Young people's mental health is declining, statistics suggest, but some have questioned whether this is just due to increased awareness of such conditions and reduced stigma around seeking help.
Young people’s mental health “has entered a dangerous phase” and “now might be our last chance to act”, scientists have written in the journal The Lancet. They argue that accumulating evidence indicates a steady decline in the mental health of people aged 12 to 25 over the past two decades, with covid-19 causing a recent major plummet.
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| The covid-19 lockdowns may have hit young people particularly hard Justin Paget/Getty Images |
Aside from the pandemic, some also point the finger at climate change and smartphones, arguing that these affect younger people more than their older counterparts, or even didn’t exist to the same extent when the latter were children.
Another argument questions whether a rise in youth mental health issues just comes down to increased awareness of these problems and a reduced stigma around them, which may prompt young people today to answer related surveys more honestly and seek out diagnoses.
Whatever the causes, statistics signal that a change has occurred in recent years. In England, for example, surveys suggest that 20 per cent of children aged 8 to 16 had a probable mental health disorder in 2023, while just under 13 per cent of 5 to 19 year olds had at least one mental health condition in 2017. Statistics from other countries, including the US and Australia, tell a similar story, with poor mental health also seeming to increasingly affect young adults.
One thing that didn’t widely exist two decades ago was smartphones. Although often blamed for rising rates of depression and anxiety among young people, the data is generally inconclusive, and unable to prove cause and effect. But recently, a randomised controlled trial, the best kind of scientific evidence, of 181 children and adolescents found that giving up smartphones and reducing other forms of screen time to a maximum of three hours a week for 14 days was associated with improved psychological symptoms.
But perhaps looking at smartphones isn’t specific enough and the focus should be on social media, which is often accessed via these devices. Studies have linked social media to online bullying, self-harm behaviour and suicide ideation.
However, “it’s really important that we don’t just put it all in one bucket and say social media is bad”, says Emily Simonoff at King’s College London. Sites like Facebook and Instagram can help young people connect with others during a phase of life where a sense of social belonging is especially important, says Karen Mansfield at the University of Oxford.
As well as smartphones now being ubiquitous and social media use widespread, people who were children or teenagers two decades ago also didn’t have to contend with the covid-19 lockdowns at a young age.
While these affected all of society, children and teenagers can’t shape their environments like many adults can, so may have felt particularly out of control, says Simonoff. It is also a time when forming relationships is very important, leaving many young people feeling unsupported and lonely, she says.
A surge in youth mental health problems at this time has been linked to the shift to remote learning, but for some, returning to schools may have actually worsened their mental health. A recent study found that going back to school was associated with increased psychiatric emergency department visits among children and teens in Italy. “A lot of children, for example, who were very anxious at school, were actually quite happy to be at home, to learn online, to have their parents supporting them,” says Mansfield.
Aside from the covid-19 pandemic, another global crisis that is widely thought to harm youth mental health is climate change. Beyond its physical effects, such as heat-related deaths and extreme weather events, its mental health consequences have been dubbed eco-anxiety, which seems to disproportionately affect young people.
Researchers at Stanford University recently found that among people aged 18 and older in California, the younger ones were more likely to experience mental health symptoms due to climate change.
Global warming is especially concerning for young people who have more years ahead of them than older people, says Emma Lawrance at Imperial College London. They also feel frustrated that they have been left with a crisis they didn’t create, she says. “There is a sense of betrayal and understandable anger that disrupts their sense of a positive vision of the future where they can thrive.”
Beyond existential worries, exposure to extreme heat in early childhood has been linked to brain changes that may negatively affect young people’s mental health, says Lawrance.
All this leads the experts to believe that the decline in youth mental health isn’t just the result of improved awareness. “In terms of recent history, I’d say it’s really getting worse,” says Mansfield.
Ultimately, it is unlikely that one factor is to blame. “Uncertainties and stresses – like the pandemic, like climate change – they’re compounding each other,” says Lawrance.
When it comes to rectifying some of these issues, experts want youth mental health to be another catalyst for action. “Young people are picking up on things that are happening in the world, and the fact they’re not OK is a reflection of these trends in the world that are not OK,” says Lawrance. “It’s the canary in the gold mine.”
Journal reference:
The Lancet Psychiatry DOI: 10.1016/S2215-0366(24)00163-9