Scrolling alone – How Instagram is Making a Generation of Girls Lonely, Anxious, and Sad.
If you know and love a young woman – you need to know how social media is shaping the way Gen Z thinks, feels, and believes.
In 2009, about a quarter of American high school students said they had “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness.” By last year it was up to 44 percent, the highest level of teenage sadness ever recorded.
For girls, the rate rose to 57 percent. That means more than half of teenage girls in the US feel persistently sad or hopeless.
If you stood a teen from 2009 next to a teen from 2022, what would be the most noticeable difference between them?
One of them would be on her phone.
I listened to this podcast going to and from school on Thursday. It goes beyond the stats and gives voice to young women themselves. Though it has a US context, I found it insightful in exposing our human desire to curate our image and build platform.
The design of social media makes this more tempting than ever before. It is also having a disproportionately negative impact on women.
Mr Mark Ash
Principal
