Study Shows Youth Experience More Mental Health Issues
A study released by San Diego University suggests youth experience more mental health issues now than that same age group did during the great depression.
Reporter: Lauren Searcy
Email Address: lauren.searcy@wctv.tv
Students scurry to class everyday, but their backpacks aren't just filled with books and notepads.
A new study suggests anxiety, stress and depression also hang on their shoulders.
The study, released by San Diego State University, says five times as many teens, and young adults experience mental health issues than that same age group did during the great depression and students at FSU think they know why.
"I feel like kids today have a lot more stress on them because we have more pressure to succeed and to go to college, where as kids during the great depression, they had to help support their families but it's not so academic," said Stephanie Rothenberger, an FSU Psychology major.
With technology like facebook and Myspace, many teens feel their stress is shared and often multiplied by others.
"If someone's having a bad day, we'll know about it and it will stick with us rather than just having to worry about our own stress and then the privacy that other people have in their own home if they are just stressing by themselves, we now have access to those feelings as well as our own," said Steven Long, a sophomore at FSU.
However some feel the growth in mental health issues among teens is directly related to more advances in diagnostics.
"I think people are trying to seek out more help and they're trying to seek out answers to all the problems that they're facing whether it's financial or stress or educational, they're trying to get answers anywhere," added Delilah Negron, a FSU Junior.
Students did say the ability to treat mental health symptoms or stress is much more common today than it was during the 1930's and that may be why it seems mental health issues are so much more prominent.