INSANITY The Collapse Of Teen Mental Health — And Deadly Mass Shootings — Can Be Traced To One Single Trend

The Collapse Of Teen Mental Health — And Deadly Mass Shootings — Can Be Traced To One Single Trend

DYLAN HOUSMAN
HEALTHCARE REPORTER
May 27, 2022
3:45 PM ET

The start of the mental health crisis in the United States, particularly among young people, can be tied to an exact era in time: the advent of social media and smartphone technologies.

A review of key indicators of despair over time in the U.S. — including suicide rates, drug overdoses and reports of anxiety — shows that the intensification of America’s mental health decline coincides almost perfectly with the invention of smartphones and the popularization of social media. The number of mass shootings, especially those conducted by young males, also ticks up in the same time period.

The first iPhone was released in the United States in June 2007. Facebook was opened up to anyone aged 13 or over in 2006. Instagram launched in 2010, and the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 were released in 2005 and 2006, respectively. The mental health of teenagers and young adults has plummeted rapidly since the mid-2000’s, as screen time and social isolation have skyrocketed.

One key indicator is suicide rates. The crude rate of suicide in ages 15-24 tripled between 1950 and 1980, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), but then began to decline until the early 2000’s. That’s when it shot back up again. In 2000, the rate was 10.2 per 100,000. It remained relatively stable, ticking up slightly to 10.5 in 2010, before surging to 14.5 by 2017.

When the age range is expanded to 10-24, the trend is even more stark. “After stable trends from 2000 to 2007, suicide rates for persons aged 10–24 increased from 2007 (6.8 per 100,000 persons) to 2017 (10.6), while homicide rates declined from 2007 to 2014 and then increased through 2017,” a 2019 report from the National Center for Health Statistics reads.

The downturn in homicides is notable as well; young people haven’t become more violent overall, just more violent toward themselves. The suicide rate among this age group didn’t surpass the homicide rate until 2010.

During the rise of social media from its infancy to the dominant place it holds in society today, youth anxiety rates rose with it. The National Survey of Children’s Health found that the number of people between the ages of six and 17 who had been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder surged by 20% between 2007 and 2012. Back in 2003, just 4% of kids had been told by a health professional that they had signs of a problem with depression or anxiety.

There isn’t only a correlation between young people feeling depressed and the popularization of social media, smartphones and online video games. There’s a measurable behavioral change as well. (RELATED: Man Who Allegedly Threatened Mass Violence Toward Elementary School Arrested)

From the 1970’s until the late 2000’s, the number of high schoolers who said they saw their friends face-to-face “almost every day” was on the decline, but only slightly. From 1990 until 2005, with slight variations based on age, the proportion dipped from around 50% to around 45%, according to a study in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. However, starting in 2010, the share fell off a cliff: from around 40% to barely above 25% just seven years later in 2017.

The same study found that the portion of teens who said they feel lonely “a lot” of the time was actually on the decline until 2007 — the year the iPhone was released — at which point it now began a rapid increase to now all-time highs. On average, today’s 10th graders report going to 17 fewer parties per year than their peers in the 1980’s.

Tragically, these trends among young people — as well as older adults, measured via metrics like drug overdoses — map onto a timeline not only of technological innovation, but mass shootings. Ten of the 13 deadliest mass shootings in modern American history have taken place since 2007. Four of the five deadliest took place in the social media age, since 2012. When it comes to school shootings specifically, nearly all of the deadliest, with the exception of Columbine, have happened in the past 15 years. (RELATED: Overdose Deaths Soared In 2021, Especially In Teens)

These trends of despair don’t only manifest themselves in violence against the self or others. Drug overdoses in 15-24 year-olds were relatively flat from 2006-2009 before beginning a steady uptick, reaching all-time highs in recent years, according to the National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics. The average time spent in front of a screen has surged in recent years for young people, and obesity rates in teens have jumped in the same time frame, starting a significant uptick in 2010.

Researchers have dismissed any direct connection between violent video games and mass shootings, and there are tens of millions of American kids who use social media and don’t harm themselves or others. But overlaying the timelines of America’s mental health decline, technology use and mass shootings reveals a correlation too strong to ignore.

Yeah, I'll buy that as at least part of the problem.

the feminizing of males.
and the big thing is the rise of rap music.
ok, I'm 64 and my parents born in the 20's and 30's thought my music was awful.
i'm sorry. maybe once in a while was an illusion or a suggestion of sex.
rap music is vile, blatant, crude, rude and basic social unacceptable lines of sex, violence and drugs.
i don't understand why it's "so cool".

Close but no cigar. Try the increase of Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors drug use. That is the major cause of the increase in both suicides and anger issues.

SSTemplar said:

Close but no cigar. Try the increase of Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors drug use. That is the major cause of the increase in both suicides and anger issues.

Click to expand...

And don't forget the origins of those 'meds'.

I do believe I JUST SAID YESTERDAY that locking social media accounts of those threatening violence I was a key action to stopping mass shootings. I wrote what could stop these shootings INSTANTLY on mourningdove’s thread. I guess no one read that thread.

SSTemplar said:

Close but no cigar. Try the increase of Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors drug use. That is the major cause of the increase in both suicides and anger issues.

Click to expand...

You’re absolutely wrong. That’s just an inhibition eliminator.

I believe Columbine was the only mass shooting where the shooters came from intact families. I think all the rest were no daddy present situations.

I think there are several reasons but social media and constant access to the internet and then smartphones have contributed.

The Book I-Gen is a real eye-opener, already a bit dated but it shows how quickly things changed and how many of the youngest folks (nearly 10 years ago) had a very hard time understanding the difference between say an argument online or a fistfight.

Not to mention that for better or worse (probably some or both) exposure to small screens and fast responses starting with infants does change brain patterns and the way a person's mind works to some degree, especially the attention span of children.

Used properly (aka limited) the internet and such can be a wonderful aid in education for the young, but the nearly 24/7 "on" time that many children experience today starting around age 8 or 9, maybe highly destructive but very hard for many parents to control. Except in really isolated areas and homeschooling, kids will just do this with friends even if they don't have their own phone or tablet.

Still, I don't think it is the ONLY problem, but it is probably one of them.

1. Games. Not the because of mind control or something nefarious. Can you imagine playing Monopoly all day and night, everyday? Or parcheesi or dominos or any game? It is no different than a gambling addiction.
2. Leisure time. I never remember having as much leisure time growing up as people do today. And there is unlimited entertainment to fill that time. There used to be only 3 channels on TV and you did not have opportunity to watch any one of a million movies. There are a great mass of people that literally don't work.
3. Information overload. We thought the internet was going to be this great thing because so much knowledge would at our fingertips. However, there is no in-depth understanding. There is a reason that when organizing a course of study that you set up 40 minute sessions over a four month period of time with a combination of learning techniques. With the internet you simply enter some numbers into a calculator and, presto, you are provided the amount of dirt required to add 4 inches of sand to a round pen for the horses. No need to know pi times the square of the radius times the depth or why that works - pie are square is simply something funny to say.
4, And there is so much "knowledge" on the internet that simply isn't true. Untrained minds can't distinguish the facts from the BS. Imagine the confusion when a child is told a daddy can be a mommy.

No. The increase in mental illness in kids today is the fact that they have no parents......or they might as well not have.

The last 70 years has seen an almost complete abandonment of child care by parental figures. It started with TV in the 50's, but then there were at least some decent values exhibited in media. As time moved on, the values became fewer and less "normal." PCs moved us MANY steps from normal and call phones started the beginning of children exposed at VERY early ages to depraved ideas, images and music. All of this available because parents use technology as a babysitter. Bad enough by the 70's...... disgusting within the last 15 or so years.

Why are people having kids if they don't want to be with them.....and being in the same room with someone on a computer or cell phone is NOT interacting with them.....it is NOT showing concern or caring or love, or even any type of parental control. It is abandonment to a technology that has NO VALUES OR MORALITY. Abandonment to a form of mind control and brainwashing by the most devious and perverted of "humanity."

The reason kids no longer obey, are punished, or disciplined is because EVERYONE is too busy with their cell phones to care......
First GOD was thrown out of schools and government, then parents or parental control was destroyed......this can be seen in the fact that "teachers" and school boards find parental involvment with their child's education to be bothersome, and now a form of "terrorism."

Actually, this all began when lifestyles demanded two incomes to be financially available.

It is so decimated I don't think it can be repaired.

raven said:

1. Games. Not the because of mind control or something nefarious. Can you imagine playing Monopoly all day and night, everyday? Or parcheesi or dominos or any game? It is no different than a gambling addiction.
2. Leisure time. I never remember having as much leisure time growing up as people do today. And there is unlimited entertainment to fill that time. There used to be only 3 channels on TV and you did not have opportunity to watch any one of a million movies. There are a great mass of people that literally don't work.
3. Information overload. We thought the internet was going to be this great thing because so much knowledge would at our fingertips. However, there is no in-depth understanding. There is a reason that when organizing a course of study that you set up 40 minute sessions over a four month period of time with a combination of learning techniques. With the internet you simply enter some numbers into a calculator and, presto, you are provided the amount of dirt required to add 4 inches of sand to a round pen for the horses. No need to know pi times the square of the radius times the depth or why that works - pie are square is simply something funny to say.
4, And there is so much "knowledge" on the internet that simply isn't true. Untrained minds can't distinguish the facts from the BS. Imagine the confusion when a child is told a daddy can be a mommy.

Click to expand...

If online gaming is indeed a factor, (I don't know one way or the other seems like it would be a way to work out your frustrations rather than enhance them, but like I said I don't know) then my question is: Where are the parents who should control that?

Like when we were kids, parents regulated how much TV one could watch.

Seems like we are blaming kids with watching to much........... whatever. And not cocking an eyebrow at the parent, who let the games, TV, be an easy baby sitter. Parents aren't engaged anymore. They are viewed as chauffeurs, and the way to the stuff through purchasing the latest and greatest.

Seems like today it is more about finding a solution to a symptom rather than the real problem.

ioujc said:

No. The increase in mental illness in kids today is the fact that they have no parents......or they might as well not have.

The last 70 years has seen an almost complete abandonment of child care by parental figures. It started with TV in the 50's, but then there were at least some decent values exhibited in media. As time moved on, the values became fewer and less "normal." PCs moved us MANY steps from normal and call phones started the beginning of children exposed at VERY early ages to depraved ideas, images and music. All of this available because parents use technology as a babysitter. Bad enough by the 70's...... disgusting within the last 15 or so years.

Why are people having kids if they don't want to be with them.....and being in the same room with someone on a computer or cell phone is NOT interacting with them.....it is NOT showing concern or caring or love, or even any type of parental control. It is abandonment to a technology that has NO VALUES OR MORALITY. Abandonment to a form of mind control and brainwashing by the most devious and perverted of "humanity."

The reason kids no longer obey, are punished, or disciplined is because EVERYONE is too busy with their cell phones to care......
First GOD was thrown out of schools and government, then parents or parental control was destroyed......this can be seen in the fact that "teachers" and school boards find parental involvment with their child's education to be bothersome, and now a form of "terrorism."

Actually, this all began when lifestyles demanded two incomes to be financially available.

It is so decimated I don't think it can be repaired.

Click to expand...

LOL you got yours in first, great post.

I wrote what could stop these shootings INSTANTLY on mourningdove’s thread. I guess no one read that thread.

Click to expand...

I'd read it now if you had linked to it.

Feature, not a bug?

Liberal commie schools and the indoctrination of their agenda … going on well before cell phones. Cell phones are secondary to that, and are mind control devices that are helping the reprogramming of our society … young and old. Addictive as drugs.

Video games ( before cell phones ) making killing a game, social media, fake news, denigration of a normal society and ”real science”.

Cell phones are part of the problem, and mostly how the reprogramming takes place today. But it didn’t start there. Started with the schools and the liberal agenda, integration, etc. Cell phone were the accelerant.

How about this … instead of outlawing a tool … guns … we pass laws that no kid under 18 can own a cell phone, or play video games.

You see …. Its not about stopping these shootings …. It fits the end game for TPTB. They’re using mind control and manipulation to bring us down.

Well lets see, Alinsky along with Cloward And Piven wrote about destroying the family as part of the plan.

This along with radicalizing youth in the school system certainly seems to have helped.

Those living in cities with city water have chemicals added , perhaps we are now seeing the results of a generation of all these things.

Or perhaps our very own Government and it's shadow groups are behind it...at least in part .

Henry Bowman said:

Well lets see, Alinsky along with Cloward And Piven wrote about destroying the family as part of the plan.

This along with radicalizing youth in the school system certainly seems to have helped.

Those living in cities with city water have chemicals added , perhaps we are now seeing the results of a generation of all these things.

Or perhaps our very own Government and it's shadow groups are behind it...at least in part .

Click to expand...

Remember what LBJ said about blacks? Look how well that mind control method worked…. EVEN TODAY. It’s alive and well.

The goal for the elite is to control the world.........and you can't control that without controlling the populations of the world. They easy ones are the poor desperate POC countries where people hold their hands out for the state to feed them.........but the challenge is the West. Especially in the US since WW2 amoung White heritage Americans.

What made the US great after WW2 was the growth of the middle class that facilitated along with a traditional Christian moral structure in creating a strong family unit to become the social pillar and emotional state of society.......and masses of people in that social strata are very difficult for the elite to control.

POC on welfare and poor immigrates the government can easily buy off and point them in any direction they want with social programs but a strong White middle class family centric group.......... is not so easy.

So its simple for the Marxist commies and their banking buddies of the "never again" elite crowd to implement three things in America.......

1) Destroy the White middle class economically (every strong White nation gets them nervous as a reminder of when Germany during hyper depression in the 30s woke up to their conjob and as a result kicked their banking system out of the country............hell this is the real threat that Russia represents to them today)

2) Destroy the family unit morally........Especially traditional Christian values.

3) Shackle everyone through over consumption into a debt servitude within their usury tactics.

Look around you............what has been going on for these past 5 to 6 decades and in more recent decades is accelerating?

Exactly that...........and with it you are seeing (and being helped along by techno hyper stimulation gadgets) the hopelessness and depression a life without family, opportunity and purpose brings..

MTV programing is exactly a reflection on what is wrong with society today.............and is owned by those same elites wanting to destroy values that built a socially stable environment.

Music and entertainment is glamourizing the exact lifestyle that leads one to a purposeless, overstimulated and unfulfilled life.......

Shift the solution from independent self sustaining family life..... to dependency on the state.....................that is what has been going on. So what if there are some bumps in the road they say.................as they are thinking....its better than having them kick the banking usury conjob system out of the country in which they are trying to take over the world with.

To be honest I'm surprised there aren't more teens killing themselves.........but maybe that's because most of them are still ignorant of the above........

PghPanther said:

To be honest I'm surprised there aren't more teens killing themselves.........

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Turning to alternate lifestyles …. being someone your not. Acceptance

You only have to look at the extent to which some third world and more totalitarian countries will go to make sure even peasant farmers have access to Cell/Mobile phones to know how important they are to some who are in power, especially financial power.

That said, I think there is also a problem with parenting, not of which can be laid at the doorstep of individual families and some of which can be. By design or by accident, in today's world at least in the US and Europe, most households that are working have to have both adults working not for extras but to avoid becoming homeless or worse. That meanss parents simply are not there to monitor what older children are doing.

Single parents on welfare where I was in the Federal program (30 years ago, things may have changed) were required to go on "job search" and training when their youngest child reached 9 years old. That was considered "old enough" to be "home alone" if your family was on welfare. Middle-class and working families would have their kids taken away by social services (and it did happen) if they tried the same thing, at least in California.

Then there was one of my first questions on this killer, as he put on "drugs" for "ADHD" or other rather normal little boy stuff - which basically keeps the kids "quiet" and "manageable." Now I know some children really need this, I also know that in poor communities States encourage it because if the kids can be labeled "disabled" and they are on welfare, the Federal government then pays all or most of the costs - otherwise, the State pays at least half.

A lot of those drugs are highly addictive and may suddenly stop when the kid drops out of school or graduates, so mental health problems that could be ignored if you "kept the kid quiet" and "at their desk" suddenly can come roaring to the surface. Thankfully most don't kill other people, but the rate of mental illness and suicide, and/or drug addiction has tended to skyrocket.

There are other contributors to this as well, some on both sides of the water but I think these three are huge, especially in the US - I've seen it in my own extended family.

ioujc said:

Actually, this all began when lifestyles demanded two incomes to be financially available.

Click to expand...

So, it all goes back to fiat money inflation?

et2 said:

Liberal commie schools and the indoctrination of their agenda … going on well before cell phones. Cell phones are secondary to that, and are mind control devices that are helping the reprogramming of our society … young and old. Addictive as drugs.

Video games ( before cell phones ) making killing a game, social media, fake news, denigration of a normal society and ”real science”.

Cell phones are part of the problem, and mostly how the reprogramming takes place today. But it didn’t start there. Started with the schools and the liberal agenda, integration, etc. Cell phone were the accelerant.

How about this … instead of outlawing a tool … guns … we pass laws that no kid under 18 can own a cell phone, or play video games.

You see …. Its not about stopping these shootings …. It fits the end game for TPTB. They’re using mind control and manipulation to bring us down.

Click to expand...

What are we using to bring them down? And how is that coming along?

First-person shooter videos games aren’t doing us any favors either. The human brain develops neurological pathways that would be better left alone, you know, in those people who already have mental issues. 98% of us can handle it, but those 2% of crazies can end up getting reality and fantasy blurred.

By the way, if you’re ever in a mass shooting (and you yourself end up out of ammo), you should yell “Game Over!” as loud as you can. Seriously. The perp may just put down their gun. It has actually worked in one case. It taps into something psychological.

How many of these parent killers were prescribed Ritalin? Surely there is a statistic out there?

Seeker22 said:

How many of these parent killers were prescribed Ritalin? Surely there is a statistic out there?

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Or have had chemicals such as fluoride, Chlorine etc... put in the water from birth to keep them "healthy".

Not saying it is the main cause, but it bears looking into.

WalknTrot said:

Yeah, I'll buy that as at least part of the problem.

Click to expand...

I'd agree- I think it goes back a bit farther to 3 D video games.

SSTemplar said:

Close but no cigar. Try the increase of Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors drug use. That is the major cause of the increase in both suicides and anger issues.

Click to expand...

I don’t believe so…

As I’ve stated before and many here know all too well, until the 1960’s or 1970’s, when people with mental issues were institutionalized, this wasn’t a problem…

Since then, we’ve seen the deinstitutionalization of many of the walking times bombs…

The experts say with the advancement of medications specifically made to regulate such aberrant behavior, institutions are no longer needed…but it really came down to funding among other things.

Ask anyone who has worked as a cop or paramedic in a large metro area (or not even very large!), would you really want these ticking time bombs walking around w/o any psychotropic restraints? No me!

The thing is, these people don’t or won’t always take their medication as prescribed, they forget, or feel better on the meds then tell themselves ‘I don’t need this any longer’…

But, even if they do continue the medications, they lose efficacy over time or need regulating…

Then, you’re back to crazies loose in the general public!

Dozdoats said:

So, it all goes back to fiat money inflation?

Click to expand...

If you lived in the house I did in 1948, at the level we lived at in 1948, (10 yr old auto etc) guess what? You could make it on one income.

SSTemplar said:

Close but no cigar. Try the increase of Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors drug use. That is the major cause of the increase in both suicides and anger issues.

Click to expand...

Yup and GP's should not be able to prescribe any of those brain altering drugs.. I don't really buy into psychobabble much but imo, shrinks should be the ones to do the shrinking.
Also...this type of crap (hardcore shootings) really kicked off in the 90s once the clintons took office, which i find interesting being they were the first of the modern American marxists to take the WH and really start the ban train moving.

ioujc said:

No. The increase in mental illness in kids today is the fact that they have no parents......or they might as well not have.

The last 70 years has seen an almost complete abandonment of child care by parental figures. It started with TV in the 50's, but then there were at least some decent values exhibited in media. As time moved on, the values became fewer and less "normal." PCs moved us MANY steps from normal and call phones started the beginning of children exposed at VERY early ages to depraved ideas, images and music. All of this available because parents use technology as a babysitter. Bad enough by the 70's...... disgusting within the last 15 or so years.

Why are people having kids if they don't want to be with them.....and being in the same room with someone on a computer or cell phone is NOT interacting with them.....it is NOT showing concern or caring or love, or even any type of parental control. It is abandonment to a technology that has NO VALUES OR MORALITY. Abandonment to a form of mind control and brainwashing by the most devious and perverted of "humanity."

The reason kids no longer obey, are punished, or disciplined is because EVERYONE is too busy with their cell phones to care......
First GOD was thrown out of schools and government, then parents or parental control was destroyed......this can be seen in the fact that "teachers" and school boards find parental involvment with their child's education to be bothersome, and now a form of "terrorism."

Actually, this all began when lifestyles demanded two incomes to be financially available.

It is so decimated I don't think it can be repaired.

Click to expand...

I thought about the parenting thing and had to put it aside because I was not blessed with attentive parents. I don't actually think of it much.
For example:
When I was 11, mom would take me out in the country to a river and drop me off for the day.
It never worked. I always found my way home.
When I was 13, I rode my Stingray Bike with the Banana Seat and Butterfly Handlebars to a farm just outside of town and got a job driving a tractor - with a real paycheck from a corporation, Quinco - mom didn't notice till I asked her to take me to the bank to deposit my check.
I turned out OK - LOL.

WalknTrot said:

Yeah, I'll buy that as at least part of the problem.

Click to expand...

Yeah… If mommy only understood the difference between a time out, and a slap on the rear.

Watched a girlfriends sis do a timeout once in 1982…. Thought to myself, what a waste of time pandering to reinforce the fact your not in charge.

40 years later men’s intuition is still ignored.

The DSM-5 records the socio-engineered failings of Western Society.

And cotton candy is no more!

I sense a distinct pattern forming.

My guess was going to be lockdowns.

But then, I suppose a better answer is that there is no one "real" cause. It's a whole bunch of causes strung together.

I was in high school just as the internet was starting to come around. We still went out with our friends on the weekends. We had plenty to do that wasn't the internet. Back then, all the internet was was mostly just text with a few pictures. Music and video was mostly not an option. Closest thing we had to anything truly engrossing were chat rooms. Even then you could only spend maybe an hour or two therein before getting bored. And tired of typing.

Interestingly, that was around the time Columbine happened. We were all baffled when that happened. Sure, everyone knew about the various internal societies of high school, but no one thought anyone would ever go that far in response. We probably should have, though. It was an untenable position. The popular bullied without restraint. The targets had too much to lose to effectively fight back; they craved clean records to get them into better colleges, in accordance with the great lie they were told about good grades leading to good colleges and then to good jobs.

It probably was only a matter of time until the targets just couldn't take it any more.

The problem is my high school experience ended over 20 years ago. I don't know what they're like any more. Did they all get thinner skins? Is the steady lack of places to go hurting the social cohesion that kept the targets restrained in their response? Did parenting collapse? Did violent media make violence more palatable? Or did everything work together to produce a decidedly nasty new whole?

The whole society is coming apart - from the top down.

Solutions are as always bottom up.

Idol hands are the devils work place. There is also a terrible feeling of hopelessness about the future for todays teen and young people.

I keep thinking back to when I was a kid. Guns are not the problem. Heck, many brought their weapon of choice to school and had it in their vehicle sitting out in the parking lot because they were going hunting after school. As far as I know, no one ever thought to run and get it and start shooting. If you had a beef with someone, you "discussed" it in the hallways between bells. Then everyone involved most likely would be sent to the vice-principal's office for a few swats.

JMHO but the minds of our children are under assault from a great number of places. Social media has caused a great number of them to be unsocialized. They do not know how to interact with other human beings one on one. They don't know how to make eye contact and heck most of them don't even know how to do a handshake.

From a very young age, they are bombarded with violence from television, movies, and video games. While you and I understand that it's entertainment and in real life, those characters are living, breathing humans, in their minds, this is the way the world works, and life is cheap. The news, if they watch or listen to it, is all doom and gloom and there is no positive anywhere. Some of us get like that but we understand to walk away from the computer, shut off the television or radio and go do something constructive. If not told to do that, kids won't.

When I was young (back in the '60's & 70s) there were two parents in a household...a mother and a father. The single parent household was rare and usually that was because one parent had passed away. A child had a role model for better or for worse but at least you knew there was a difference. Now days, there is apparently any number of combinations a child can have as a parental unit...one female, one male, two females, two males, two females but one dresses and identifies as a male, two males but only one actually has two "x" chromosomes, etc. The list is only constrained by your imagination. No wonder kids are confused!

If you were on drugs back then, it generally meant you did a little weed or dropped some acid. Now, you can be on a number of prescribed pharmaceuticals for everything from depression to ADD to HD. The saddest thing I have ever seen was a kid zombified by a prescribed drug to battle his hyperactivity and attention deficit. (And the vast majority of these kids are boys.) Let the boy get outside and run around and scream to work off the extra energy. In other words, let him be a boy!

Now looking at things, it's a wonder there aren't more of these shooting type of situations.

When I was a kid, the boys running around outside played at things like Cowboys and Indians, That's what they saw on TV and in movies.

If they were sent outside to play nowadays, I shudder to think what gruesome movies and video games they'd be re-enacting. I don't think this kind of play would be very effective at curbing antisocial behavior. Especially since no discipline is allowed so that teachers could require the children settle down and get back to classsroom behavior, nor is there allowed any discipline so that parents could compel children to shed the rowdiness at the door and put on their indoor and dinner table behavior.

Sad, isn't it!!

Raven, even though your parents may have been neglectful, they still provided a home and food. When I quit at the mental health center where I worked until Nov. 20210, you cannot IMAGINE how many kids, some as young as 5 years old, were left home alone for DAYS AND NIGHTS ALONE!!! It is disgusting!!

Plus, school was some degree of haven.....I HOPE!! My brother and all of friends started working on farms by age 12 or 13 too. However it sounds like your mom was pretty much useless. I am sorry for that. I pray you selected a decent mother for any babies you have had.....and YES, YOU DID TURN OUT ALRIGHT!!! THANK GOD!!!

I am a retired high school teacher. The mass shootings at schools began in the 1997/98 school year with Pearl, Miss. I can also report that the school nurse also needed about four times as much space to store meds for students. Behavioral meds for students had skyrocketed from the late 80's. That was long before you coul carry a screen in your pocket.

The OP is focused on suicide rates and that data is probably true but there is more to mental health than that. And meds are not the only issue. The good jobs in industries were shipped overseas. There was a lot of economic dislocation and it only accelerated with the financial crisis of 2008. There are the factors that others have mentioned above.

Our society does not foster well-being and in fact we all know that benefits an elite few.

SSTemplar said:

Close but no cigar. Try the increase of Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors drug use. That is the major cause of the increase in both suicides and anger issues.

Click to expand...

Can you share with us information that shows this?