Because the U.S. has been letting its mental health issues fester under a veneer of American Exceptionalism for the better part of a century in order to squeeze every last drop of labor surplus out of its citizens.
More proximally, because our mental health offerings are unreliable and sometimes out of touch.
Maybe because it’s a totally unserved population. Even if you can afford mental health care, which many/most can’t, it’s very difficult to find a doc. There’s a shortage and an inability to pay.
https://ct.counseling.org/2023/05/a-closer-look-at-the-mental-health-provider-shortage/
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-behavioral-health-care-affordability-problem/
The article mentions neither of these issues. Perhaps his irresponsible for not doing so.
The first few paragraphs of the blog post explained the problem pretty well - lack of access to professional mental health care.
The other parts of the article…especially bringing in techno optimism, feels unnecessary.
Do we see young people using tiktok to self diagonise other kinds of medical issues? At least not at the scale of mental health. And that is likely because they have much better access to professional help.
As society, we really really need to put more resources into mental health. It was an overlooked issue for centuries.
Tiktok doesn’t cost thousands of dollars?
Besides all the reasons other commenters have said, it’s because mental health is a pseudo-social phenomenon among teens.
Having a mental illness gets them attention, online and in person. I have two teens, and even though both have diagnosed mental illness due to trauma from their other parent, they still seek, discuss, and revel in self-diagnoses.
If a friend claims to have something, they rush to the internet to do “research,” and begin exhibiting “symptoms.” Same thing is true with other labels.
We have a dearth of parenting, due to needing two incomes to make a household run. Adult attention is scarce, so teens make up for it with wild claims and garnering attention from other teens. The internet makes it easy to model behaviors. So yes, there is an increase in mental illness, but not the kinds, nor for the reasons the internet would have us believe.
munchausen by tiktok
Mhmm. I think especially America needs to step up their game when it comes to health care.
And lots of the other (western?) countries, too, regarding how they treat young people and in which way they want to covey moral values and provide them with a perspecive on life.
