The environment in which kids grow up today is hostile to human development.

I agree one hundred percent. Dramatic changes need to be made in the school systems and at home if we want to change our kids addiction from being on line to being outdoors, creating art and friendships in real time. 

By Jonathan Haidt
Photographs by Maggie Shannon

"Something went suddenly and horribly wrong for adolescents in the early 2010s. By now you’ve likely seen the statistics: Rates of depression and anxiety in the United States—fairly stable in the 2000s—rose by more than 50 percent in many studies from 2010 to 2019. The suicide rate rose 48 percent for adolescents ages 10 to 19. For girls ages 10 to 14, it rose131 percent.
The problem was not limited to the U.S.: Similar patterns emerged around the same time in Canada, the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, the Nordic countries, and beyond. By a variety of measures and in a variety of countries, the members of Generation Z (born in and after 1996) are suffering from anxiety, depression, self-harm, and related disorders at levels higher than any other generation for which we have data.

The decline in mental health is just one of many signs that something went awry. Loneliness and friendlessness among American teens began to surge around 2012. Academic achievement went down, too. According to “The Nation’s Report Card,” scores in reading and math began to decline for U.S. students after 2012, reversing decades of slow but generally steady increase. PISA, the major international measure of educational trends, shows that declines in math, reading, and science happened globally, also beginning in the early 2010s."

To continue to read this article:

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/03/teen-childhood-smartphone-use-mental-health-effects/677722/?utm_medium=cr&utm_source=email&utm_campaign=tta_haidt_prospects_march24_a&utm_content=A&utm_term=march24_haidt_tta_prospects

Ontario school boards sue Snapchat, TikTok and Meta for $4.5 billion, alleging they're deliberately hurting students
​By Kristin Rushowy - Queen’s Park Bureau

Thu Mar 28 05:00:00 EDT 2024
"Four Ontario school boards have launched $4.5-billion in lawsuits against social media giants Snapchat, TikTok and Meta — which owns Facebook and Instagram — accusing them of deliberately hurting students, interfering with their learning and harming their mental health, leaving educators to “manage the fallout.”
In four separate but similar cases filed Wednesday in Ontario's Superior Court of Justice, the public boards in Toronto, Peel and Ottawa and the Toronto Catholic board allege the popular social media platforms were "designed for compulsive use (and) have rewired the way children think, behave, and learn" and are calling on the companies to make improvements, say their statements of claim. 
School boards have had to bring in staff, resources and programming to mitigate the "significant impacts that these addictive platforms are having on our students," said Colleen Russell-Rawlins, director of education at the Toronto District School Board, the country's largest. 
"We're managing mental health challenges, loneliness and … discrimination — the slurs that we're seeing students use, some of that emanates from what's on social media," she added.
"We really want to raise awareness and ultimately get these companies to acknowledge and to make these things safer," added Brendan Browne, director of education for the Toronto Catholic District School Board.
The Star reached out via email to the social media companies for comment about the allegations, which have not been tested in court.
A spokesperson for Snapchat said it "was intentionally designed to be different from traditional social media, with a focus on helping Snapchatters communicate with their close friends. Snapchat opens directly to a camera — rather than a feed of content — and has no traditional public likes or comments."
While "we will always have more work to do, we feel good about the role Snapchat plays in helping close friends feel connected, happy and prepared as they face the many challenges of adolescence," the spokesperson said.
Responses from the other social media companies were not received by deadline.
Russell-Rawlins said boards have struggled, adding "our students are not fully present" given studies have shown that more than 90 per cent of kids in Grades 7 to 12 use social media daily, and 45 per cent of them for more than five hours which "takes them away from the social relationships that are part of the fabric of their growth and development and socialization."
Add cyberbullying into the mix, with the "escalation of aggression that shows up in schools for teachers, vice-principals, principals and other professionals to help students manage and de-escalate."
The four boards are represented by Neinstein LLP, and will not be out of pocket for legal costs as the firm will take a contingency fee.
Duncan Embury, the firm's head of litigation, said the boards "view this as part of a process designed to create change, because we're hearing first-hand from educators about the enormous harms that are occurring day-to-day in the school system because of these products."
About 500 school districts in the U.S. have launched similar cases now making their way through the courts, as have some states, but Embury is unaware of any other cases in Canada.
Just this week, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ushered in a new law banning kids under 14 from social media and requiring parental permission from those ages 14 and 15 amid concerns over their mental health and well-being.
Cathy Abraham, president of the Ontario Public School Boards' Association, said it's up to other boards to decide if they want to take part. 
"There's been all kinds of encouragement for students to prank, and it's resulted in violence in schools, and things being posted online … and it's really landing in our classrooms where teachers are having to deal with behaviours" and boards have to direct "so many of our resources to it," added Browne.
Pino Buffone, director of the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, said "we encourage the integration of technology … but there's no question that (these platforms) are distracting students and leading to a number of wellness issues — concerns that our students, our parents, guardians and caregivers are expressing."
The boards allege the social media companies have "knowingly and/or negligently disrupted and fundamentally changed the school, learning, and teaching climate by creating and sustaining prolific and/or compulsive use of their products by students," say their statements of claim.
"The defendants knew, or ought to have known, that their negligent conduct seriously and negatively impacts the student population by causing maladaptive brain development, compulsive use, disrupted sleep patterns, behavioural dysregulation, learning and attention impairment, and other serious issues that impact the school, learning, and teaching climate," the statements of claim also say."

https://ktla.com/video/teen-dies-after-alleged-fight-with-bullies-at-south-l-a-high-school/9535154/

Are the public schools so scared about getting sued? They hide bullying issues occurring at their school.

Are the teachers properly trained with trauma sensitive programming? 

Is the community trained?
Is public school a safe place for kids anymore? 

​

This piece of news.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/hockey/article-former-nhl-enforcer-chris-simon-dead-at-age-52/

And then this piece of news.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/19/sport/konstantin-koltsov-ice-hockey-death-spt-intl/index.html

Conversations about mental health are not going away any time soon....in fact there are going to be more and more headlines, more and more terrible stories of loss due to mental health issues in the future. 

There are going to be politicians, newspapers, social media companies and adversaries trying to diagnose people who do bad things as having a mental health issues.

There are going to be more polarizing posts, and stories around the world hoping you'll pick a side. The side that sits facing opposite someone with a mental health issue. 

The speed that society is changing at is too fast for us.

Our ability to catch up to and fully understand the vast impact technology, social media, past traumas, educational systems, headline hunting politicians, the divide between religions, and borders etc. is a D minus at best. 

Technology wants us to rapidly make monumental changes to our ways of feeling, thinking and behaving. We cannot change at that requested speed. It is too much. COVID. Too much. Wars. Too much. Democracy versus Demagoguery. Too much. 

Until the focus is back on interpersonal skills, communicating in person with your peers, and community, experiencing life away from your phone and in real time: we cannot psychologically catch up to technology. Our emotional life and intelligence will short circuit many times over. 

It doesn't have to be like this.