The Causes Of Depressed Youth

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Derrick Thompson was always an interesting writer. Has done the inevitable,
incredibly long but insightful Peace in the Atlantic about what
he sees as the four main forces contributing to rising
rates of depression among young people. And I'd say, if
you're a parent of a you know somebody who loves
a young person who's struggling with this sort of thing,

(00:20):
definitely worth a read. But here's the brief version. Here
are the four main forces. Social media use, a decline
in socialization. Part of that is COVID and idiotic, abusive
COVID policies. If you ask me, exposure to more bad
news and and modern parenting strategies. What are those. We'll

(00:47):
get to that. Uh. In order, the world is overwhelming,
and an inescapably negative news cycle creates an atmosphere of
existential gloom, not just for teens, but also for their
moms and dads. He writes, the more overwhelming the world
fields to parents, the more they may try to bubble
wrap their kids with accommodations. That's the modern parenting part

(01:08):
of it. Over time, this protective parenting style deprives children
of the emotional resilience they need to handle the world's stresses.
So let's deal with that one. That's to me, that's
the big cohuna, that's the whole I read once a
couple of years ago, and it's absolutely brilliant. You are
not ready for anything close to adulthood unless you have

(01:31):
gotten lost and found your way back twice. I thought, Wow,
what an insightful description of what you know survival skill
acquisition is really like, or should be like in childhood. Yeah,
because I know you and I had that experience, right,
and nobody does that with their kids now, And if
you try to do with your kids, somebody'll call the

(01:51):
police because it seems so crazy. Um running on the ages.
I was just thinking, I definitely didn't do it during
the COVID, which I hope had some impression on my kids.
Like we we flew and went on a vacation a
couple of times in empty planes, to empty hotels, to
empty streets because everybody else was hunkered down because of COVID,

(02:12):
and I hope that made some impression on them about
or evaluating risk or whatever. Right, Well, you're talking earlier
about a merchant you do business with, who who confessed
to you that I haven't gone anywhere or done anything
for two years. Imagine what her children are like. Yeah, yeah,
for instance. But anyway, getting back to the part of

(02:32):
the text of the article, Uh so, the protective parenting
style deprives children of the emotional resilience they need to handle.
The world stresses, childhood becomes more insular. Time spent with friends, driving, dating, working,
summer jobs all declining again. Decline in spending time with friends, driving, dating, working,

(02:55):
just getting out there on the decline, college pressures sky
rocket Outwardly. Teens are growing up slower slower, but online
they're growing up faster. Wow, that's rough. The Internet exposes
teenagers not only to support of friendships, but also to bullying, threats,
despairing conversations about mental health, and a slurry of unsolvable

(03:16):
global problems. A carnival of negativity, which is a tone
we try to avoid around here. Some days are more
challenging than others. Wow. If we still we used to
have a guy who cut liners for us, like a
low Boys guy, we'd get that one done. A carnival
of negativity. It's the Armstrong and Getty show exactly, a
carnival of negativity. Yeah, the world has always been overwhelming,

(03:40):
but God, for almost all of human history until a
blink of the eye ago, you only knew about your
little town. You didn't have any idea what was going
on in the next state, let alone and freaking China,
well and giving it horrible things were going on in China,
you weren't watching videos of them. Absolutely true, And given

(04:01):
the cruelty of you and kind, the only cruelty you'd
be subjected to is that which was immediately around you,
and something can be done about that, generally speaking, um
as opposed to all the cruelty of anybody you come
in contact with online. Uh, the Internet, social media places
in every teen's pocket a quantified battle royale for scarce

(04:24):
popularity that can displace hours of sleep and make many teens,
especially girls, feel worse about their body and their life.
Amplify these existing trends with a global pandemic and an
unprecedented period of social isolation, and suddenly the remarkable rise
of teenage sadness doesn't feel all that mysterious, does it. Well,
it really hasn't ever to us, as we've been talking

(04:46):
about this stuff for quite some time. And then to
get back to the discussion yesterday during our two of
the show, and if you missed it, it's some incredibly
powerful stuff. Transgender people, gay people, all sorts of sane
people saying, Hey, this, this trend of teens committing to

(05:07):
transder changing their gender, gender surgery, you know, the sex
change surgery, hormone blockers, hormones. Kids making this decision is terrible.
It's awful, It's indefensible. Even the Washington Post published an
editorial saying that, so it's time to be open and
discussed that stuff. Anyway. You add to what we've already

(05:29):
described from this Derrick Thompson piece. You add to that
all of the activists, all the extremists, the the the
radicals who are trying to get inside kids heads with
critical race theory, queer theory, all of that stuff, and man,
it is just a stew of of of stuff kids
should not be dealing with piped into their bedrooms or

(05:51):
onto their smartphones all day long, at a time when
they're increasingly isolated and being bubble wrapped by their parents
in some cases. Uh gosh, what what is there anything
that can break this cycle? I know I've done more
of it than I ever thought I would do, and
I'm not happy about it. Just it's weird at the
momentum of society. Um, gotta keep in mind that all

(06:15):
the people that invented this stuff won't allow their kids
to do it because they know how dangerous it is
and how bad it is for them. Yeah, that's a
good point. And but then parents are saying, I hear you,
I hear you, folks, the psychic connection. My kid is
addicted to this stuff, to the shots of adrenaline, to

(06:35):
the new inputs, to the TikTok, to the whatever Instagram.
One thing I know about addiction is one of the
best ways to avoid being addicted to something is don't
ever start. So if I can keep my kids from
ever starting on that stuff, I haven't so far. And
and if you already have to recognize that you are
an addict and need to do something about it, you
know I I have uh that that stupid pathetic. I'm

(07:00):
ashamed of it. That shot of adrenaline. You get something new,
something new, something new, Look, something new. There's a text,
wonder who it is, Let me check email, let me
check the news feed. It's just it's turned us into
crack monkeys. Maybe I'm fortunate the last year has been
so crappy. Pretty much every text or email I get
is bad news. So I've kind of like been conditioned,
like a monkey in a cage to cringe whenever you're

(07:24):
ding of a text, don't know, because it's always bad news.
So so I'm like a crack monkey who's like, now,
just a complete crackhead. You were the monkey that I
don't know got jabbed or something when you were Wow,
when he texts or emails her own no, now what
that is interesting