Latest news with #youthanxiety
Medscape
4 days ago
- Health
- Medscape
Restricting Kids' Cell Phone Use at School: Ethicist
This transcript has been edited for clarity. Hi. I'm Art Caplan. I'm at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, where I'm the head of the Division of Medical Ethics. The state that I live in, Connecticut, has seen some very interesting legislative proposals recently around cell phone use. Many other states — New York, New Jersey, and many others — are having similar Connecticut one, I think, is the furthest along of them all. It becomes important because I think parents ask questions about cell phone use for their kids. What should I be thinking? Should I restrict it? Is it dangerous? What should I do? The state of Connecticut wants to help. First, they've proposed legislation to pull cell phones out of schools — at least kindergarten up through high school — to get the cell phones taken away from the kids so that they're not distracted and that they're paying attention to the teacher and also engaged in social interaction. Even more radically, there's a proposal in Connecticut, a bill that would ban in young children from being able to access social media platforms, iPads, cell phones, or whatever between midnight and 6:00 AM. Is this a good idea? A colleague of mine at NYU, Jonathan Haidt, wrote a book called The Anxious Generation . He believes that the rates we see of teenagers who are now experiencing anxiety, which has increased from 2010 to today from 1 in 10 to 1 in 4; the number of teenagers experiencing depression, which has gone up from 1 in 10 to 1 in 5; and even death by suicide, one of the leading causes of deathfor kids aged 15-24, have to do with social media. Harassment, peer pressure, and getting stalked and bombarded with messages that attack self-esteem, target young people, and make them feel bad about their bodies can absolutely create mental health disorders. Is there sufficient evidence in his book?Do we have sufficient evidence from other studies to say for sure it's the cell phone or the iPad that somebody's looking at late at night? I'm going to concede that we don't. There's suggestive evidence, but not really many gold-standard studies that say, yes, it's the cell phone, iPad, or computerand where they are on social media. On the other hand, I support these legislative efforts, like Connecticut's, to get the cell phones out of school, to get kids talking to one another, to get them paying attention more, and to do what we can to get them off [of their devices] in the middle of the night. I would look at it this way.[Cell phones] may be causing problems by giving access to disturbing social media outlets. Let's face it, social media is a cesspool at this point, a sewer all over the place, and the companies that run it are doing nothing to self-regulate it. If we're wrong, the worst that happened is [kids] are not online for certain parts of the day. I know parents sometimes say, well, what about if there's a shooting or an emergency at school? I think we can manage that. You can absolutely have teachers with cell phones. The staff can have cell phones. It's not that there wouldn't be any ability to alert the police or to allow some communication as necessary with the kids.I don't think the rarity of a school shooting, as much as we worry about it, is enough to say, yes, let's let the kids just get lost all day long at school in their cell phones. I also understand why people are asking how this is going to really be enforced. Maybe it will be possible at school when you ask the kids to turn the cell phones in and lock them up or put them in a pouch where the teacher has the code or is that enforceable at home at night? One of the things missing, I think, from these efforts in Connecticut and elsewhere to decrease access by young kids to social media is the use of parental controls. I think some social platforms do a pretty good job saying before you give that cell phone to your kid or let them have their own computer, you're going to be able to program it with social parental discretion controls. Other platforms don't seem to care. Let's set some standards and expectations about what parents could do and would be able to do to restrict access at different times. It's going to take an across-the-board effort from parents, government requirements, and a willingness of people who control social mediato try to make sure that kids aren't getting in trouble, but we have to really start to take steps. We've got a problem in just saying there's nothing we could do about it, like the horse is out of the barn. That's not a response. I support the Connecticut effort. We'll see. I don't think federal government's going to be moving in this area anytime seem oriented toward deregulation. I think many states may, and I think that's something that, as physicians, we should try to support. Less access to social media at certain times of the day and night is not a bad thing for kids. I'm Art Caplan. I'm at the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Grossman School of for watching.
CBS News
13-05-2025
- Health
- CBS News
Sycamores continues to provide mental health resources to youth impacted by January wildfires
Ariel Hernandez remembers January 8 when her grandfather noticed the pressing dange of the Eaton Fire. "He said, 'We gotta evacuate, we gotta evacuate,' said Hernandez. "The last time he said that the house was on fire, I ran to my aunt's room crying." It was then that life as this 10-year-old knew it had changed. Jana Lord is a psychologist and the chief operating officer of Sycamores, a nonprofit organization in Pasadena that offers care for a full range of youth mental health conditions, ranging from the anxiety that comes with adjusting to a new school all the way to those that include being a danger to oneself and others. Their residential treatment facilities, like El Nido in Altadena, offer around the clock care for youths in crisis. There are also smaller facilities throughout the area, like the one where Hernandez began therapy for severe anxiety two years ago. "I had pain in my chest and I went to the hospital for it because of how scared it made me," she said. Two days after she was checked out at the hospital, Hernandez received an appointment with Sycamores therapist Bianca Turano. They've been working together since. "She's helped me, like, calm my anxiety," Hernandez said. Lord says that healing begins with accepting help. "So many of them might wish that they could just feel differently," she said. "You can't just wish those feelings away, unfortunately." That's why therapy aims to help youth learn how to process and cope with trauma. For Hernandez, that is the aftermath of the Eaton Fire. "The sad thing is my grandma had just bought me an art kit for Christmas and I'm devastated that I didn't take it with me when we were evacuating," she said. Not only has she had to deal with the loss of her home and all of her belongings, but like so many other fire victims, she's had to go through multiple moves as her family seeks stability. Each of the four times they've had to pick up and find somewhere new, Hernandez said it's a bit of a heartbreak. "I got attached to the hotel in Monrovia, and so I was kind of sad when we had to move, but then we moved to Azusa," she said. "I got attached to that and then when we had to move I was sad. And now that we're here, where we're at now, I like it a lot because it reminds me of home." Unfortunately, Ariel and her family are going to have to move once again. It's this, paired with January's tragedy, that has brought the return of some of her worst symptoms. "Strong wind terrifies me," she said. "I just get nauseous and I start shaking and I get chest pain." Lord says that the wildfires have had a dramatic impact on Los Angeles County youth, including some of the Sycamores staff. "For anybody that has a history of adverse or traumatic events in their lives, whenever another event happens it can be very triggering and it can compound prior traumatic events," Lord said. Ariel was supposed to graduate from therapy last December, but she's not going to continue working with Bianca through July. "Sometimes I get irritated when I have to talk to her, but then I do talk to her and it makes me feel better," she said. Despite the recent trauma, she continues to heal, using the tools that Bianca has provided to help her cope. "No natural disaster can take that away from her," Lord said.
