Since 2011, the number of high school-aged youth experiencing depressive symptoms, considering suicide, and attempting suicide has significantly increased, according to Sph. This alarming trend has particularly impacted teenage girls, with rates of depression, anxiety and loneliness rising sharply around 2012 - the same year smartphones became mainstream among Americans, research shows.
The Dramatic Shift: A Generation's Childhood Rewired
Psychologist Jean Twenge at San Diego State University first sounded the alarm in 2017 when she analyzed mental health metrics for teenagers. "In all my analyses of generational data — some reaching back to the 1930s — I had never seen anything like it," Twenge wrote, according to NPR. The timing was particularly suspicious: "Smartphones were used by the majority of Americans around 2012, and that's the same time loneliness increases," Twenge told NPR.
The data reveals a seismic transformation in how teenagers spend their time. According to NPR, the number of times per week teens go out with friends held basically steady for nearly 30 years since 1976, slid slightly in 2004, then nosedived in 2010. Meanwhile, time spent on social media began to soar around 2012, fundamentally changing the way teens spend their time outside of school.
Social Media's Explosive Growth Among Youth
The rise in social media usage among teenagers has been nothing short of dramatic. According to Sph, in 2009, only about half of teens used social media every day. By 2017, that figure had jumped to 85% of teens using social media daily, and by 2022, 95% of teens said they use some social media platform.
The intensity of usage has also escalated significantly. About a third of teens say they use social media constantly as of 2022, according to The Guardian, with 22% of 10th grade girls spending seven or more hours a day on social media in the most recent data. Research from Sph indicates that youth who spend over three hours each day on social media are at higher risk for mental health problems.
The Mental Health Crisis Emerges
By 2021, almost one third of high school students had experienced poor mental health within the past month, according to Sph. This crisis has been building for over a decade, with concerning disparities affecting female, LGBTQ+, and racial and ethnic minority youth most severely.
The real-world impact is being felt in emergency rooms across the country. According to Kffhealthnews, less than a decade ago, the emergency department at Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego would see maybe one or two young psychiatric patients per day. Now, it's not unusual for the emergency room to see 10 psychiatric patients in a day, and sometimes even 20, said Dr. Benjamin Maxwell, the hospital's interim director of child and adolescent psychiatry.
California data illustrates the scope of the crisis: in 2018, California ERs treated 84,584 young patients ages 13 to 21 who had a primary diagnosis involving mental health, up from 59,705 in 2012 - a 42% increase, according to Kffhealthnews.
Technology Companies' Role in the Crisis
Research suggests that technology companies bear significant responsibility for this mental health crisis. According to The Guardian, these companies created world-changing products that transformed life for children, yet "had done little or no research on the mental health effects of their products on children."
The impact has been particularly gendered. Social media companies "inflicted their greatest damage on girls," while "video game companies and pornography sites sank their hooks deepest into boys," according to The Guardian. These tech products have displaced physical play and in-person socializing, fundamentally rewiring childhood and changing human development.
The Scientific Evidence Builds
Initially, many of Twenge's colleagues were skeptical of her claims, with some accusing her of inciting panic with insufficient data. However, economist Alexey Makarin at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology notes that recent high-quality studies from three different types of experiments point in the same direction. "Indeed, I think the picture is getting more and more consistent," Makarin said, according to NPR.
Twenge has continued her research, publishing a new book called "Generations" with much more data backing her hypothesis. The book analyzes mental health trends for five age groups, from the Silent Generation (born 1925-1945) to Gen Z (born 1995-2012), showing definitively how the way teens spend their time has changed.
A Generation in Crisis
Generation Z, defined by Pew Research Center as anyone born between 1997 and roughly 2012, has been particularly affected. According to Sph, this generation "has almost always been exposed to mobile devices, high speed Wi-Fi, social media, and an internet landscape that allows for constant connectedness - for better or for worse."
The crisis came to a head during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and Children's Hospital Association declared a National State of Emergency in Children's Mental Health in 2021. However, as Benjamin Druss, professor and Rosalynn Carter Chair in Mental Health at Emory University, explains: "There was an inflection point starting between 2010 and 2012 where we started seeing spiking levels of everything," according to Sph.
The Path Forward
The evidence now overwhelmingly points to a hidden mental health crisis among Gen Z teenage girls, with social media playing a central role. As The New York Times reporting reveals, families are desperately seeking solutions, with parents describing situations as "life or death" and feeling that traditional approaches are insufficient.
The crisis demands immediate attention from policymakers, technology companies, parents, and mental health professionals. With 95% of teens now using social media and a third using it constantly, addressing this crisis requires understanding that an entire generation's childhood has been fundamentally altered by technology - with teenage girls bearing the heaviest burden of mental health consequences.