Many talk about the mental-health crisis among kids these days. Many blame COVID, though the crisis was mounting before 2020, so perhaps COVID exacerbated the problem but didn’t create it. Blue lights from phones, computers, and gaming interrupting sleep gets some blame and effects all of us. Once TVs – boob-tubes for those who remember – were considered evil sources of the younger generation’s problems. In contrast, now I might kill for a family night with the back-lit boob-tube like in those good old days.
Today, social media gets the brunt of it. Google searches generate myriad results linking social media and mental health. Parents agree with the volume of commentary, reinforcing to each other the terrors of our teens finding out on social media that their friends went out without them. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter (or X), TikTok, and every other platform they utilize are all known to cause depression, insecurity, body and image issues. It is truly awful.
Acknowledging the “evils” of social media, I still wonder if our abhorrence is directed onto the right culprit. The cause and effect aren’t fully lining up for me.
What is really bugging us?
Decades ago we didn’t need Instagram to know when our friends were together without us. When it happened, we knew. It sucked then as it sucks now. Bullying and body image issues existed long before Snapchat. Judy Blume didn’t need an iPhone in the plot to show how miserable being a teenager can be. And there was plenty of bullying in The Canterbury Tales written over 600 years ago as there was in lots of Shakespeare’s writing (Midsummer Night’s Dream, anyone?).
Kids may learn their social misfortune faster now and see it in pictures and videos rather than by hearing whispers or finding notes sent around class. But is that enough to have created today’s crisis? Or is the sheer amount of time spent on these apps to blame? I remember spending hours on the phone (rotary) from the moment I got home from school to the moment I fell asleep. I also remember parents scorning those families with televisions in their kids’ rooms. When video games became ubiquitous, those parents derided them as addictive. Time spent on screens is nothing new either.
To shed light on what’s behind the mental health crisis, I have been considering what is so different in my experience with my kids from my parents’ experience with me. My parents were exasperated for sure. They hated the phone-time spent gossiping with friends and scandalizing others. And they didn’t hesitate to criticize the garbage I watched on TV (apologies to Fonzie for their derogatory remarks). But then it hit me – they knew what garbage I was watching. They knew who I was talking to and what I was talking about. They could hear me on the phone; they could see what I was watching. Maybe the crisis doesn’t lie in the content kids are experiencing. The difference is the privacy and isolation in which they are experiencing it.
Finding the disconnect among all this connection.
Before kids had their very own smart phones, parents knew who was calling and knew when things went amiss. This allowed parents to get involved, to intervene, to offer help, advice and solace much earlier and in real time. If my bestie who called every day didn’t call, or if my parents heard me upset on the phone, they frequently would step in. They might take me out, invite people over, or get me involved with something to break the misery cycle. Or they would just tell me that they knew, they cared, and they were there for me. But we parents can’t notice anything amiss when it is all locked away in their kids’ personal smartphones. There are parent controls for monitoring accounts, but kids are smarter and evade them. If we don’t see or hear what is happening, then things going bad will fester long before we know. And even if we ask, we get “it’s fine.” When kids’ socializing was less isolated and more out there, parents would know when it wasn’t fine, they wouldn’t have to ask.
The nature of the device and how it is used isolates our kids. My parents walking by the TV and sneering at the idiocy incensed me. But it was still an interaction among us and a shared experience even if we disagreed. The devil isn’t in Instagram. The devil is in the fact that kids are Instagramming all alone, to then perseverate and navigate by themselves, without parents’ presence to share and learn and get loving, if not also interfering, guidance. Kids may feel isolated when they learn they weren’t invited to the party. But they are actually isolated if they learn about being shunned and deal with it all alone.
I don’t usually post about parenting things. But if you think this has nothing to do with the workplace, it’s worth a second look.
Team leaders face a similar challenge. When interactions happen through texts, emails, and Zoom calls – often with headphones on – much of the real dynamic between people is hidden. Leaders are not privy to the side conversations, the tone, or the subtle shifts in relationships.
Here too, non-productive – or even destructive – interactions can develop out of sight and, if left too long, have real consequences.
I do not know the solution, but I have come to believe that focusing on controlling social media is not going to solve the growing mental health crisis. Building relationships, on the other hand, might have a better impact – and certainly comes with lots of positive contributions to both you and your children… and, perhaps, your team as well.