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Our editorial team digs deep to present you with facts that matter, providing a unique perspective on the issues shaping our world. Meanwhile, our designers format it for you into a beautifully curated layout. We hope you enjoy it. | | The Silent Epidemic Eating Away Americans' Mind | A sudden, unprecedented change in mental disorders has scientists worried about what it could mean. | (Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock) | By Marina Zhang | January 16, 2024 Updated: January 19, 2024 Billy was a bright 10-year-old boy with two Ivy-League-educated parents. He was book smart—got straight A's in school—but lacked street smarts. He was also a poor sport. Billy would frequently lie and cheat when playing board games or participating in team activities and have full-blown meltdowns when he lost. His friends, who had been with him since kindergarten, began losing patience. His parents recognized that something had to be done. So Billy's parents brought him to Dr. Victoria Dunckley, a pediatric psychiatrist specializing in screen use. After a four-week "screen fast" prescribed by Dr. Dunckley, which eliminated all TVs, phones, and video games, Billy's problems miraculously cleared up. His parents were so pleased that they decided to maintain the fast. Six months passed, and Billy's friends were no longer avoiding him, and his sportsmanship had improved markedly. Billy decided to run for class president and delivered a speech, something that would have previously terrified him. Billy is one of Dr. Dunckley's many patients whose mental and behavioral problems disappeared once they eliminated or significantly reduced screen time. Excessive use of screens has become an epidemic silently eroding lives with little resistance. Gallup's 2012 survey found that around 60 percent of young adults admit to spending too much of their time on the internet; a subsequent survey estimated that 83 percent of smartphone users say they keep their phone near them "almost all the time during their waking hours." Screens can overstimulate our brains, resulting in a perpetual, highly stressed, fight-or-flight state. This then makes us prone to meltdowns, depression, and anxiety when even minor changes in the environment occur. Rising Problem The initial link between screen time and poor mental health was spotted through generational studies by Jean Twenge, who has a doctorate in psychology and is a professor of psychology at San Diego State University. "I got used to changes that would grow slowly and steadily over time," but then after 2010, "I started to see some changes that were much more sudden—I had really never seen anything like it," Ms. Twenge said in a TEDx talk. | Around 2010, social media and internet use saw a dramatic increase, followed by an increase in major depression. (The Epoch Times) | Between 2005 and 2012, the change in rates of depressive episodes in teens aged 12 to 17 barely exceeded 1 percent. However, between 2012 and 2017, there was an almost 4 percent increase. In 2008, psychotherapist Tom Kersting, who worked as a school counselor for 25 years, saw a rise in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnoses in children over age 8. ADHD tends to be detected in early childhood after a child starts school. However, he has witnessed increasingly delayed diagnoses in teenagers and adults. While it could be possible that some of these teens were missed by clinicians when they were young, Mr. Kersting suspects that some developed symptoms of ADHD due to screen use... | Subscribe to The Epoch Times to read the rest. Become a paying subscriber of The Epoch Times to get access to
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