Mental Health Crisis for Today's Youth

[Jeff Lebowski]

Fascinating (and depressing) article.

https://www.theatlantic.com/newslett...nxiety/629524/

But the big picture is the same across all categories: Almost every measure of mental health is getting worse, for every teenage demographic, and it’s happening all across the country. Since 2009, sadness and hopelessness have increased for every race; for straight teens and gay teens; for teens who say they’ve never had sex and for those who say they’ve had sex with males and/or females; for students in each year of high school; and for teens in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Primary drivers:

1) Social media usage

2) Sociality is down (nation of introverts)

3) The world is stressful—and there is more news about the world’s stressors

4) Modern parenting strategies (helicopter parenting)

While not addressed in this article, I have seen compelling evidence that the decline of religion is playing a big role also. Loss of community, etc.

[Moliere]

Good article and thread idea. I’ve been thinking a lot about the impact from the decline in religion and think (I’m clearly not an expert) that the comfort and stability that someone gets from religious teachings (child of god, god loves them, someone saved them, etc.) whether those teachings are real or not, isn’t just haphazardly correlated with the dramatic rise in mental health issues.

I know there’s a flip side to that coin since religion can cause mental health issues, however I remember reading a study that showed that even LGBT people that stay in the LDS church have better mental health than LGBT people that leave the church. Shocking, I know, but the data seems to support this conclusion.

[Northwestcoug]

I know there’s a flip side to that coin since religion can cause mental health issues, however I remember reading a study that showed that even LGBT people that stay in the LDS church have better mental health than LGBT people that leave the church. Shocking, I know, but the data seems to support this conclusion.

Please try to find that study. If true, it would run counter to basically all the other studies showing significantly better mental health levels of LGBT individuals who leave religions with fundamentalist views of sexuality.

[Moliere]

Please try to find that study. If true, it would run counter to basically all the other studies showing significantly better mental health levels of LGBT individuals who leave religions with fundamentalist views of sexuality.

https://www.deseret.com/opinion/2021...rmon?_amp=true

Big caveats on the article given that it’s from the deseret news and the analysis was done by BYU professors(although my Uber Mormon friends tell me BYU is super liberal, so maybe not biased…). Also, it was focused on one aspect of mental health, suicide risk, and also didn’t include gender identity. Still, it is interesting.

[Jeff Lebowski]

https://www.deseret.com/opinion/2021...rmon?_amp=true

Big caveats on the article given that it’s from the deseret news and the analysis was done by BYU professors(although my Uber Mormon friends tell me BYU is super liberal, so maybe not biased…). Also, it was focused on one aspect of mental health, suicide risk, and also didn’t include gender identity. Still, it is interesting.

From the link:

In a separate study, recently published by Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity, researchers from Bowling Green State University analyzed the same data set and similarly found LGBTQ-Latter-day Saints had lower suicide risk than those of other faiths or no faith.

I remember a few years ago there was data showing that suicide rates in the rocky mountain region were higher than the national average and lots of people quickly pointed fingers at the church for having high expectations or something. Then researchers at the University of Utah showed it was tightly correlated to altitude (go figure). Others showed that LDS kids were less likely to commit suicide once you factor in the altitude affect.

Really interesting stuff. Be careful with assumptions.

[smokymountainrain]

1, 2 and 3 are directly related, imo. and i would throw a 1a in there, which would be screen time in general.

regardless of what kids are looking at on their screens (social media, watching videos, playing games, etc,) i'd guess it all has the same net effect - which is to say #1 (and 1a) is the primary contributing factor to #2 and it also causes #3 to be much more difficult to deal with. if your face is in a phone 24/7, you aren't interacting socially with friends or relatives, and it is going to be much tougher to deal with regular every day stresses the world brings to the table.

[Soccermom]

Fascinating (and depressing) article.

https://www.theatlantic.com/newslett...nxiety/629524/





Primary drivers:

1) Social media usage

2) Sociality is down (nation of introverts)

3) The world is stressful—and there is more news about the world’s stressors

4) Modern parenting strategies (helicopter parenting)

While not addressed in this article, I have seen compelling evidence that the decline of religion is playing a big role also. Loss of community, etc.

That was a really good article. The four drivers mentioned really do all work together to create a greater risk of sadness. The kids in my school district have major helicopter parents and so many are addicted to Tik Tok/Instagram. Families are so busy putting their kid in every activity to achieve, compete, do better, etc. that very few people I know have regular sit down dinners anymore. Our family was getting really bad at that for a while. The pandemic actually helped us to reset a little. Having hubby home all the time also helps with that too. But it is interesting. My kids behaviors when we pushed getting back to sit down dinners indicate they missed the consistency too.

[BigFatMeanie]

From the link:



I remember a few years ago there was data showing that suicide rates in the rocky mountain region were higher than the national average and lots of people quickly pointed fingers at the church for having high expectations or something. Then researchers at the University of Utah showed it was tightly correlated to altitude (go figure). Others showed that LDS kids were less likely to commit suicide once you factor in the altitude affect.

Really interesting stuff. Be careful with assumptions.

I remember that same kerfuffle. Altitude and exposure to sunshine are both strongly correlating factors.

[Applejack]

I remember that same kerfuffle. Altitude and exposure to sunshine are both strongly correlating factors.

And number of firearms

[Northwestcoug]

https://www.deseret.com/opinion/2021...rmon?_amp=true

Big caveats on the article given that it’s from the deseret news and the analysis was done by BYU professors(although my Uber Mormon friends tell me BYU is super liberal, so maybe not biased…). Also, it was focused on one aspect of mental health, suicide risk, and also didn’t include gender identity. Still, it is interesting.

It'll take some time to go through the data, but on first glance the interpretation in the article is pretty selective.

This is the money part:

Model 1: Religion Predicting Suicidality and Depression. For LGBQ individuals, when religion was the only predictor, Latter-day Saints were significantly lower in suicide ideation and attempts than those of “Other” religions and those of no religion. Latter-day Saints were also significantly lower in suicide attempts than Catholics. For depression, Latter-day Saints were significantly lower than all other religions. For LGBQ individuals in this first model, rates of ideation were as follows: Latter-day Saint: 28%; Catholic: 37%; Protestant: 46%; “Other”: 50%; None: 49%. Rates of attempts for LGBQ individuals were as follows: Latter-day Saint: 10%; Catholic: 26%; Protestant: 25%; “Other”: 30%; None: 23%.

Model 2: Religion + Controls. Only one difference between model 1 and model 2 was found: when we added controls, Latter-day Saint and Catholic LGBQ individuals became statistically equal in their depression.

Model 3: Religion + Controls + Family Connection. In terms of significant differences between LGBQ Latter-day Saints and those of “Other” religions and no religions, there were no changes when we added family connections to the model.

Model 4: Religion + Controls + Family Connection + Drug Use. When we added drug use, all significant differences between Latter-day Saints LGBQ individuals and those of other religious groups became nonsignificant except that Latter-day Saints remained lower in suicide attempts and depression than those of no religion.

Model 5: Religion + Controls + Family Connection + Drug Use + Community Connections. With the final addition of community connections, the only change was that Latter-day Saint LGBQ individuals and LGBQ nones became equal in suicide attempts. Latter-day Saints remained lower in depression than nones, which was the only group significantly different from Latter-day Saints in model 5.

This to me looks like the difference between univariate and multivariate analysis. Suicide attempts were equal between LDS and 'nones' LGBT when other data was factored in. It does look like religion did have some protective effect against depression however.

I'm happy to hear from someone better versed in statistics though.

https://foundations.prod.brigham-you...th-suicidality

[Jeff Lebowski]

And number of firearms

That's right. Less access to therapy in rural settings was also a contributing factor.

[The_Tick]

So where do we talk about an 18 year old kid taking a gun and murdering his grandmother, 14 2nd-4th graders, and a teacher? It's unthinkable.

[USUC]

So where do we talk about an 18 year old kid taking a gun and murdering his grandmother, 14 2nd-4th graders, and a teacher? It's unthinkable.

Death count is up to 21 now. Apparently he had body armor and engaged the armed officers assigned to the school and still made it inside. The helplessness one feels at these things is unsettling.

[Joe Public]

My youngest two are in the 2nd and 4th grades. I looked at them sleeping tonight and thought about these parents who are home with empty beds that were slept in a night ago. I know most families find a way forward eventually, but I can’t imagine how they do it. Absolutely heartbreaking.

[Non Sequitur]

So where do we talk about an 18 year old kid taking a gun and murdering his grandmother, 14 2nd-4th graders, and a teacher? It's unthinkable.

We shouldn't be talking about it in a thread on mental health. It's time we stop letting the gun idiots frame the issue as a mental health problem and not as a gun problem. I own a couple of guns, but I'm at a point where I'm tired of being held hostage by the 2nd amendment and the cold, dead hand crowd. The 2nd amendment has outlived its usefulness.