On a recent Thursday morning, she opened the ‘For You' page on the app and lingered over the first video that popped up: a clip of a young woman joking about wanting to cut herself.

Dykes (pictured) swiped her thumb and watched another similarly gloomy post, and then another.

She kept scrolling, and the videos kept coming — a seemingly endless stream of depressed and distressed young women venting about how lonely and worthless they felt.

Dykes, a 20-year-old university student in Wellington, has watched so much of this kind of negative mental illness-related content on social media in the past decade that she is to some extent desensitised to its emotional impact.

But as she scrolled, she couldn't help despairing.

"I just feel angry," she says.

"A whole generation of kids is being raised on this content."

Dykes has a complicated history with social media.

A decade ago, as an adolescent in Auckland, she began experiencing what she describes as a mild case of depression.

In her recollection, Dykes was a slightly awkward child who didn't have a lot of friends and struggled to fit in at school.

She went online and found some "very intense" material relating to depression.

Dykes says her parents put few restrictions on her internet use and didn't realise what she was looking at.

Some of the material she found was very explicit, but she was drawn to it.

On Google Plus (an early competitor to Facebook that is now defunct), she first came across references to self-harm.

Within a year, Dykes says she was regularly self-harming and having suicidal thoughts.

It took Dykes years to get over these experiences; in some ways, she is still dealing with them.

Looking back now, she says her depression would not have become as bad or lasted as long as it did, or she may not have started self-harming, had she not fallen into those dark corners of the web.

"It was so much harder to get out of it after becoming stuck in that space," she says.

Rising rates of distress

In the past dozen or so years, rates of anxiety, depression, self-harm, and other mental health conditions have increased sharply among adolescents in New Zealand and other high-income countries.

At the same time, the amount of material dedicated to these problems on social media has exploded.

A generation of youngsters who have never known the world without smartphones or the internet turned to social platforms for information and advice about mental health conditions and treatments, to seek validation and support from others with similar experiences and to express their anguish.

In many ways this has been beneficial, raising awareness of the importance of mental wellbeing, encouraging people to seek help and inspiring recovery.

But there is also an astonishing amount of material on social platforms that users, researchers and clinicians say is potentially harmful to vulnerable adolescents — spreading misinformation about mental health conditions, encouraging self-destructive behaviour and trapping users in a spiral of hopelessness.

As part of a major investigation into the state of mental health in New Zealand, the Herald has spent months interviewing young people who have been immersed in this content, parents, clinicians, researchers, health officials, regulators, and others; reviewed dozens of academic studies on the subject; and examined thousands of posts on several platforms.

Last month, NZ Herald reported on a network of young women with severe mental illnesses who used private accounts on Instagram to share intimate details about self-harm episodes, hospital admissions and suicide attempts.

Three of those young women died by suspected suicide in 2019, prompting an ongoing inquiry by the Coroner's office.

But while concerns remain about Instagram, serious questions have also been raised about the impact of TikTok, its Chinese-owned competitor (TikTok is controlled by a company called ByteDance).

It commands a growing share of young people's attention and has become, for many teens, the primary platform for viewing and sharing information about mental health.

"I think TikTok has completely changed the game," Dykes says.

An internet juggernaut

It is hard to overstate the influence that TikTok, in just a few years, has had on how teens communicate and entertain themselves.

Based on a lively, easy-to-use app that showcases short, looping, often humorous videos made with catchy audio clips and visual effects, TikTok makes it possible for users to reach vast audiences with minimal effort.

Billions of homemade videos have been uploaded to the platform on a dizzying range of topics, spawning countless memes and a new generation of influencers.

Its most compelling feature is a powerful, algorithm-driven recommendation engine that quickly discerns a user's interests and uses this to populate a personalised stream of videos.

Without even looking for something to watch, a user can stay glued to the app for hours and see dozens, if not hundreds, of clips in that time. Continue reading

Where to find help and support:

• Anxiety New Zealand 0800 ANXIETY (0800 269 4389)
• Depression Helpline - 0800 111 757
• Lifeline - 0800 543 354 or (09) 5222 999 within Auckland
• Mental Health Foundation 09 623 4812
• Need to Talk? - Call or text 1737
• Rural Support Trust 0800 787 254
• Samaritans - 0800 726 666
• Shakti Community Council - 0800 742 584
• Shine (domestic violence) - 0508 744 633
• Suicide Crisis Helpline - 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO)
• thelowdown.co.nz Web chat, email chat or free text 5626
• What's Up - 0800 WHATS UP (0800 942 8787)
• Women's Refuge - 0800 733 843 (0800 REFUGE)
• Yellow Brick Road 0800 732 825
• Youthline - 0800 376 633, text 234, email talk@youthline.co.nz or online chat

But for your teen, he/she is experiencing this suffering which means these are emotions being felt very likely for the first time (part of adolescent development).

They are overwhelming emotions. Your teen is scared. Your teen doesn't have the words to express how he/she feels. Your teen doesn't know if the suffering will ever end. Your teen wonders— and is really scared — if they will never be normal again.

This hurts you so much. You want to speed through the process. You want to divert out of the process. You want to numb this pain for your teen. You mostly want to speak words and make it all go away.

Here is your hope, parent. It is in the suffering your teen will find their identity, especially their identity as loved personally by God. Pain is your teen beginning to finding out who they are. The Jesus your teen meets in the suffering is the type of faith your teen will take into adulthood.

Other identity-forming factors for teens are school; classes they excel at; sports they excel at; extracurricular groups they discover a passion for; friends they surround themselves with.

All of these are "liquid" and constantly changing, hence your teen's identity is continually changing.

This has always been a part of adolescent development. And why these teen years cause parents so much fear. Why youth pastors grieve in prayer so much because the identity of who they see at youth group is more often not the identity of who goes to high school.

The internet creates a whole other possibility of identity formation. There are now filtered identities and faux identities. All swirling together inside your teen who is secretly fearing that they will never figure life out and never find their place in this world.

Suffering actually offers a rootedness to all of this swirling.

It is in the suffering that one can see the constancy of Jesus. This is even more true in these wonderful and vulnerable teen years.

Their adult minds haven't rationalized Jesus away yet (like you did at one time?). Their new emotions of hope and possibility are drawn to the personal bigness of Jesus.

Teens are particularly drawn to the big truth that Jesus is with us in the suffering.

No other religion has that message.

The true God does not abandon us, ask us to strive more, or sends us on a quest. Jesus' compelling story is one of love and self-sacrifice. Jesus promises, "No, I will not abandon you as orphans — I will come to you" (John 14:18). This speaks. So many of Jesus' promises speak to that fear-filled-yet-won't-talk-about-it soul of the teenager.

(Side note: The small Jesus of many youth ministry teachings — aka Jesus is your best friend or Jesus loves everyone always — is not the same as the big Jesus whose call to us involves commitment, self-sacrifice, and leaving something behind.)

Those teens who have been challenged to dig in and know Jesus because they have actually read the Gospels for themselves know that Jesus doesn't abandon them.

The rah-rah-ness of a youth group does not provide this. Being segregated by age leaves them all together lost and not brave enough to ask their fear-sourced questions. They are all lost together while trying to figure out their peer relationships. Figuring out their peer relationships is emotionally consuming enough.

Those teens who have relationships with wise adults in their church also learn how Jesus doesn't abandon them. In a church family, there are people who are safe for teens to ask their secret questions to.

Wise people who won't think their questions are stupid, silly, faith-shocking, or frivolous.

Wise people who can put words to their fears. Fears which are often misunderstandings but teens don't know that yet until they get adult wisdom to help them understand.

These are also adults from whom teens can see live real faith. Real live faith that has worked in real life and has stood the test of time. These wise adults are not afraid to enter into a teen's suffering.

These wise adults already know how temporary suffering is.

How pain is the beginning of growth. Intentional intergenerational ministry plans provide a path.

The bonus for the wise adults is that even when your beloved teen moves in their early 20s and is questioning everything, they will remember these wise adults from your church.

And maybe reach out to them. (The youth pastor is probably temporary and already moved on.) You don't forget the adults who gave you the words that quelled the anxiety that overwhelmed you in adolescence.

The truth is this suffering is temporary.

Pain is the beginning.

God has hard-wired us for pain.

Your teen doesn't know this. Yet.

When they do understand this, faith becomes a part of their identity.

At the end of Job's disaster, he said, "I had only heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes" (Job 42:5).

Pain does have a way of showing us God in all truth.

This is why pain is our beginning.

I have never been able to unsee God's faithfulness to me in each painful season I've been in. And I've always made it through. I've always grown through it to find the beauty.

I wish as parents we could "kiss suffering and make it go away." I wish God would just protect our innocents from suffering. But life.

So parents, trust the God who promises with the pain your teen feels. Follow the holy tension and something holy will happen, such as your teen grows into someone who blesses this world.

• Brenda Seefeldt has served as a youth pastor for 39 years.
• First published in The Christian Post. Republished with permission.

Yet, that describes Chiara Badano, an 18-year old soon-to-be canonized saint.

Badano was born on October 29, 1971, in a small village in Italy. She had a loving family and clung to her Catholic faith from an early age.

Her generosity toward the less fortunate was already evident at age 4 when Badano would give away her toys to poor children and eagerly visited the nursing home to comfort the elderly.

At 9 years old she joined a youth group associated with the Catholic lay Focolare movement and was an avid disciple of their spirituality.

As she grew older and entered high school, Badano was a popular girl in her class with lots of friends. She frequently played sports, sang, danced and stayed out late with friends.

From the outside, she was just an ordinary teenager who loved to have fun.

Then at age 17 Badano felt a sharp pain in her shoulder that was eventually diagnosed as an aggressive bone cancer called osteosarcoma.

It spread quickly and she was soon paralyzed, with the likely chance that she would die.

In the midst of the pain Badano possessed a supernatural joy and instead of seeing it as a curse, offered it all as a sacrifice to God.

She continually said, "For you, Jesus, if you want it, I want it too!"

Badano refused morphine, saying, "It reduces my lucidity, and there's only one thing I can do now: to offer my suffering to Jesus because I want to share as much as possible in his suffering on the cross."

Many of her friends visited her in the hospital and said about the experience, "At first we thought we would visit Chiara Luce to keep her spirits up, however, we soon realized that in fact, we were the ones who needed her.

"Her life was like a magnet drawing us towards her." One of the doctors said about her, "Through her smile, and through her eyes full of light, she showed us that death doesn't exist; only life exists." Continue reading

Sources

• Aleteia
• Image: Mail Online

They drive at high speeds.

They stand around outside loud parties and smoke weed in front of the cops.

They guzzle liquor. They insult their parents - or lie to them - and feel no remorse, because, of course, their parents are idiots.

It is easy to blame peer pressure or wilfulness, but scientific studies suggest that at least some of this out-there behaviour has a physiological tie-in: brain mapping technologies show that the average teenager's brain looks slightly different from an adult's.

The biggest differences lie in the prefrontal cortex - a part of the brain associated with reasoning - and in the networks of brain cells that link the cortex to regions of the brain that are less about reasoning and thinking and more about emotion.

Using such tools as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron emission tomography (PET), scientists have peered into teen brains and found that typically, until a person hits his early to mid-20s, his prefrontal cortex is still rapidly changing.

So are the cell endings and chemical connections that link the cortex to parts of the brain associated with gut impulses.

When people are around 15 or 16 years old, many brain cells in the cortex die off while others are created, and new connections form among them.

A lot of the basic cognitive abilities - advanced reasoning, abstract thinking, self-consciousness - rapidly expand during this time, says Laurence Steinberg, a Temple University psychology professor.

"The connections within the brain don't fully branch out until age 22 or so.

"The kinds of capabilities that connectivity contributes to - emotion regulation and impulse control - probably plateau in the early to mid-20s." Continue reading

Sources

• The Guardian
• Image: Stuff

First I should be late, irked that they never told me London was so big.

Then, looking for my pad and pen, I ought to throw a hissy fit because I've lost my bag (the new one they bought me for my birthday).

Then, as they begin talking about their exciting new book Teenagers Translated, I should be texting friends under the table while picking the icing off Janey's carrot cake.

If she looks annoyed, I ought to say, "I am listening," and roll my eyes.

At the end I would need to sign off with a casual "Nice story, bro," and ask for a lift to a friend's house.

Finally, when starting this article last thing at night and realising I haven't listened to a word they've said, I'd need to sidle up to either of them brushing their teeth and demand they help me.

If the answer is "no", I should stamp off screaming, "OK, fine, make me fail!"

"I think many parents recognise facets of this behaviour," says calm, reflective Grew, when I put this scenario to her.

"Our aim is to provide a tool kit for parents to deal with the tempestuous emotions of the teenage years."

Parenting classes and manuals are a big industry these days.

But Downshire and Grew's book (subtitle: How to Raise Happy Teens) stands out due to its powerful core idea: neuroscience can explain the chaotic impulses and emotions of the evolving teenage brain. Continue reading

Sources

• Essential Kids
• Image: Marillac

How to raise happy teenagers]]> 60157 https://cathnews.co.nz/2013/03/14/the-facts-about-eating-disorders/ Thu, 14 Mar 2013 02:16:33 +0000 http://cathnews.co.nz/?p=41126

Eating Disorders are among some of the most serious and challenging mental illnesses that affect our children and adolescents. Recent research suggeststhat up to 75% of adolescent girls view themselves as overweight or needing to lose weight and around a quarter of our teenagers are experimenting with dangerous dieting behaviour, such as taking laxatives and severely restricting Read more

The Arkles Bay teenager performs her Jesus Geetham Dance at the Catholic Church of Christ the King in Mt Roskill at 3pm.

The Catholic Bishop of Auckland, Bishop Patrick Dunn, will officiate this interfaith gathering honouring Nobel Laureate, the late Mother Teresa of Kolkata, India, paying tribute to her service to the poor.

This is not Michelle's first time performing for a large and distinguished audience.

More than 700 guests attended the Bharathanatya Arangetram at the Telstra Pacific Events Centre where Michelle's Jesus Geetham Dance was one of 11 performed on the night. She raised $1200 for the Hibiscus Hospice as a result.

Michelle has been learning Bharata Natyam traditional style of Indian dancing from her guru Kalaichchelvi Uthayakumaran for eight years. She also teaches the dancing style to four and five-year-olds on Saturdays.

Michelle stayed in Botany Downs to be closer to her guru, and rehearsed from 8.30am to 9pm daily in the fortnight leading up to her graduation. The Antony family prepared for 18 months prior, with Michelle's mother Maggie driving her to Botany Downs after school almost every day over the past three months so she could rehearse.

Source:

• Stuff
• Image: Stuff