As of 2010, 85 percent of students have depression and anxiety scores higher than the average in the 50s
Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University in California, has conducted extensive analyses of changes in young people’s scores on depression and anxiety disorder tests over time. The results are truly disheartening. By these measures, anxiety disorder and depression have increased continuously, linearly, and dramatically in children, adolescents, and college students over the decades since the tests were first developed in the 50s. In fact, the increases are so great, for both anxiety and depression, that approximately 85 percent of young people today have scores greater than the average for the same age group in the 50s. Looked at in another way, five to eight times as many young people as of 2010 have scores above the cutoff for likely diagnosis of a clinically significant anxiety disorder or major [depression than fifty or more years ago. These increases are at least as great, if not greater, for elementary and high school students as for college students.
References
- Gray, Peter. (2013). Free to Learn Chapter 1. What Have We Done to Childhood? (p. 33). New York, NY: Basic Books.
Metadata
Type:🔴 Tags: Politics / Education / Psychiatry Status:☀️