Jean M. Twenge

For girls and young women, mental health is now front and center.

When tennis player Naomi Osaka recently announced her decision to drop out of the French Open, she said, “The truth is I have suffered long bouts of depression since the U.S. Open in 2018 and I have had a really hard time coping with that.” In particular, she said, the required press conferences caused her “huge waves of anxiety.” Now, according to her representatives, Osaka has withdrawn from Wimbledon to spend time with her friends and family.

Osaka, 23, is part of the group known as Generation Z — I call them iGen. Born between 1995 and 2012, they are experiencing much higher rates of mental health issues than the millennials just before them. Depression among teens and young adults has doubled in just eight years. By 2019, nearly 1 out of 4 teen girls in the U.S. experienced clinical-level depression — and that was before the pandemic hit.

Why? The increase in depression among young people began in 2012, when the U.S. economy was on the upswing, so it seems unlikely that economic malaise was the cause. It’s difficult to think of a world or national event that occurred in 2012 and then continually worsened. But there was a big change that happened that year: For the first time, the majority of Americans owned a smartphone.

Partially due to this sudden shift in technology, growing up is a very different experience for iGen than it was for previous generations. Most iGen’ers have never known a world without social media. By the time the oldest iGen’ers were teens, social interaction had moved from in person to online. Between Gen X in the 1980s and iGen in the 2010s, the amount of time teens spent with their friends in person dropped by a full hour a day. Instead, teens — and plenty of adults, too — communicate via texting, social media and gaming. The advantage to digital communication is that it’s always available. The disadvantage of digital communication is also that it’s always available. It’s also always expecting something of us.

Osaka’s anxiety around press attention is just one example of the pressure many young women feel now. Although most girls and young women aren’t international sports stars, the new world of social media often means they feel like they are performing all the time. While popularity has always been important, popularity can now be quantified and measured in likes and followers. Girls I interviewed for my book (“iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy — and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood — and What That Means for the Rest of Us”) described feeling constant pressure to keep up on social media, both by posting and by quickly commenting on their friends’ posts. They eagerly discussed ways to take a break from their phones — but agreed that would only work if their friends took a break, too.

That’s the thing about social media: It is social. It’s difficult to minimize the impact of social media by deciding not to use it, because everyone else is using it. A girl who decided to give up social media would miss most of what was happening with her friends. But if she stays on the platform for many hours a day — as many girls do — she will spend more of her day seeking approval, constantly wondering if she’s good enough. She’ll also spend less time doing things we know are better for mental health, like exercising, sleeping and talking to people in real time.

Why not just use social media sparingly? That seems to be the best way forward — light social media users tend to be the happiest. The problem is it’s hard to stop. Social media sites are designed to keep us coming back as much as possible for as long as possible, because that’s how social media companies make the most money. Social media is popular partially because it is free — we don’t pay money to use it. But it’s not really free — we pay with our time and attention. Technology tends to work best when we use it for a specific task and then put it away, but with social media that’s difficult to do.

There is some good news. Perhaps because depression is so common among their peers, iGen in particular has the vocabulary and understanding to openly discuss their mental health and how it impacts their decisions. “Here in Paris I was already feeling vulnerable and anxious so I thought it was better to exercise self-care and skip the press conferences,” Naomi Osaka said in her statement.

Osaka’s decision to withdraw made headlines, but maybe it shouldn’t have. Maybe we should all exercise more self-care. We could start by having an honest conversation with our friends, family, and children about social media and other forms of electronic communication. Is it really serving the purpose we want it to? If not, maybe it’s time to move on, cut back, and talk in real time more often.

San Diego Union Tribune