American teens are seen as “in a state of     1     disaster”. A report released last week paints a deeply disturbing     2     of the mental health of high students.

    3     more than 17, 000 teens conducted in a survey in 2021, 42 percent said they experienced the     4     of sadness or hopelessness. The issue is     5     more widespread than in a     6     survey in 2011, and girls are dramatically worse. A     7     of girls — 57 percent — reported persistent despair,     8     with 29 percent of boys.

Nearly 1     9     3 girls seriously considered suicide (up from 19 percent in 2011), and 13 percent say they attempted it in the     10    . “What caused this?” The CDC offered     11     definitive answers, but consider     12     has happened over the past decade. “Instagram was released in late 2010. TikTok in 2016.” Soon     13    , 90 percent of teen girls reported using social     14     every day. These apps, create more “social comparison, social pressure, and     15     peer interactions,” with teens measuring their self-worth — or lack of it — in likes and followers. Then in 2020 Covid-19     16     the picture.

    17     its root causes, this epidemic of hopelessness should     18     considered “a national crisis”. Did the reopening of schools and social spaces this year help     19     teens’ suffering? The CDC survey comes out only every other year, so we’ll have to wait to     20     out.