Investigative Field Essay

 Emily Czerw

ENC2135 0181

Ms. Adams

02/15/2023

Investigative field essay

The Contributing Factors to the Increase in Depression and Anxiety Disorders

      Researchers at Columbia University reviewed a study regarding the increase in anxiety and depression disorders. “The results show that depression increased significantly among persons in the U.S. from 2005 to 2015, from 6.6 percent to 7.3 percent. Notably, the rise was most rapid among those ages 12 to 17, increasing from 8.7 percent in 2005 to 12.7 percent in 2015,” (Weinberger 1). In just ten years, depression rates have gone up 4% in teenagers. When I look online or talk to my peers, I notice kids and young adults riddled with anxiety or depression now more than ever. The United States is facing an epidemic of mental health disorders. My goal is to investigate what is contributing to the increase in these disorders amongst adolescents. With the increase in the levels of anxiety and depression among young people in America, what are the modern day factors that contribute to those disorders and make them more prominent now than they were a few decades ago?

        To try to understand my question more, I conducted a research survey on people who are personally affected by anxiety or depression. In high school, a handful of my friends said they suffered from mental health issues, so I decided to ask them some questions about the topic. After asking fifteen girls, seven of them stated that they had been diagnosed by a professional with anxiety or depression. Just that piece of data was already extremely shocking. 47% of the participants struggled with mental health issues. When I asked two adults the same question, they said they think one or maybe two people they knew could have had anxiety or depression, but they weren’t sure. This goes to show that anxiety and depression is way more prominent now than it used to be. 

       The participants were also asked what they thought could have been contributing factors to cause it. Three of them said social media, two of them said family issues, and two of them said school. I theorized that family problems, social media, and the Covid-19 quarantine were probably the biggest contributing factors since they were not around as much a few decades ago. The answers that my friends gave me helped support my theory. Social media and comparing themselves to others go hand in hand because people online glamorize their lives and make the viewer wonder why they can't have that “perfect” lifestyle. Family issues and divorce go hand in hand because divorces can take a significant toll on a family’s dynamic. 

       Researchers from the University of Sussex also looked into the effects that divorce had on children, and they discovered some interesting findings. The researchers conducted a meta-analysis to test whether or not there was a correlation between parental divorce and offspring affective disorders (Sands 2). Divorce rates have more than doubled in the past few decades, making it the most common type of childhood adversity (Sands 3). Their study concluded that there is a significant association between divorce in childhood and offspring depression in adulthood. On the other hand, this study could not show a significant association between divorce in childhood and anxiety disorders in offspring adulthood (Sands, 14).

       There are a few reasons why parental divorce could contribute to depression in offsprings. “First, attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969) suggests that separation from an attachment figure, often experienced as a result of divorce, could increase the risk of insecure attachment in offspring which has been linked to increased levels of depression in both childhood and adulthood,” (Sands 15). The attachment theory explains exactly how divorce affects a child’s relationship skills which could increase the risk of depression in that child. Another reason why divorce could contribute to depression is by causing an economic disadvantage for the affected family and child. A low socio-econmic status could potentially affect a child’s psychological development and well-being (Sands 15). Divorce is a plausible example of a factor that makes mental health issues more prominent today because a few decades ago, divorce was not nearly as common and therefore affected less people.

        I had the opportunity to interview Victor Buitron, a Florida State University psychology professor, and ask his opinion on what he thinks the main contributing factors to anxiety and depression in modern day society are. Just like the University of Sussex researchers, Dr. Buitron also agrees that socio-economic status affects not only a child’s mental health, but their ability to get treatment. Buitron states that there are not enough mental health services for those who need them most, and that only some of the population has access to mental health care. This is an issue because there are many kids who have mental health problems who can't afford to seek help, making their mental health even worse. Also, visiting a therapist regularly can prevent someone from developing an anxiety or depression disorder. However, low-income families do not have the privilege to provide that kind of help for their kids. 

       Dr. Buitron also provided several other fundamental ideas of what could be contributing to this mental health epidemic. He believes that social media and the Covid-19 outbreak play a big role in mental health issues. Social media affects people in many forms, such as cyberbullying, negative and constant social input, and it being a distraction to our emotional experiences. Issues like bullying and negative social input can lead to depression because they can tear a person down and make them feel worthless. Buitron also believes that social media is harmful to younger kids because all the screen time that is now available to them is affecting their psychological development and social interactions. These are two factors that are crucial in producing a well-functioning, mentally healthy young adult. Dr. Buitron mentioned that the quarantine period for Covid-19 had a big impact on people because it caused them to be isolated from others with little face to face contact. It also caused people to have an unstructured lifestyle which is a key domain in depression. Covid-19 definitely took a toll on many people’s mental health.

        A study in the book of Developmental Psychology also focused on the effects that Covid had on people’s social interactions and mental health. The researchers measured negative and positive social interactions with the subject’s friends and families, and looked to see if those negative or positive social interactions increased or decreased. The researchers also measured if depressive symptoms in those subjects increased or decreased during Covid-19 (Gadassi Polack 1633). One of their findings was that mother-father and father-sibling negative interactions increased (Gadassi Polack 1642). This is not too surprising considering people were only around their family members all day for weeks, however, the increase in negative family interactions definitely does not help a person’s mental health. An additional interesting finding was that the youth experienced almost a 40% increase in depressive symptoms in under a year. In response to that piece of data, the researchers claimed, “Importantly, a higher frequency of negative interactions and a lower frequency of positive interactions with family members partially accounted for these increases,” (Gadassi Polack 1642). Another cause of an increase in these depressive symptoms could be due to the new unstructured lifestyle Dr. Buitron mentioned, and the feeling of loneliness, caused by Covid-19.

     One finding from this study that was specifically interesting was that, “...The number of daily negative social interactions with friends decreased during COVID-19 for all participants,” (Gadassi Polack 1641). This statistic stood out because during COVID-19, the only way people could really communicate with their friends was through social media. They most likely were not able to see them in-person because everybody was under quarantine. Although it may sound positive that people's negative interactions with their friends decreased during Covid, it actually was not, because all of their face-to-face interactions were replaced with social media. Relying on social media for human interaction is harmful for a person’s development and mental health. 

      Researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center looked into the effects that social media has on children and noticed that it can lead to lack of emotion-regulation skills because of substituted media use, lack of social interaction, and cyber bullying, (Hoge, 76). During Covid, people replaced face-to-face interactions with social media and texting because they were forced to quarantine for months. Hoge, Bickham, and Cantor explain that replacing in-person exchanges with virtual interactions worsens symptoms of social anxiety disorders and even depression, (Hoge 78).  “In fact, researchers conducting a longitudinal study of adolescents found that greater use of mobile phones at baseline was associated with higher levels of depression 1 year later,” (Hoge 78).

       Another reason why social media can contribute to depression and anxiety is because of the bullying and comparison it leads to. “Internet use in general and the specific experience of being a victim of cyberbullying are both associated with more suicidal thoughts and self-injurious behaviors,” (Hoge 78). Going back to my interview with Dr. Buitron, he also believed that reasons like cyberbullying are why social media can lead to depression and anxiety. Dr. Buitron mentioned how with social media, people have a way of receiving constant negative input, which is damaging to their mental health. When I interviewed my friends who suffered from mental health disorders, some argued that social media affected their mental health because it created a constant comparison to other people’s lives. People paint a perfect, even fake, image of themselves and their lives on social media. This causes young impressionable minds to compare themselves to those people, which causes them to be unhappy with themselves or their own lives. Besides cyberbullying and lack of social interaction, social media affects us in many other ways.

         At the University of Glasgow, researchers also studied the effect that social media has on anxiety and depression. They found a third factor that is affected by social media that also affects anxiety and depression, and that factor is sleep. Woods, Cleland, and Scott studied 467 adolescents and measured their screen time, what time of day they are on their phones, and the sleep quality and levels of anxiety and depression in those teenagers, (Woods 1). The study showed, “As expected, greater overall social media use, nighttime-specific social media use and emotional investment in social media were each associated with poorer sleep quality and higher levels of anxiety and depression,” (Woods 12). Excessive social media use decreases sleep quality which can affect a person’s mental well-being and physical well-being. 

       Not only does social media affect sleep, it also creates an emotional investment that worsens a person’s mental health. People experience pressure to reply to messages immediately and feel upset and anxious when they cannot use social media because they're missing out on new content, (Woods 13-14). “This may suggest that a strong emotional connection to social media sites impacts on sleep quality by increasing anxiety, which is known to contribute to poor sleep,” (Woods 14). The addiction to smartphones and social media is causing people to get anxious when they are not able to check what is online every five minutes. This type of withdrawal from a phone is seriously concerning and specifically shows how social media can lead to mental health disorders. The effect that social media addiction has on us is extremely detrimental to our mental well-being.

       Social media, COVID-19, and family relationships all contribute to the increase in depression and anxiety in modern society in many ways. These factors are specifically important because they have all become prominent in the past two decades. Social media became popular in the 2010’s, divorce rates have doubled in the past few decades, and the COVID-19 pandemic came around in 2020. This is a crucial point to remember because this essay investigates not only what factors contribute to mental health issues, but also why mental health disorders are more prominent now than they were a few decades ago. These contributions to anxiety and depression impact society now more than ever before.

       The levels of anxiety and depression have increased in modern day society, and the modern day factors that contribute to those disorders are social media, Covid, and family relationship issues. Social media creates a lack of in-person interaction, lack of quality sleep, cyberbullying, self-esteem issues, and emotional investment. COVID-19 caused a lack of in-person interaction, reliance on social media, more negative interactions, and the feeling of loneliness and isolation. Family relationship issues and divorce creates attachment issues and socio-economic problems. All these factors are much more common now than ever before and they take a severe toll on an adolescent's mental health. Although it is not yet proven, data suggests that social media, COVID-19, and family issues are the factors that seem to be primarily responsible for the increase in mental health issues among kids and young adults in the United States.