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Kasi Alexander

Professor Blouch

Composition II

23 March, 2020

Why has the mental health in America’s youth progressively gotten worse over the years?

Over the years the mental health across america has decreased dramatically, this is shown

by research on youths depression, substance abuse, self harm, and the living conditions of the

affected children. Throughout this research some repeated statements are that this has been

caused by the social media, family relationships, and violent games and movies we are allowing

the youth to witness and participate in.

There has been a noticeable increase in mental illness since 2014 and there have been

many reasons people have come up with to explain why this has occurred. The reasons have

varied from the social media causing people to become more depressed to taking a look at the

environment that our youth is living in. While Jean Twinge, in their article, “The Mental Health

Crisis Among America’s youth is real -- and Staggering” argues that this mental health epidemic

is caused by the introduction to social media, in “We Need to Rethink Mental Health Laws. But

not because of Mass Shootings”, written by Nathaniel Morris, focuses more on the after effects

of this epidemic and debates on allowing those who have mental illness to have the ability to

own a gun.
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These two articles are very different from each other but it allows us to understand the

diverse reactions we experience from this epidemic. Jean focuses on the possible causes for these

mental illness cases by looking further into our constant change in technology and how that

affects social media that the youth is able to participate in, these social media allow young adults

to avoid face to face interactions and that is believed to have caused some of these mental

illnesses. In the article written by Nathaniel Morris, he focuses more on those who currently

suffer from mental illness and whether or not they should be able to own a gun so we can

decrease the amount of suicides and mass shootings.

In an article called “Health complaints among adolescents in Norway: A twenty-year

perspective on trends.”, written by Thomas Potrebny and others, they look further into the

statistics of the youth that this epidemic is most common in older females and the younger boys.

This allows us to further argue the fact that social media could be one of the big reasons that this

epidemic has increased dramatically. In another article called “Violent Media Hinders Students'

Emotional and Intellectual Development”, written by Marianna King, she talks about how about

50% of students have admitted to being cyber bullied. These social media platforms allow the

youth to stay at home more while still being able to communicate with each other, unfortunately

this also allows them to be bullied over text and/or begin to bully someone else.

In conclusion, this epidemic has been noticed by many people and organizations and

throughout each article social media has been mentioned in being one of the main causes of these

mental illnesses. Some articles also mention that the environment that the youth are living in

with their families or other relatives could possibly be another cause of depression or any other

mental illness. Depression is the most often mental illness mentioned due to vulnerability of the

youth profiles on many social media platforms.

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Works cited

King, Marianna. "Violent Media Hinders Students' Emotional and Intellectual Development."
Gale Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection, Gale, 2020. Gale In Context: Opposing
Viewpoints, https://link-gale-com.sinclair.ohionet.org/apps/doc/EITKQJ250642368/OVIC?
u=dayt30401&sid=OVIC&xid=d947acd4. Accessed 23 Mar. 2020. Originally published as
"Educating Students to be Critical of Violent Media," Association for Middle Level Education,
Apr. 2018.

Morris, Nathaniel. "We need to rethink mental health laws. But not because of mass shootings."
Washington Post, 2 Mar. 2018. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, https://link-gale-
com.sinclair.ohionet.org/apps/doc/A529515343/OVIC?u=dayt30401&sid=OVIC&xid=78d83141.
Accessed 23 Mar. 2020.

"Preface to 'What Mental Health Issues Do Youths Face Today?'." Mental Illness, edited by
Roman Espejo, Greenhaven Press, 2012. Opposing Viewpoints. Gale In Context: Opposing
Viewpoints, https://link-gale-com.sinclair.ohionet.org/apps/doc/EJ3010154157/OVIC?
u=dayt30401&sid=OVIC&xid=007f35d4. Accessed 23 Mar. 2020.

Potrebny, Thomas, et al. "Health complaints among adolescents in Norway: A twenty-year

perspective on trends." PLoS ONE, vol. 14, no. 1, 2019, p. e0210509. Gale In Context:
Opposing Viewpoints, https://link-gale-com.sinclair.ohionet.org/apps/doc/A568929299/OVIC?
u=dayt30401&sid=OVIC&xid=d91fa1dc. Accessed 23 Mar. 2020.

Twenge, Jean. "The mental health crisis among America's youth is real—and staggering." Gale
Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection, Gale, 2020. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints,
https://link-gale-com.sinclair.ohionet.org/apps/doc/AVFUEM325097915/OVIC?
u=dayt30401&sid=OVIC&xid=7be557dd . Accessed 23 Mar. 2020. Originally published as "The
mental health crisis among America's youth is real—and staggering," The Conversation, 14
Mar. 2019.