Teach Secondary 13.7

This year, the name on everyone’s lips in the wellbeing/education worlds has been Jonathan Haidt. For those unfamiliar, Haidt is a social psychologist and author of the bestselling book The Anxious Generation . In it, he posits the theory that almost every challenge faced by young people since 2010 – from sharply rising levels of mental ill health, to spiralling diagnoses of autism and ADHD, growing behavioural difficulties and declining attention spans – can be blamed on phones and/or social media. It’s fair to say that the book divided readers. To some, Haidt is a luminary, and among the first people to properly and extensively highlight some glaringly obvious conclusions fromwhat they have observed. Others however, have questioned his use of research and statistics. Indeed, he’s been accused of that most profound crime within the field of science – confusing correlation with causation. Obsolete evidence Frommy point of view, both assessments of Haidt’s work can be correct at the same time. A key problem with any attempts at assessing the mental health impacts of social media and phone use is that technological trends shift at an astonishingly rapid rate. Conversely, evidence that’s considered solid by the scientific community will have usually taken a long time to collate and been subject to extensive peer review. Hence, a longitudinal study on the impacts of Facebook use on self-esteem and body image among teenage girls published in 2016 was rendered largely obsolete by the fact that by then, the number of teens actually using that particular platform had dwindled significantly. We have also since learned from assorted whistleblowers the lengths to which social media companies will often go to conceal research that reveals negative impacts of their platforms on users. Against this context, I believe it’s entirely legitimate for Haidt to apply a little conjecture to his findings. Yet I’m also wary of any attempts at explaining poor mental health outcomes in young people that place the blame solely on phones, or which suggest that social media is the most significant factor. Societal differences Let’s take the year when we first began to see an increase in anxiety among British teenagers – 2010. This was the year that sawMichael Gove appointed as Education Secretary, before ushering in sweeping changes to the school system which saw the eradication of coursework, the slashing of PSHE budgets, an increase in examinations, and the defunding and deprioritising of activities with a proven therapeutic value, such as the arts, music and sports. All this coincided with the introduction of an austerity programme that proceeded to plunge millions of families into poverty, while others found themselves suddenly having to work longer hours. Whenever I point this out, the standard response I hear is that previous generations underwent comparable financial hardships without equivalent dips inmental health, the only real difference being our contemporary advances in communication technologies. I disagree with that stance on two counts, however. Firstly, previous generations didn’t possess the awareness or vocabulary to articulate mental health struggles, which doesn’t mean that they didn’t experience them. Secondly, there’s something fundamentally different about the society today’s young people are growing up in. I’ve always articulated it as a modern-day lack of community, but a paper published in The Lancet last month (see bit.ly/ts137-ND1) more specifically identifies the distinction as being down to the widespread adoption of neoliberal socioeconomics. Accurate assessment The research in question was led by the executive director of Australia’s Orygen Centre of Excellence in YouthMental Health, professor PatrickMcGorry, who sees the ongoing youthmental health crisis as, “ The most serious public health problemwe’ve got. ” While social media is mentioned in the report, so too is the climate crisis, depressed wages and increased housing costs, as well as a global emphasis on individualism and competition that’s “ Destroying social bonds, eroding public welfare and services and empowering harmful industries and corporations. ” It’s the most all-encompassing and, inmy opinion, accurate assessment of why so many young people are struggling to thrive, or even cope. It articulates perfectly why, if we’re going to properly understand the issue, we need to look beyond screens alone. Beware any analyses of the youth mental health crisis that place the blame squarely on modern tech and social media – because by doing so, we’re only telling a fraction of a much bigger story...| Natasha Devon Natasha Devon is a writer, broadcaster and campaigner on issues relating to education and mental health; to find out more, visit natashadevon.com or follow @_NatashaDevon *actually, 8 25 teachwire.net/secondary S C H O O L O F T H O U G H T