Caring parents understandably want to protect their children from physical harm and emotional hurt. We do this, we presume, for their sakes. And, if the truth be told, we do it for our own as well. Many of us knowingly nodded when Michelle Obama shared the common parental experience: “You are as happy as your least happy child.”   But as my friend and fellow social psychologist, Jonathan Haidt, recently explained to a large West Michigan audience, sometimes parental good intentions prepare kids for failure.   Haidt began by documenting what I’ve previously described—the stunning recent increase in teens’ (especially teen girls’) depression, anxiety, suicidal thinking, and self-harm (as documented in ER visits). This tsunami of mental health problems has now also reached college campuses, as evident in collegians’ increased depression rates and visits to campus mental health services.   What gives? What accounts for this greater fragility of today’s youth? Teen biology hasn’t changed. They’re not drinking more (indeed, they’re drinking less). They’re not working more (they’re less often employed).   What has changed, Haidt observed, is, first, technology—the spread of smart phones, the explosion of social media, and the addition of social comparison-promoting social media features, such as visible likes and retweets of one’s posts. Haidt offered correlational studies that associate teens’ social media use with their mental health, and experiments that reveal the emotional benefits of a restrained social media diet. (For more, see this prior blog essay, and Haidt’s recent Atlantic essay, with Tobias Rose-Stockwell: “The Dark Psychology of Social Networks.” See also this new response by his collaborator, Jean Twenge, to skeptics of the social media explanation.)   As an antidote to social media’s emotional toxicity (and diminished sleep and face-to-face relationships), Haidt offered three practical family guidelines for healthy media use: He also attributes the increase youth mental health issues to a second cultural change: Today’s parents often fail to appreciate the “antifragility” principle—that children’s emotions, like their bones and immune systems, gain strength from being challenged. Bones and muscles gain strength from exercise. Immune systems develop protective antibodies from challenges (soaring peanut allergies are a sorry result of routinely protecting infants from peanut exposure). And children’s emotional health and resilience likewise builds through their unpleasant experiences. There is truth to Nietzsche’s aphorism, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”   Alas, as Haidt demonstrated by surveying his audience, members of Generation Z (people born since 1996) have grown up more protected—with parents restraining their roaming free until later childhood. Their grandparents, by contrast, and to some extent their parents, were experienced a less restricted “free range childhood.” (And no, today’s world is not more dangerous—it’s actually much safer than the 1970s.)   Moreover, he argued (also in The Coddling of the American Mind with Greg Lukianoff, and in a new essay with Pamela Paresky), schools are ill-serving students by protecting them from uncomfortable speech. Colleges ill-prepare students for life outside the campus when they suppress unpopular perspectives and offer “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings” that insulate students from “micro-aggressions.”   As an alternative approach, Haidt welcomes viewpoint diversity—the thrust of the Heterodox Academy. He and his colleagues also offer resources for open-minded engagement at the new OpenMindPlatform.org.   Haidt’s case for viewpoint diversity and open dialogue remind me of the long-ago wisdom of social psychologist William McGuire, whose experiments taught us an important lesson:  Unchallenged beliefs existing in “germ-free ideological environments” are the most vulnerable to later being overturned. To form one’s beliefs amid diverse views is to become more discerning, and ultimately more deeply grounded in less fragile convictions.   Ergo, concludes Haidt, to support teen mental health be intentional about screen time and social media, and remember: character—like bones, muscles, and immunity—grows from challenge.   (For David Myers’ other essays on psychological science and everyday life, visit TalkPsych.com.) ... View more

A tweet from my colleague Jean Twenge—a world-class expert at tracking youth well-being in massive data sets—alerted me to the recently released 2018 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Among its dozens of results, which you can view here, several struck me as worthy of note by high school and college teachers, administrators, and counselors.  First some good news: From 2002 to 2018, cigarette smoking plummeted and is now but 2.7 percent of U.S. 12- to 17-year-olds. Reaching back to 1976, high school senior smoking has plunged even more, from 28.8 percent to 3.6 percent. Although smoking has become gauche, seniors’ e-cigarette use has soared—from 1.5 percent in 2010 to 26.7 percent in 2018. (Will widely publicized news of vaping-related lung illnesses and deaths reverse this trend?) The not-so-good news: From 2011 to 2018, major depressive episodes increased from 11 to 14 percent among 12- to 17-year-olds, and, similarly, from 8 to 14 percent among 18- to 25-year-olds. Not surprisingly, youth and young adults’ increased rate of depression has been accompanied by an increase in suicidal thoughts (shown below), suicide attempts, and actual suicides (see new CDC data here). As I explained in a previous TalkPsych.com essay, the increase in teens’ (especially teen girls’) vulnerability to depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide has occurred in other Western countries as well, and it corresponds neatly with the spread of smart phones and social media. That fact of life has stimulated new research that  correlates teens’ social media use with their mental health. follows teens longitudinally (through time) to see if their social media use predicts their future mental health. experiments by asking if volunteers randomly assigned to a restrained social media diet become, compared with a control group, less depressed and lonely.    Stay tuned. This scientific story is still being written, amid some conflicting results. As Twenge summarizes in a concise and readable new essay, up to two hours of daily screen time predicts no lessening of teen well-being. But as daily screen time increases to six hours—with associated diminishing of face-to-face relationships, sleep, exercise, reading, and time outdoors—the risk of depression and anxiety rise.    The alarming rise in youth and young adult depression, especially over such a thin slice of history, compels our attention. Is screen time the major culprit (both for its drain on other healthy activities and for the upward social comparisons of one’s own mundane life with the lives of cooler-seeming others)? If not, what other social forces are at work? And what can be done to protect and improve youth and young adult well-being?   (For David Myers’ other essays on psychological science and everyday life, visit TalkPsych.com.) ... View more

Consider two facts: Worldwide, smartphones and easier social media access exploded starting in 2010. Consider U.S. smartphone-use (and its projected future): Simultaneously—and coincidentally?—teen girls’ rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide have mushroomed (for Canadian, American, and British sample data see here, here, and here). So, is there a causal connection? If so, is it big enough to matter?   Should parents give (or deny) their middle schoolers smartphones with Instagram or Snapchat accounts? And does amount of daily screen time matter?   In quest of answers, my esteemed social psychologist colleague Jonathan Haidt is assembling the available evidence using (and illustrating) three psychological methods. His tentative conclusions: Correlational studies ask: Is social media use associated with teen mental health? Study outcomes vary, but overall, there is at least a small correlation between adolescents’ social media hours and their risk of depression, anxiety, and self-harm. The screen time–disorder association is stronger for social media use than for TV and gaming time, and the link is greater for females who are heavy social media users. Longitudinal studies ask: Does today’s social media use predict future mental health? In six of eight studies, the answer is yes. Experiments ask: Do volunteers randomly assigned to restricted social media use fare better than those not assigned on outcomes such as loneliness and depression? On balance, yes, says Haidt, but the few such studies have produced mixed results. Haidt’s provisional conclusion can be seen in his tweet: In a Time essay, researcher Jean Twenge (my Social Psychology co-author) offers kindred advice for parents concerned about their children’s social media use: “No phone or tablets in the bedroom at night.” “No using devices within an hour of bedtime.” “Limit device time to less than two hours of leisure time a day.” Haidt also provides us a much-needed model of intellectual humility. In his continuing search for answers, he posts his tentative conclusions and accumulating evidence online, and he welcomes other researchers’ evidence and criticism. He writes, I am not unbiased. I came to the conclusion that there is a link, and I said so in my book (The Coddling of the American Mind, with Greg Lukianoff). . . . Like all people, I suffer from confirmation bias. [Thus] I need help from critics to improve my thinking and get closer to the truth. If you are a researcher and would like to notify me about other studies, or add comments or counterpoints to this document, please request edit access to the Google Doc, or contact me directly.   In our college and AP psychology texts, Nathan DeWall and I commend “a scientific attitude that combines curiosity, skepticism, and humility.” We note that, when combined with the scientific method, the result is a self-correcting road toward truth. By embracing this spirit, Haidt exemplifies psychological science at its best—exploring an important question by all available methods . . . drawing initial conclusions . . . yet holding them tentatively, while welcoming skeptical scrutiny and further evidence. As he mused (when I shared a draft of this essay), “It is amazing how much I have learned, and refined my views, just by asking people to make me smarter.”   How true for us all. The pack is greater than the wolf.  (For David Myers’ other essays on psychological science and everyday life, visit TalkPsych.com.) ... View more

With so many trillions of daily happenings, some weird and wonderful events are inevitable—random serendipities that we could never predict in foresight but can savor in hindsight. From sports to relationships to our very existence, chance rules.   Sports. I defy you to watch this 7-second basketball clip (of a “double doinked” basketball fan) and not smile (or cringe). Freakish events are commonplace in baseball and basketball—as in astonishing hot and cold hitting and shooting streaks. Even when such streaks approximate mere random sequences, they hardly seem random to fans. That’s because random data are streakier than folks assume. (Coin tosses, too, have more runs of heads and of tails than people expect.) And thus is born the sporting world’s preeminent myth—the “hot hand” (see here and here). Chance encounters. Albert Bandura has documented the lasting significance of chance events that deflect our life course into an unanticipated relationship or career. He recalls the book editor who came to one of his lectures on the “Psychology of Chance Encounters and Life Paths”—and ended up marrying the woman he chanced to sit beside. In 1978, I was invited to a five-day conference in Germany, where I came to know a more senior American colleague who chanced to have an adjacent assigned seat. Six months later, when he was invited to become a social psychology textbook author, he referred an acquisitions editor to me, which led to my writing of textbooks and eventually these TalkPsych.com essays. So, thanks to this happenstance seating assignment (and to the kindness of my distinguished colleague), I gained a meaning-filled new vocation . . . and now you are reading this. Recently I was stranded on a rainy Cambridge, Massachusetts, sidewalk, waiting for a lost Lyft driver. That mix-up led to my sharing a ride with University of California at Santa Barbara professor Ann Taves. Making small talk, I asked her about the California fires, noting that I have a friend whose department at Westmont College (in Santa Barbara) was burned in wildfires some years ago. “Who’s your friend?” she asked. “Ray Paloutzian,” I said. Her reply: “I'm married to him!” But then it got weirder. She said she’d heard that I had a Seattle connection. I told her about family there and mentioned we now own a home in the area. “Where is that?” she asked. When I said Bainbridge Island, she looked a little stunned and said, “Where on Bainbridge?” I explained that it was on a beach called “Yeomalt,” one point north of where the ferry docks. Her mouth dropped open. “You're that David Myers?!”  Wonder of wonders, her uncle was also named David Myers, and she spent time over many summers with Uncle David in our little neighborhood—meaning we surely had crossed paths multiple times. She knew all about the other Yeomalt Myers . . . and her uncle’s name doppelganger. I recalled for her the many times that her uncle and I would row past each other while salmon fishing in the early morning . . . with Dave Myers exchanging a friendly wave with Dave Myers. (That always did feel slightly weird.) The point is not that just the world is weird, but that with so many things happening, some weirdness in our lives is to be expected, and enjoyed, be it double doinks or chance encounters that reveal the unlikeliest of connections. Some happenings are destined not to be explained, but to be savored. Our improbable lives. But surely the unlikeliest aspect of our lives is our very existence. As I explain in Psychology, 12 th edition (with Nathan DeWall), conception was “your most fortunate of moments. Among 250 million sperm, the one needed to make you, in combination with that one particular egg, won the race. And so it was for innumerable generations before us. If any one of our ancestors had been conceived with a different sperm or egg, or died before conceiving, or not chanced to meet their partner or . . . The mind boggles at the improbable, unbroken chain of events that produced us.”   From womb to tomb, chance matters. And whether you call it chance or providence, your life’s greatest blessing is surely that, against near-infinite odds, you exist.   (For David Myers’ other essays on psychological science and everyday life, visit TalkPsych.com.) ... View more

What are today’s U.S. teens feeling and doing? And how do they differ from the teens of a decade ago?   A new Pew Research Center survey of nearly a thousand 13- to 17-year-olds offers both troubling and encouraging insights (here and here).   The Grim News   Screen time vs. face-to-face time. Today’s teens spend about half their nearly six daily leisure hours looking at screens—gaming, web-surfing, socializing, or watching shows. Such activity displaces leisure time spent with others, which now averages only an hour and 13 minutes daily (16 minutes less than a decade ago).   Increased depression, self-harm, and suicide. My Social Psychology co-author, Jean Twenge, reports that teen loneliness, depression, and suicide have risen in concert with smart phones and social media use. She notes, Teens who visit social-networking sites every day but see their friends in person less frequently are the most likely to agree with the statements “A lot of times I feel lonely,” “I often feel left out of things,” and “I often wish I had more good friends.” Indeed, reports Pew, 3 in 10 teens says they feel tense or nervous every or almost every day, and 7 in 10 see anxiety and depression as major problems among their peers. Other studies confirm that teen happiness and self-esteem have declined, while teen depression, self-harm, and suicide have risen.   The Good News   Sleeping more. The teens’ time diaries found them sleeping just over 9 hours per night (and 11 hours on weekends). Although other studies have found teens more sleep-deprived, these teens reported sleeping 22 minutes more per night than their decade-ago counterparts.   Doing more homework. Teens also are spending more time—16 minutes more per day—on homework, which now averages an hour a day. The increased sleep and homework time is enabled partly by 26 fewer minutes per day in paid employment—fewer teenagers today have jobs.   Minimal pressure for self-destructive behaviors. Relatively few teens feel personally pressured to be sexually active (8 percent), to drink alcohol (6 percent), or to use drugs (4 percent)—far fewer than the 61 percent feeling pressure to get good grades.   The Gendered News   Time use. Do you find it surprising (or not) that girls, compared with boys, average 58 fewer daily minutes of screen time, spend 21 minutes more on homework, average 23 minutes more on grooming and appearance, and spend 14 minutes more on helping around the house?   Emotions. Girls (36 percent) are also more likely than boys (23 percent) to report feeling anxious or depressed every or almost every day. But they are more likely each day to feel excited about something studied in school (33 vs. 21 percent). And they are more likely to say they never get in trouble at school (48 vs. 33 percent).   Aspirations. Girls are more likely than boys (68 vs. 51 percent) to aspire to attending a four-year college. And they are less materialistic than boys—with 41 percent of girls and 61 percent of boys reporting that it will be very important to have a lot of money when they grow up.    To sum up, (1) aspects of teen time use and emotions have changed, sometimes significantly. (2) Gender differences persist, though the differences are not static. (3) In this modern media age, adolescence—the years that teens spend morphing from child to adult—come with new temptations, which increase some dangers and decrease others.   What endures is teens’ need to navigate turbulent waters en route to independence and identity, while sustaining the social connections that will support their flourishing. (For David Myers’ other essays on psychological science and everyday life visit TalkPsych.com) ... View more

Time and again I am struck by two robust social science findings.   The first, to which social conservatives nod their appreciation, concerns the benefits of successful marriages—which are a substantial predictor of health, longevity, personal happiness, and the well-being of children. An example: As I documented here, U.S. Child Health Surveys have shown that children living with two parents have been half as likely as those living with a never or formerly married mother to have been suspended or expelled from school—even after controlling for variations in race, family size, and parental education and income. To be sure, most single-parented children thrive, and many co-parented children are dysfunctional. Yet show me a place where nearly all children are co-parented by two adults enduringly committed to each other and their children and I will show you a place with relatively low rates of psychological disorder and social pathology. Marriage matters.   The second, to which progressives nod their appreciation, is that economic inequality is socially toxic. Places with great inequality have more social pathology—higher rates of crime, anxiety, obesity, and drug use, and lower life expectancy and happiness (see here and here).  Show me a place with great inequality and I will show you a place with a comparatively depressed and dissatisfied populace. Disparity dispirits.   Moreover, argues John Hopkins University sociology chair Andrew Cherlin, there is a path between these two oft-confirmed findings: Rising income inequality contributes to family dissolution. As the gap between rich and poor has widened, unstable cohabitations and nonmarital child-bearing have dramatically increased among those with lower incomes—or where men have dim job prospects. In deteriorating job markets, marriage wanes and families become less stable. Moreover, for working single parents, affordable quality child care may be out of reach.   Ergo, doesn’t it follow that those who support marriage and stable co-parenting (a typically conservative value) should also be economic progressives—concerned about reducing inequality and poverty? To envision a culture that welcomes children into families with two or more people who love them is to envision an economic environment that nurtures secure families.   What do you think: Might this vision of a family-supportive just economy be a meeting place between conservatism and progressivism? And might it be a basis for depolarizing our politics and unifying our aspirations?   A glimmer of hope: After writing this essay, I learned of Fox News’ conservative voice, Tucker Carlson, recent lament that “families are being crushed by market forces” . . . to which Dean Baker of the progressive Center for Economic and Policy Research replied: “It’s a bit scary to me how much of this I agree with.”   (For David Myers’ other essays on psychological science and everyday life visit TalkPsych.com.) ... View more

This  www.TalkPsych.com entry offers three news flashes—samples of research that have captured my attention (and may wend their way into future textbook editions).   NEWS FLASH # 1:Intergroup contact makes us “less inward looking and more open to experiences.” As any social psychology student knows, friendly contact with other sorts of folks engenders positive attitudes. For example, as an earlier TalkPsych essay documented, regions with more immigrants have more welcoming, positive attitudes toward immigrants. Places without immigrants fear them the most.   But intergroup contact does more than improve our attitudes toward others. Research by Brock University psychologist Gordon Hodson and his British colleagues reveals that intergroup contact  affects our thinking—it loosens us up, promoting cognitive flexibility, novel problem solving, and increased creativity. This observation complements earlier research that demonstrated, after controlling for other factors, that students who studied in another culture became more flexibly adept at creative problem solving (see here and here).   NEWS FLASH # 2: More than we suppose, other people like us. Do you sometimes worry that people you’ve just met don’t like you very much? Actually, recent studies by Cornell University researcher Erica Boothby and her colleagues found that people rate new conversational partners as more enjoyable and likeable than the new partner presumes. Despite our shared self-serving bias (the  tendency to overestimate our own knowledge, abilities, and virtues), we tend to underestimate the impressions we make on others. Moreover, the shyer the person, the bigger the liking gap—the underestimate of others’ liking of us.   Ergo, the next time you fret over whether you were too quiet, too chatty, or too wrinkled and rumpled, be reassured: Others probably liked you more than you realize.   NEWS FLASH # 3: The youngest children in a school class are more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD. The current psychiatric disorder manual broadens the criteria for diagnosing attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), thus increasing the number of children so diagnosed. Some say the diagnosis enables helpful treatment and improved functioning. Skeptics say the broadened criteria pathologize immature rambunctiousness, especially among boys—whom evolution has not designed to sit passively at school desks.   Support for the skeptics comes from a New England Journal of Medicine study that followed 407,846 U.S. children from birth to elementary school. ADHD diagnoses were a stunning 34 percent higher among those born in August in states with a September 1 cutoff for school entry—but not higher among children in states with other cutoff dates. This massive study confirms earlier reports (here and here) that the youngest children in a class tend to be more fidgety—and more often diagnosed with ADHD—than their older peers.   Such findings illustrate why I feel privileged to be gifted with the time, and the responsibility, to learn something new most every day. For me, the primary job of writing is not making words march up a screen, but reading and reading, searching for insights—for gems amid the rocks—that educated people should know about. (For David Myers’ other essays on psychological science and everyday life visit www.TalkPsych.com.) ... View more

Recent U.S. school shootings outraged the nation and produced calls for action. One response, from the International Society for Research on Aggression, was the formation of a Youth Violence Commission, composed of 16 experts led by Ohio State social psychologist Brad Bushman. Their task: To identify factors that do, and do not, predict youth violence—behavior committed by a 15- to 20-year old that’s intended to cause unwanted harm. Hélène Desplechin/Moment/Getty Images The Commission has just released its final report, which it has shared with President Trump, Vice President Pence, Education Secretary DeVos, and all governors, senators, and congressional representatives.   The Commission first notes big differences between highly publicized mass shootings (rare, occurring mostly in smaller towns and suburbs, using varied legal guns) and street shootings (more common, concentrated in inner cities, using illegal handguns).  It then addresses the factors that do and do not predict youth violence.   RISK FACTORS THAT PREDICT YOUTH VIOLENCE   Personal Factors: Gender—related to male biology and masculinity norms. Early childhood aggressive behavior—past behavior predicts future behavior. Personality—low anger control, often manifested in four “dark” personality traits: narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and sadism. Obsessions with weapons or death.   Environmental Factors: Easy access to guns. Social exclusion and isolation—sometimes including being bullied. Family and neighborhood—family separation, child maltreatment, neighborhood violence. Media violence—a link “found in every country where studies have been conducted.” School characteristics—with large class sizes contributing to social isolation. Substance use—a factor in street shootings but not school shootings. Stressful events—including frustration, provocation, and heat.   FACTORS THAT DO NOT PREDICT YOUTH VIOLENCE   The commission found that the following do not substantially predict youth violence: Mental health problems—most people with mental illness are not violent, and most violent people are not mentally ill (with substance abuse and psychotic delusions being exceptions). Low self-esteem—people prone to violence actually tend to have inflated or narcissistic self-esteem. Armed teachers—more guns = more risk, and they send a message that schools are unsafe.   The concluding good news is that training programs can increase youth self-control, enhance empathy and conflict resolution, and reduce delinquency. Moreover, mass media could help by reducing attention to shootings, thereby minimizing the opportunity for modeling and social scripts that such portrayals provide to at-risk youth. ... View more

For us college basketball enthusiasts, March Madness is here! As their fan, I was delighted when my college’s men’s and women’s teams progress through the NCAA Division III tournament‘s first two rounds to the “Sweet 16.” Alas, both Hope College teams then saw seeming victories snatched in the final seconds by the jaws of defeat.   The disappointing results prompted some morning-after reflections on the parallels between sport and life. As stage theater reenacts the dramas of everyday life, so the sports arena offers a microcosm of life itself.   Identity. As social animals, we live in groups, cheer on our groups, sacrifice for our groups. Our groups help define who we are, and who we are not. Our ancestors, knowing that there was sustenance and safety in solidarity, divided the world into “us” and “them,” reserving their most intense rivalry for those “others” closest at hand. As Freud observed, “Of two neighboring towns, each is the other’s most jealous rival.” The pleasures and passions of sport express our group identities.   Grit. Disciplined effort + a belief in one’s possibilities = excellence. Whether a point guard or a pianist, preparation seasoned with inspiration prepares one for the big stage moment. Persist in striving for excellence, without being derailed by setbacks, and we may achieve great things.   Mistakes. Yet, no matter the effort and the excellence, mistakes will happen. No one—no athlete, no musician, no business person—is perfect. Our aim in life can never be flawlessness, but rather having our good judgments vastly exceed our missteps.   Chance. After thousands of hours of preparation, a single shot that rattles in or out, a rebound that caroms to one’s teammate or the opponent, proves decisive. And so in life. Two intersecting cars meet at the same freakish moment and a life is snuffed. Two people arbitrarily cross paths, and a lifelong partnership forms.   Possibilities. In sport and in life, the possibility of a bad outcome makes a good outcome more gratifying. The darkness of night defines the light of day. Experiencing sickness helps us appreciate health. The pain of separation enables the joy of reunion. There is little pleasure in good endings apart from the ever-present possibility of the bad.   Death. College seniors on 63 of 64 teams entering the NCAA basketball tournaments will find their sporting lives ending in defeat, the death of their dreams. And so in life, which always ends in death.   Hope. Even so, many of us live with hope that on death’s other side is a new beginning. For the returning athletes and their fans there is next year. And for the senior athletes, there is a developed capacity for self-discipline and teamwork that—applied to new life goals—will take them to new and bigger life successes. ... View more