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Kinzee Shafer

English 1201

Mr. Leonard

21 Oct. 2021

Teenagers’ Mental Healths

How do mental health problems affect teenagers’ everyday life? Mental health is a

serious issue for many people of all ages. People suffer from all different types of mental health

issues, such as depression or anxiety. Most people don’t even realize they have any of these

problems for a large amount of their lifetime. There are treatments available, but they don’t work

for everyone all the time. Many people are shamed for admitting their mental health issues and

trying to better themselves. They get told they are making it up, or they don’t have as bad of

lives as other people. People need to realize how much mental health actually affects lives.

Luckily, mental health is talked about more than it has been in the past. In the 1900s, the

mentally-ill were almost nonexistent. No one believed in anything and no research had been

done to support it. If people were mentally-ill, they usually went to prison or other similar places.

Nowadays, mental issues are talked about more, and they are more understood. There are many

different types of treatment for people who suffer severely. There is medicine, therapists, mental

health facilities, and many more different options.

The question still is, what adds on to these issues? Teenagers live very stressful lives. They have

a lot of pressure on them to be the best they can be. They have to be able to maintain school,

sports, family, relationships, jobs, and many more different things every single day. School,

itself, can take a major toll on people, and then they have to add in all the extra stuff. Most kids

get very overwhelmed trying to juggle everything in their lives. This stress can lead to the
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depression, anxiety, eating disorders, OCD, bipolarness, PTSD, etc. that teenagers face everyday.

Right now, in the time of COVID, teenagers’ mental healths are at an all time low. Many

sources have been able to do research on how things affect young adults' lives and how many

lives are really affected.

School is one of the most stressful things for teens to have to deal with. Students have to

be able to do good in school and outside of school. They are expected to get all their class work

done, get homework done, study for tests, and do well on tests, all while juggling everything else

in their lives. This article on the topic states, “ Research shows that academic stress leads to less

well-being and an increased likelihood of developing anxiety or depression. Additionally,

students who have academic stress tend to do poorly in school. This shows how this stress can

keep kids from doing as well as they could” (“How Does Academic Stress Affect Mental Health

In The Age Of Digital Learning,” par. 4). Kids are stuck doing the best that they can, spending

hours upon hours on school work, and that is doing nothing but destroying their mental health. It

is a lose-lose situation. The stress that kids face with school doesn’t go away. This article also

talks about how technology can be affecting the mental health state of students. The text states, “

If a page is reloaded and their work is lost, which many of us can relate to, it can be a struggle to

complete key assignments. If there was trouble asking teachers questions as they present

material, kids might scramble to find answers online afterward. These are just some examples of

many that show that learning online is much more than just learning the subject matter. While

digital learning is powerful, there are examples of increased frustration and stress with students”

(“How Does Academic Stress Affect Mental Health In The Age Of Digital Learning,” par. 7).

This piece of evidence proves that with the online learning environment that is going on now,

students just have more ways for their mental health to be messed up. It just adds more stressful
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situations onto the students. The article also states, “For years, researchers have been saying that

even though digital devices give us more ways to connect, they can also make us more lonely.

While technology might be able to bridge the gap to make learning happen, it isn’t the same as

direct contact. Technology can enhance learning, but it can sometimes limit or lack the support

systems in place at school” (“How Does Academic Stress Affect Mental Health In The Age Of

Digital Learning,” par. 11). This article focuses on the points of how school and technology can

mess up students’ minds. Everything adds more stress onto the students, whether it was meant to

or not. Teenagers’ are expected to do all of this, with all the challenges that come with it, and be

totally fine. They are supposed to be too strong to show many weaknesses. This is too much for

kids this age to be having to deal with.

With the pandemic still occurring, this has added just more reasons for teenagers to suffer

from mental health issues. An article on a survey conducted in Sweden, talks about how much

mental health issues have spiked since the pandemic started. Gröndal states, “Specifically, a

review published in May 2020 indicated that symptoms of depression and anxiety had increased,

and that well-being had decreased, among the general population since the outbreak of the

pandemic” ( Gröndal, par. 2). This piece of evidence talks about how some of the main types of

mental health issues have increased. Although the research was from 2020, the world is still

facing the same issues now, at the end of 2021. The article also states, People use emotions in

their daily life to interpret and handle situations and it has been suggested that the individual's

evaluation of the situation is more important for the emotional reaction than the event itself

[21,22]. Overall, people are likely to feel stronger and more negative emotions during a crisis

like the COVID-19 pandemic, because it puts people into new challenging and stressful

situations such as managing new family routines or abruptly adjusting to work or study from
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home [23]. Beyond their consequences for individuals' well-being, emotional responses to the

COVID-19 pandemic also seem to play a role in individuals' willingness to take protective action

[e.g., 24,25]” (Gröndal, par. 4). This evidence talks about why mental health issues are at an

increase with the condition the world is in. Different situations put stress on people in different

ways, and having to adjust to a completely different lifestyle isn’t easy. Another article by The

National Alliance on Mental Health talks more specifically on how the pandemic is treating

students. The text states, “We found that girls reported significantly more depressive symptoms

during the pandemic. Their symptoms fell in the “mild to moderate” range when they were

assessed in May 2020. This is consistent with prior research that suggests that adolescent girls

are at higher risk than boys of experiencing mental health symptoms in response to adverse life

events — and also that girls have experienced higher levels of depressive symptoms during the

pandemic than they did before” (Gladstone, par. 6). This is from a study that this cooperation did

on how students were doing during these times. They were able to research many different

students' mental health. This pandemic has not helped teenagers’ who are struggling with their

own minds at all, and these articles help shed some light on that.

There are also a greater number of people being affected by these inner demons than the

world realizes. These two articles have statistics on just how many people are being affected.

The first article, by the World Health Organization, talks about adolescents’ mental health. The

article states, “One in six people are aged 10-19 years. Mental health conditions account for 16%

of the global burden of disease and injury in people aged 10-19 years. Half of all mental health

conditions start by 14 years of age but most cases are undetected and untreated(1). Globally,

depression is one of the leading causes of illness and disability among adolescents. Suicide is the

fourth leading cause of death in 15-19-year-olds. The consequences of not addressing adolescent
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mental health conditions extend to adulthood, impairing both physical and mental health and

limiting opportunities to lead fulfilling lives as adults.” (“Adolescent Mental Health” par. 1).

These are some statistics and facts provided on how many are affected. This shows that mental

health issues start at a young age and will, most likely, be there for that person’s entire life. It

isn’t something that just magically goes away. This article then goes into detail with the different

types of disorders, such as emotional and behavioral. The second article, by Mental Health

America, provides statistics from the entire country. Their statistics include information such as,

“A growing percentage of youth in the U.S. live with major depression. 15.08% of youth

experienced a major depressive episode in the past year, a 1.24% increase from last year’s

dataset. In the bottom-ranked states, up to 19% of youth ages 12-17 experienced major

depression.” (“The State Of Mental Health In America” par. 3). They also include, “Over 2.5

million youth in the U.S. have severe depression, and multiracial youth are at greatest risk.

10.6% of youth in the U.S. have severe major depression (depression that severely affects

functioning). The rate of severe depression was highest among youth who identified as more

than one race, at 14.5% (more than one in every seven multiracial youth)” (“The State Of Mental

Health In America” par. 4). This article includes numerous other statistics, such as the number of

adults affected, and the number of people being untreated. This helps bring light into how serious

the topic actually is.

The additional sites I picked for my research essay helped me find stronger evidence. The

website by Felix Richter talked about how the pandemic affects the mental health of the

population. The websites by Mental Health America and Mayo Clinic gave more insight on

mental illness as a whole. The one by Mental Health America also talked about how family

members can help someone with mental illness. The Association for Mental Health states how
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school can be affecting student’s mental health. The article about Tony B. Benning, from the

Sinclair Library, gave me my counter argument for the essay. The article talks about how

Thomas Szasz believes mental health illnesses aren’t a thing and the only real illnesses are

physical ones.

In conclusion, these sources give new insight on different topics within mental health

problems. They all speak on how life affects it or how many people are affected by it. These

articles will be great assets for my research paper, but I will still need to look for even more

information on how teens, specifically, are affected by other things in their lives. These things

included family, relationships, and friends. None of these articles highlighted information on

that, and I will need those facts. This will help me create an even stronger paper.
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Works Cited

“Adolescent Mental Health.” World Health Organization, 28 Sept. 2020,

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/adolescent-mental-health. Accessed 17
Oct. 2021.

Benning, Tony B. “No Such Thing As Mental Illness? Critical Reflections On The Major
Ideas And Legacy Of Thomas Szasz.” PMC, vol. 40, no. 6, Dec. 2016.
10.1192/pb.bp.115.053249. Accessed 1 Nov. 2021.

Chen, Shanquan. “Accessibility And Efficiency Of Mental Health Services, United

Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.” Bulletin Of The World Health
Organization, vol. 99, no. 9, 6 Sept. 2021. 10.2471/BLT.20.273383. Accessed 1 Nov. 2021.

Gladstone, Tracy R. G. “Supporting Adolescent Mental Health During A Pandemic And

Back To School.” National Alliance on Mental Health, 8 Sep. 2021,
https://www.nami.org/Blogs/NAMI-Blog/September-2021/Supporting-Adolescent-Mental-
Health-During-a-Pandemic-and-Back-to-School. Accessed 17 Oct. 2021.

Gröndal, Maria, et al. "Self-reported impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, affective

responding, and subjective well-being: A Swedish survey." PLoS ONE, vol. 16, no. 10, 15
Oct. 2021, p. e0258778. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints,
link.gale.com/apps/doc/A679077325/OVIC?u=dayt30401&sid=bookmark-
OVIC&xid=37c91c96. Accessed 17 Oct. 2021.

“How Does Academic Stress Affect Mental Health In The Age Of Digital Learning.” KVC
Kansas, 10 Nov. 2021, https://kansas.kvc.org/2020/11/10/how-does-academic-stress-affect-
mental-health-in-the-age-of-digital-learning/. Accessed 17 Oct. 2021.

“Mental Illness And The Family: Recognizing Warning Signs And How To Cope.” Mental
Health America, https://www.mhanational.org/recognizing-warning-signs. Accessed 29 Oct.
2021.
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“Mental Illness.” Mayo Clinic, 8 June 2019, https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-

conditions/mental-illness/symptoms-causes/syc-20374968. Accessed 21 Oct. 2021.

“Problems At School.” Association For Children’s Mental Health, http://www.acmh-

mi.org/get-help/navigating/problems-at-school/. Accessed 1 Nov. 2021.

Richter, Felix. “Pandemic Causes Spikes In Anxiety and Depression.” Statistica, 18 Jan.

2021, https://www.statista.com/chart/21878/impact-of-coronavirus-pandemic-on-mental-

health/. Accessed 7 Nov. 2021.

“The State Of Mental Health In America.” Mental Health America, 2021,

https://mhanational.org/issues/state-mental-health-america. Accessed 29 Oct. 2021.

“Strong Relationships, Strong Health.” Better Health Channel,

https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/Strong-relationships-strong-

health. Accessed 30 Oct. 2021.