The Problem with Teens Isn't Smartphones–It's Their Families

The last 5 years, if not more, has seen the US and other countries like the UK gripped by the narrative that there’s a youth mental health crisis. That’s not actually true…there’s little evidence of a crisis at all in most European countries. For the US, there definitely is a mental health crisis but, if anything, it’s most pronounced among two groups…middle-aged white men, and young American Indian men. Not teen girls, who actually commit suicide about the least often of any demographic group. We can see this best in suicide data (self-report data, often the lifeblood of teen mental health panics, turns out to be entirely unreliable, and even hospital data has been corrupted by changes in reporting over time). These suicide data shown below are updated to 2023, the latest CDC data. Several things that are important to note. First, almost all groups’ suicide rates appear to go both up and down in tandem. Second, suicide rates for middle aged Caucasian men, and young American Indian me ... Read full article.