A Fresh Approach to a Crisis

For years now, policymakers have sought an explanation for the mental health crisis among young people. Suicide attempts and psychiatric hospitalizations were rising even before the pandemic. Then the rates of anxiety and depression doubled worldwide.

Why is this happening? The social psychologist Jonathan Haidt points to smartphones, and the algorithms that draw kids away from healthy play and into dangerous, addictive thought loops. No, his critics say. The real problem is a grim social landscape of school shootings, poverty and global warming. Or academic pressure. Or insufficient health care.

A group of researchers in Britain now propose another, at least partial, explanation: We talk about mental disorders so much. I cover this notion in a story The Times published today.

This hypothesis is called “prevalence inflation.” It holds that our society has become so saturated with discussion of mental health that young people may interpret mild, transient suffering as symptoms of a medical disorder.

This is a problem, they say, because identifying with a psychiatric diagnosis may not be helpful. Students who self-label as anxious or depressed are more likely than similar students who don’t self-label to view themselves as powerless over the disorder, recent studies have shown. They may respond by avoiding stressful situations like parties or public speaking, which could make their problems worse.

One of the psychologists behind the prevalence inflation theory, Lucy Foulkes of the University of Oxford, traces her skepticism back to 2018, when she began teaching undergraduates. They were “bombarded” with messages warning that they might be in crisis, she said. “It seemed like the more we were trying to raise awareness about it, it wasn’t getting better, and in fact, it only seemed to be getting worse.”