Pofessor worries about increasing rates of anxiety and depression in young women

New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that the majority of Gen Z girls are struggling with mental health issues, corroborating fears of scholars who have warned about the negative effects of social media for students’ futures.

Campus Reform has been monitoring the mental health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on young Americans and has examined the concerns of New York University professor Jonathan Haidt that social media has dangerous consequences on Gen Z, especially young women.

Gen Z refers to the population born between 1996 and 2010, the latter end of which are currently in high school and will soon be entering college and the workforce.

The Youth Risk Behavior Survey reveals that 57% of girls in grades 9-12 experience persistent feelings of hopelessness. This has increased by 21% over 10 years, according to the long-term data in the study.

41% of girls in this age bracket report experiencing poor mental health in the past 30 days, whereas 18 % of boys express similar feelings.

[RELATED: SURVEY: Anxiety, depression are rising among college students]

Additionally, suicidal thoughts in girls have increased to 30% in 2021, up from 19% in 2011. By contrast, 14% of boys reported suicidal ideations in 2021, according to the survey.

While the survey acknowledges the COVID-19 Pandemic and increasing rates of sexual violence against teenage girls as contributors to these effects, it also identifies social media as a contributing factor.

Researchers found 20% of female high schoolers were “electronically bullied” via texting and social media during the past school year compared to 11% of male respondents, according to the study.

Haidt contends that the types of social media consumed by boys and girls results in different mental health outcomes.

While Gen Z males use social media for collaborative online gaming, girls gravitate towards visual platforms and engage in what Haidt calls “compare and despair.”

Visual platforms like Instagram and TikTok, “take the worst parts of middle school and glossy women’s magazines and intensifies them,” by measuring young girls by “the hard metrics of likes and comment counts.”

“When a boy steps away from the [gaming] console,” Haidt argues, “he does not spend the next few hours worrying about what other players are saying about him. Instagram, in contrast, can loom in a girl’s mind even when the app is not open, driving hours of obsessive thought, worry, and shame.”

Haidt predicts that these trends will follow Gen-Z as they pursue higher education and move into the workforce.

[RELATED: NYU prof argues Gen Z is too ‘fragile,’ causing ‘national crisis’]

Haidt recognizes that it is “very difficult [for managers] to supervise their Gen-Z employees, that it’s very difficult to give them feedback.”This Gen-Z fragility may also be connected to the perceived need for grade inflation and stroking student egos.

Haidt fears, however, that the effects will be worse for women. The “gender gap that’s been closing very rapidly in many fields over the last couple of decades might begin to widen in the 2030s,” argues Haid. 

“Gen-Z women, because they’re so anxious, are going to be less successful than Gen-Z men—and that’s saying a lot, because Gen-Z men are messed up, too,” Haidt surmises.

The Department of Education announced on February 16 that it will be spending over $188 million on increasing access to mental health resources for public K-12 and higher education institutions.

All parties have connected for comment. This article will be updated accordingly. 

Follow Gabrielle M. Etzel on Twitter.