by 33% from 2010-2015; and at the same time, teen suicides increased by 31% (http://theconversation.com/with-teen-mental-health-deteriorating-over-five-years-theres-a-likely-culprit-86996).
The author of the article I try in vain to link to believes something happened in 2012 to fuel this epidemic of teen depression. In 2012, she says, “smartphone” ownership in America passed the 50% mark–and a lot of teens were spending a lot of time online: much more than is good for them.
I’m not going to defend the smart phone. Anything carrying the label “smart” is almost certain to be bad for you. But this answer strikes me as far too simple.
The biggest thing missing in these teenagers’ lives is family. And family is even more important for young, developing children. But now both parents are chasing their careers all day, they think “quality time” is driving the kids to soccer for half an hour on the weekend, and they make up for what they know, deep down inside, to be neglect by buying their kids expensive goodies. Like smartphones.
And the kids go to public school where they learn that there is no God, their country sucks, their parents are idiots, the only sins are political sins as defined by left-wing teacher unions and the Democrat Party, abortion is a holy sacrament, Science Is Real and your life has no intrinsic meaning–and why, O 12-year-old, aren’t you having sex every chance you get? You must be a biggit!
The wonder is that they aren’t all depressed.
Keep your kids out of public school, make time to raise them yourselves, and don’t give them smartphones. And I’ll betcha anything the depression rate goes down.