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Mental health awareness campaigns work on a key principle, applied to everything from exam stress to suicidal thoughts: If we can get people to identify and understand their mental health problems, then they can access effective help and treatment. Awareness is good, in other words, because it should ultimately alleviate people’s distress. The trouble is, no one really knows if awareness initiatives actually work in this way. (Lucy Foulkes, 5/24)

The US Surgeon General is clear: Get your kids off social media. And while he didn’t say as much, maybe spend less time on it yourself. In a dire report, Dr. Vivek H. Murthy warned of myriad dangers from social media platforms designed to be as addictive as possible, and laid out just how little we know about their potential harms. (Jill Filipovic, 5/23)

Ever since the surgeon general sounded the alarm on youth mental health in 2021, parents and educators have been trying to figure out how to help teens in my generation who are struggling amid rising rates of depression and anxiety. That’s an understandable goal. What worries me, though, is the possibility that many in my generation are confusing mental health issues with normal discomfort, to the point that the term “mental health” is becoming so diluted that it’s starting to lose meaning. (Zach Gottlieb, 5/23)

The data is clear: Levels of anxiety, depression, self-harm and suicide have spiked for American teenagers over the last decade. Last Friday’s episode with the psychologist Jean Twenge sifted through that data to uncover both the scale of the crisis and its possible causes. (Ezra Klein, 5/23)

There is much public focus on those with mental illness with calls to increase funding for mental health resources. I am a mental health professional who has worked with children for over 40 years, and I strongly support the need for funding and resources. (Catherine Fuchs, 5/23)