The alarming jump in the proportion of teens and emerging adults who are struggling with depression and anxiety is concerning and perplexing. A great deal of attention has been aimed towards possible connections between teen levels of depression and anxiety and the exponential uptake of smartphones and social media use among early teens starting around 2012 (Jonathon Haidt’s After Babel Substack posts and the considerable mountain of research he is accumulating speak to this quite clearly). While I think that work is important, I believe we need to step back and take a broader developmental look at why this is happening or in other words to try and understand why smartphones and social media might be developmentally toxic to teens and emerging adults. If you visit the Dual Credit Resources page, you can download a paper I wrote looking at the developmental transitions that are encountered in the middle transitions from high school to post-secondary life. I also talk about how responsibility for optimizing the developmental transitions that prepare teens and emerging adults for post-secondary life (including but not limited to post-secondary education) have not been systematically taken up by either of the educational systems on either side of secondary to post-secondary transitions.
I strongly believe, and research (see Jean Twenge’s new book called Generations) supports the idea, that an understanding of the contexts and processes of identity development through the teenage and emerging adult years these days could provide us with the broader developmental context we need for understanding teen mental health as well as indicating opportunities and strategies for effective support and intervention (though I also think that limiting social media use among young teens is also a good idea!). To this end, I want to tell you about a website I have put together aimed at helping high school students and post secondary emerging adults figure out how to make life choices, build their identities, and ultimately thrive as they navigate their post-secondary life transitions. The site is called BuildingYourIdentity.com.
You can get a feel for the possibilities of this larger developmental perspective and the website itself by watching this general video from the BuildingYourIdentity.com landing page. The site is primarily aimed at emerging adults (late teens to late 20’s) and toward anyone thinking about, working on, or struggling with getting started on their identity work and on their life goals and directions. In addition to some self-analytic tools and suggested identity building strategies, the site has a blog with postings aimed at emerging adults building their identities. The site is also intended to serve as a companion to this PsychologyForEverydayLife.ca resource site for folks such as psychology teachers, guidance counselors, academic advisors, CALM teachers, parents and others living and working with young people in these challenging developmental times.
If you would like to view the whole BuildingYouIdentity.com site, send me an email (or use the contact link on the home page) telling me your name, email address, and briefly how you are engaging with teens and/or emerging adults and I will send you a coupon for access to the site.
I would also love to hear from you if you have questions or if you have or are aware of resources or sources relating to teen and/or emerging adult identity building and development.
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