In fact, lots of self-reported teen behaviors are moving in a positive direction.
The first fallacy is that we can chalk this all up to teens behaving badly. But before I start with that, I want to squash a few tempting fallacies. I want to propose several answers to that question, along with one meta-explanation that ties them together.
Since 2009, sadness and hopelessness have increased for every race for straight teens and gay teens for teens who say they’ve never had sex and for those who say they’ve had sex with males and/or females for students in each year of high school and for teens in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Credit: Derek Thompson, The Atlantic data from the CDC.īut the big picture is the same across all categories: Almost every measure of mental health is getting worse, for every teenage demographic, and it’s happening all across the country.
