Adolescent Mental Health

In this day and age, there are countless threats to adolescent mental health. Almost 50% of adolescents have reported facing mental health issues in recent years. All over the world Adolescent mental health is getting worse due to the high-achieving academic standards that are forced upon students, the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the increasing social media usage from adolescents.

Students often face many stressors associated with the stigma of over-achieving and excelling academically. It can put much pressure on students and it can, unfortunately, also lead to mental health issues. More than 20% of adolescents in the U.S. have mental health disorders and about 1 in 5 children have a mental health impairment. “More than twenty percent of adolescents in the U.S. have a mental health disorder” (Gokhan.).Most students are often pressured to excel academically, while this isn’t something that should be stopped, an excessive amount of force should be. If a student experiences a dip in their GPA negative repercussions can come with it. It can start with one issue but eventually, these problems can snowball into issues more problematic than disorders such as depression. “The association of depression with the highest degree became nonsignificant when the other problems were included in the Model” (McLeod, et al.). Students can get impacted negatively by an excessive amount of pressure relating to academics, and it has only gotten worse due to the recent COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had detrimental effects on adolescent mental health because of quarantine and the constant mentions of death in major news outlets. Many adolescents lost loved ones in the COVID-19 pandemic which is very bad for their mental health. Also, most adolescents could not meet with friends in person and be outside which meant they were cooped up inside their house for the whole day. All of these circumstances impacted adolescent mental health in every way. “There were significant differences in symptoms of depression, anxiety, overall impairment, emotion regulation difficulties, and suicide ideation and plans.” (Brausch, et al.). Many of these impairments are not temporary and can negatively affect adolescents later in life like in the academic career. While staying at home adolescents are with their thoughts more and have fewer social interactions. Also, as previously stated the frequent mentions of death and suffering on social media are more frequent than before the pandemic. Adolescents that were studied before and after the pandemic show very significant differences in overall mental well-being. “symptom measures were significantly higher in the sample collected after the pandemic began, but the proportion of adolescents scoring above the clinical cutoffs on these measures was also significantly higher in the pandemic sample.” (Brausch, et al.).

Social media can be very impactful in a lot of different ways. Essentially it provides unlimited access to both good and bad information. It also allows children to connect with people all over the world, while most people won’t blink an eye, some people will, and most people will be positive and encouraging. However, some people on the internet and social media have bad intentions and will cyberbully adolescents. Studies show that adolescents who spend an excess amount of time on social media have mental implications. “positive association we found between social media use and depression has important” (Lin, et al.). Furthermore, adolescents who aren’t fully mature may encounter disturbing items. Social media use on the internet has the biggest implications on adolescent mental health because most if not all adolescents use it. “individuals who used social network sites more intensely reported more internalizing psychopathology” (Tibber, et al.).

There is a wide array of things that can affect an adolescent’s mental health. Increased Academic pressure, the ramifications of the recent COVID-19 pandemic, and the use of social media. This pressing issue needs to be addressed immediately if we want future generations to thrive and succeed.