Those who agree that teenage wellbeing had declined over the past decade pointed to several pieces of evidence. In particular, evidence of declines in youth mental health across multiple countries were highlighted. Wenceslao Unanue cited the work of Twenge (2020) showing that rates of depression, self-harm, and suicide attempts increased substantially among U.S. adolescents between 2011 and 2018 while nationally representative surveys of US teenagers show reductions in psychological well-being (self-esteem, life satisfaction, and happiness) after 2012 (Twenge et al., 2018). Maurizio Pugno references earlier work of Twenge indicating declines in mental health of US teenagers and he pointed also to the work of Ruch et al. (2019) showing an increased suicide rate of US adolescents since 2007. He references international evidence from the PISA surveys (OECD, 2017) which show a reduction in teenage students’ sense of belonging to the school community, which is correlated with life satisfaction.

Martin Binder points to evidence in the 2015 World Happiness Report in which Layard and Hagell (2015) state: “Around 10% of the world’s children today are suffering from diagnosable mental health problems.  Roughly half of these are suffering from anxiety disorders (or, less commonly, depression) and a half from conduct disorder or attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Approximately 1% of all children suffer from developmental disorders such as autism. Where evidence exists over time, it shows that these problems have increased over the last half century.”

Arthur Grimes reported results from New Zealand’s Youth 2000 series of surveys which document a doubling in the proportion of high school students reporting significant symptoms of depression between 2012 and 2019 (to 23 percent). The survey also shows an increase in suicide attempts through this period. 

From Australia, Mark Wooden reports that teenage wellbeing (using HILDA survey data) had declined based on the 5-item mental health subscale of the SF36, but no such decline was seen in overall life satisfaction. Tony Beatton also uses the HILDA data to show that life satisfaction trended upwards for both female and male 15-19 year olds through to 2012; while volatility is evident, life satisfaction of males has since levelled off while it has declined slightly for females.

Rainer Winkelman provides a further contradictory piece of evidence using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel. The data show that average life-satisfaction of those aged 17-19 has increased steadily between 2006 and 2018, from around 7.2 to around 7.7; the change is statistically significant. 

Similarly, Maurizio Pugno notes that Twenge et al. (2015) find an increasing trend of happiness and satisfaction across different domains by US teenagers over 1990-2014.

A number of respondents noted differences between male and female teenagers with respect to wellbeing trends and levels, again with some contradictory evidence across countries. For instance, Wenceslao Unanue cites a recent WHO report which finds that mental health and life satisfaction is higher among male than female teenagers (WHO, 2020). 

Similarly, the New Zealand evidence is that mental ill-health symptoms are higher among female students (Fleming et al., 2019). In Australia, Tony Beatton reports that, for 15-19 year olds, life satisfaction is higher for males than females. Looking over an extended time period (between the 1983 and 2003 birth cohorts), however, male life satisfaction has increased by 0.967 points relative to an increase of just 0.076 for females. 

In their discussion, respondents suggested reasons for changes in teenage wellbeing over recent decades. The reasons include: 1) lower material wellbeing (Nick Powdthavee noted that teenagers might end up being poorer than their parents, while Leonardo Bechetti posited that “division of the cake is too much in favour of the elders”); 2) greater uncertainty, including job insecurity and insecurity about climate change and covid (Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell); 3) difficulties caused by greater social comparisons especially through the use of social media (Nick Powdthavee, Christian Krekel, Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell, though the latter notes that effects of social media use may depend on whether the use is active or passive); 4) greater school pressures (Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell); and 5) a conjecture that pressures caused by greater choice of societal roles may be impacting on female wellbeing (Christian Krekel). Arthur Grimes noted that the New Zealand survey of youth (Fleming et al, 2020) concluded: “no single cause is responsible for this increase in distress. Important factors are increased social media, increased loneliness, the impact of poverty, discrimination, or harmful environments, social pressures and the impact of serious worries about the future – from climate change to jobs and housing security.”  

Those who were neutral on the first statement (for instance, Bruno Frey) stated that there was not enough evidence to support a systematic decline in wellbeing. People who disagreed with the statement suggested reasons why wellbeing had not declined including improved societal and family connectedness, less bullying and improvements in healthy living habits (Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell).

Responses to the second question centred mostly around two, potentially related, topics. The first is consistent evidence of increased mental health distress of teenagers, even in countries in which teenage subjective wellbeing has not declined (Nick Powdthavee, Stephen Wu, Mark Wooden, Martin Binder). References noted by respondents include: Bor et al. (2014) and WHO (2020).

The second topic relates to impacts of screen and social media use (Maurizio Pugno, Martin Binder, Wenceslao Unanue, Mark Wooden). Effects include cyber-bullying, increased polarisation of discourse, social comparisons and reduced face-to-face interactions with others. Rainer Winkelman noted the Alcott (2020) study in the American Economic Review which found, using a randomized experiment, that deactivating Facebook increased subjective wellbeing. Other references cited by respondents include: Hasebrink (2009), Przybylski and Weinstein (2017), Twenge et al. (2018) and Twenge (2020).

Other issues noted by respondents in relation to the second question include worsening labour market factors and job conditions (Leonardo Bechetti, Maurizio Pugno) and greater inequality (Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell, Maurizio Pugno).

Respondents who noted a paucity of systematic cross-country evidence on reasons behind declines in teenage mental health and/or subjective wellbeing included Arthur Grimes, Bruno Frey, Wenceslao Unanue and Tony Beatton. Other respondents emphasised the need for greater systematic and causal research into reasons for changes in teenage wellbeing and/or mental health (Tony Beatton, Arthur Grimes) including reasons why declines in mental health are not necessarily associated with declines in subjective wellbeing (Mark Wooden). Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell noted that attention in future research should concentrate on looking at distributions of outcomes and interactions between different groups (e.g. by age interacted with sex) rather than simply concentrating on averages. This observation is substantiated with reference to the recent report on children and youth wellbeing by the UK Department for Education (2019).

Multiple respondents called for the need to conduct research from which causal, rather than just correlative, conclusions can be drawn. The call for further (causal) research was perhaps best summed up by Christian Krekel: “[T]eenager wellbeing has not featured high on the research or policy agenda, at least not as much as it should have … we only have correlative evidence, not "clear" (i.e. causal) evidence, which is difficult to obtain because trends in teenager wellbeing coincide with many other, simultaneous trends over long periods of time (for example, social media usage, changes in school curricula, cyberbullying, and so on). It is thus difficult to single out a dominant, causal factor.” 

This call presents a challenge to wellbeing researchers to initiate studies that can establish factors that affect teenage mental health and/or wellbeing outcomes. The time has come to design causal rather than just associative studies in this field. 

References

1. Allcott, Hunt, Luca Braghieri, Sarah Eichmeyer, and Matthew Gentzkow. (2020). "The Welfare Effects of Social Media." American Economic Review, 110 (3): 629-76.
2. Bor, W., Dean, A. J., Najman, J., & Hayatbakhsh, R. (2014). Are child and adolescent mental health problems increasing in the 21st century? A systematic review. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 48(7), 606-616.
3. Department for Education (2019). State of the Nation 2019: Children and Young Person’s Wellbeing. London. [download pdf]
4. Fleming, T., Tiatia-Seath, J., Peiris-John, R., Sutcliffe, K., Archer, D., Bavin, L., Crengle, S., & Clark, T. (2020). Youth19 Rangatahi Smart Survey, Initial Findings: Hauora Hinengaro / Emotional and Mental Health. The Youth19 Research Group, The University of Auckland and Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.
5. Hasebrink, U., Livingstone, S., Haddon, L. and Ólafsson, K. (2009). Comparing children’s online opportunities and risks across Europe: Cross-national comparisons for EU Kids Online. LSE, London: EU Kids Online
6. Layard. R., Hagell, A. (2015). Healthy Young Minds: Transforming The Mental Health Of Children. In: Helliwell, Layard and Sachs (eds.) World Happiness Report, pp.106-130.
7. OECD (2017). PISA 2015 Results. Students’ Well-being. Vol. III. OECD Publishing: Paris.
8. Przybylski, A.K., Weinstein, N. (2017). A large-scale test of the goldilocks hypothesis. Psychological Science 28:2014-15.
9. Ruch, D.A., Sheftall, A.H., Schlagbaum, P., Rausch, J., et al. (2019). Trends in suicide among youth aged 10 to 19 years in the US, 1975 to 2016. JAMA Network Open, (5):e193886.
10. Twenge, J.M. (2015). Time period and birth cohort differences in depressive symptoms in the U.S., 1982-2013. Social Indicators Research, 121:437-454
11. Twenge, J. M. (2020). Why increases in adolescent depression may be linked to the technological environment. Current Opinion in Psychology, 32, 89-94.
12. Twenge, J. M., Martin, G. N., & Campbell, W. K. (2018). Decreases in psychological well-being among American adolescents after 2012 and links to screen time during the rise of smartphone technology. Emotion, 18(6), 765.
13. WHO (2020). Spotlight on adolescent health and well-being. Findings from the 2017/2018 health behavior in school-aged children (HSBC) survey in Europe and Canada International report. [download pdf]