The plague of mental illness in teenage girls

By Jo Nova

Girl using mobile phoneSomething is going wrong with teenage girls. Horribly wrong. Zach Rausch and Jon Haidt have published a bomb of an article. Across the Anglosphere (and perhaps elsewhere) Gen Z girls are more anxious, more depressed, more likely to self harm and less happy, and not just a bit more, but in a seismic kind of way. Things are not exactly great for teenage boys either, but the trends are worst for girls and young women and most of the downturn started around 2012, uncannily in at least five different countries.

Rausch and Haidt make a compelling case that this coincides with the rise of smart phones and selfie-culture, and perhaps that is all the rocket-fuel we need. But the rise of the Glorious Victimhood Era of Woke was surely the guidance system that pointed a whole generation in a race to climb Mental Disability Mountain.

Teenage girls are magnets for fashion — not just in clothes but in ideas too. They may be collecting diagnoses like teenage boys collected football cards, but self-poisoning is not a sport.

The culture that acts like a teenage girl seems to be having trouble breeding healthy women.

Substack: After Babel

The Teen Mental Illness Epidemic is International

Zach Rausch and Jon Haidt

In sum, all five Anglosphere countries exhibit the same basic pattern:

      • A) A substantial increase in adolescent anxiety and depression rates begins in the early 2010s.
      • B) A substantial increase in adolescent self-harm rates or psychiatric hospitalizations begins in the early 2010s.
      • C) The increases are larger for girls than for boys (in absolute terms).
      • D) The increases are larger for Gen Z than for older generations (in absolute terms).

Why did this happen in the same way at the same time in five different countries? What could have affected girls around the English-speaking world so strongly and in such a synchronized way?

At this point, there is only one theory we know of that can explain why the same thing happened to girls in so many countries at the same time: the rapid global movement from flip phones (where you can’t do social media) to smartphones and the phone-based childhood. The first smartphone with a front-facing camera (the iPhone 4) came out in 2010, just as teens were trading in their flip phones for smartphones in large numbers. (Few teens owned an iPhone in its first few years). Facebook bought Instagram in 2012, which gave the platform a huge boost in publicity and users. So 2012 was the first year that very large numbers of girls in the developed world were spending hours each day posting photos of themselves and scrolling through hundreds of carefully edited photos of other girls.

If you suddenly transform the social lives of girls, putting them onto platforms that prioritize social comparison and performance, platforms where we know that heavy users are three times more likely to be depressed than light users, might that have some impact on the mental health of girls around the world? We think so, but if anyone can offer another explanation that fits the graphs we’ve shown in this post, we’d love to hear it.

What Happened to Teens in the Five Anglosphere Countries?

There are 17 figures in the full post, graph after graph — all similar variations on young women in trouble. Women with anxiety, women harming themselves, in psychological distress, visiting psychiatry emergency departments, and generally feeling unhappy.

Perhaps shattering the glass ceiling isn’t all it’s cracked up to be? Perhaps the freedom to have meaningless one night stands and compete in the tinder date race, isn’t freedom at all?

 Percent US Anxiety Prevalence. National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH).

Figure 3. Percent US Anxiety Prevalence. National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH).

 Percent US Anxiety Prevalence. National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH).

Percent US Anxiety Prevalence.

Figure 14. “Have you ever been told by a doctor that you have an anxiety disorder? This includes panic attacks, phobia, post-traumatic stress disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder?” New Zealand Ministry of Health, New Zealand Health Survey 2020.

Figure 14. “Have you ever been told by a doctor that you have an anxiety disorder? This includes panic attacks, phobia, post-traumatic stress disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder?” New Zealand Ministry of Health, New Zealand Health Survey 2020.

..

Self poisoning Australia

Figure 13. Trends in intentional self-poisoning, ages 5–19 years, 2006-2016. Rates per 100,000. See 1.3.14 in The Coddling of the Australian Mind? Graph created by Cairns, Karanges, Wong, Brown, Robinson, Pearson, Dawson, & Buckley (2019), with text added by Zach Rausch. 

Figure 5. Excellent or very good mental health, Canadian women. Canadian Community Health Survey (2003-2019). See section 1.3.2 of The Coddling of the Canadian Mind? A Collaborative Review.

Figure 5. Excellent or very good mental health, Canadian women. Canadian Community Health Survey (2003-2019). See section 1.3.2 of The Coddling of the Canadian Mind? A Collaborative Review.

This graph is poignant — these girls are as young as 10.

Figure 8. Trends in children’s happiness with different aspects of life by gender, UK, 2009-10 to 2019-20, graphed in The Good Childhood Report (2022)—data from Understanding Society survey. See 1.3.4 of Adolescent Mood Disorders Since 2010.

Figure 8. Trends in children’s happiness with different aspects of life by gender, UK, 2009-10 to 2019-20, graphed in The Good Childhood Report (2022)—data from Understanding Society survey.

Read it all.

Photo of girl by Surprising Shots.

9.9 out of 10 based on 60 ratings

142 comments to The plague of mental illness in teenage girls

  • #
    John in NZ

    The Tavistock clinic in England had a one size fits all solution fo this problem.

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  • #
    Roger

    This is horribly worrying for future society and AI will make this worse. But sadly I am but not in the least surprised. The fixation with smartphones is an addiction that is arguably every bit as damaging as drug addiction – but potentially worse due to it affecting the majority.

    450

    • #
      farmerbraun

      Narcissistic Personality Disorder has been on the rise for 20 years or so. Facebook was the great enabler.
      Notice that what was once “the phone” became “my phone”.

      A couple of generations of children will be irrevocably lost.

      Anyone remember the story of the Pied Piper ?

      390

      • #
        GlenM

        What do the parents care I ask? Promoting a factory line of brain- dead automatons does not spell good for society. These people vote as well.

        240

        • #
          Saighdear

          Ans: Money money money …. “promoted” as in encouraged by Government. Mothers having / WANTING to go back to work, ..it is their ‘RIGHT’ of course, innit? send the harvest of that night to the mass education centres where someone else takes on the mantle of ethics and education, ( lifestyle education – think what I’m not spelling out ) yours or theirs….
          whose Bairn is it anyway? If the State has the right to send them off to war, innoculate them, tax them etc. ( Chip them? )

          30

    • #
      exsteelworker

      It seems that it is much more prevalent in the affluent Western nations, being of the end of the West.

      170

    • #
      John Connor II

      The fixation with smartphones is an addiction that is arguably every bit as damaging as drug addiction

      As I’ve mentioned before, walk through any mall and look at the faces of the nomophobes. Empty vacant lonely stares.
      They don’t know how to live or interact.
      They’ve never taken a risk in their lives.
      Phones are just a barrier to stop them having to actually physically interact with other humans.
      The dystopian future of so many old scifi series is coming true right now.
      Will we see a social schism of “on-liners” and “off-liners”?
      Ghettos full of off-liners with no technological understanding or interaction (think Amish)?
      Scifi fans will no doubt know my reference to Sliders 4.15 Net Worth.😎

      80

  • #
    James Murphy

    It’s a sad state of affairs that this is happening in countries where, on balance, humans have never had it so good. Then, perhaps this is one of the myriad causes of the problem.
    Do humans thrive in an environment without a great deal of challenge/reward scenarios?
    I certainly don’t long for the days of child labour in factories, for a low life expectancy, or to live in poverty, but I do wonder about the impact of “instant gratification”, especially combined with the power of social media, and an education system apparently teaching that white people are evil and are responsible for climate change. All that, on top of peer pressure that has been with us since, well, forever, I think.

    530

    • #
      Lawrie

      I think you are on the money James. When you live in a protective bubble, where you are prevented from being mentally challenged, where you need safe spaces so new ideas or even old ideas cannot be heard and where being surrounded by like thinking drones is your idea of being safe, of being yourself is it any wonder that the slightest disruption to this “perfect” world will cause a meltdown. Remember when kids took their lives in their own hands to ride a bike to school. When disagreements were sorted out around the back of the toilets. When boys shorter than the rifles they were carrying went of to cadets on Friday afternoons. When girls played netball in those fabulous short skirts and worked hard to be winners. When social communication was conducted on weekend sleepovers.

      There is no doubt that the smart phone has made the world worse not better and now we have the data to prove it.

      250

  • #
    Simon Thompson ᵐᵇ ᵇˢ

    As a former GP I recall a poignant conversation with the the mother of an anxious teenager.
    She was aghast when I suggested removing the childs phone/turning it off at night.

    (Oh the problem- anxiety/insomnia from receiving messages from her self harming friend).

    Nope that Genie aint going back in.

    440

    • #
      farmerbraun

      There’s the problem right there.
      A complete lack of parenting skills.
      Talk about a tragedy .
      If one cannot afford to keep one’s children out of primary school , then it would be better not to have children at all.

      270

      • #
        Kalm Keith

        Parents can try, but the greatest, largest and most incessant influence is from the wider society which currently is leaderless in promoting a decent framework for our community.

        Sadly, parents can be victims too.

        140

    • #
      Old Goat

      Simon,
      The phones are part of the problem and solution . We are encouraged to spend so many hours staring at our “feed” that we start to lose track of reality – when any waiting is required everyone goes to their phone. Climate change ,sexism , racism are the weapons of the MSM to spook (and fleece) the gullible . The young are specially susceptible as they like simple solutions . Reality is almost always complex and often unpredictable . The good news is that it is impossible to completely conceal the truth – it leaks .

      80

    • #
      ivan

      I think I should drop the information about some research in the US where they found some alarming facts.
      https://www.wnd.com/2023/04/research-kids-liberal-parents-likely-depressed/

      50

      • #
        David-of-Cooyal-in-Oz

        Sounds like lefty parents have given up on parenting.
        Also sounds like sowing the seed and reaping the whirlwind to me.
        Cheers
        Dave B

        40

  • #
    John Hultquist

    Someone, please, monitor a few teen sites where this report is posted and report back.
    Being old, fatherless, and a curmudgeon, I have no insights, but am curious.

    130

  • #
    JB

    What do we expect when young girls are denied their natural instincts by a feral ideology.

    320

  • #
    Lance

    Survivors of the Trans Panic: Detransitioner Reveals Horrors of Gender ‘Cyber-Sect’

    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/04/10/survivors-trans-panic-de-transitioner-reveals-horrors-gender-cyber-sect/

    110

  • #
    David Maddison

    Apart from all of the above there is another huge problem with young girls (as well as boys) caused by social contagion and that is a high propensity to engaging in transgenderism with subsequent irreversible hormonal and surgical mutilation by unethical “doctors”.

    Does anyone seriously think there are such large amounts of children “born into the wrong bodies”? And why is it much less in religious schools or home-schooled children? As well, why was it almost unheard of before ten or so years ago?

    There are huge amounts of transgender regret but most such reports are censored by the Left and their Legacy and Social(ist) Media platforms.

    TikTok (owned by the Chicomms) is a huge vector for these and other social contagions and its users are addicted to it. The Chinese version of TikTok, intended for the People’s Republic, does not permit the propagation of deviancy as does the Western version. The Western version also harvests all sorts of data from your phone and has caused various security concerns in Western countries whereby it has been banned on government devices in some jurisdictions.

    TikTok is essentially a Chinese social contagion weapon to help cause further degeneration and collapse of the West, as well as harvesting useful information from phones of Government and corporate officials.

    400

  • #
    David Maddison

    This short animated movie (3:06) perfectly captures the problem of smartphone addiction, a major contributor to the mental problems of young people (with platforms such as TikTok as I mentioned above but also other platforms contribute strongly).

    https://youtu.be/FwzmQf44hMo

    180

  • #
    Tim Spence

    I’m sure tiktok will be part of the equation for females in the last 3 years, it’s tremendously sad what is happening to our youngsters.

    220

    • #
      farmerbraun

      “Sad ” seems inadequate.
      Criminal is more like it.

      240

      • #
        Lawrie

        It was a good idea when it started; instant communication, access to information but now we have seen the long term results it is time to take stock. Much like the continued promotion of boosters when everyone with a working brain cell know that they do not work and can be lethal. That is criminal. When you know the continued use of anything is injurious. Asbestos was shut down, Thalidomide was shut down, they limit the number of Panadol one can buy but they push the booster. I doubt anyone will stop the smart phone no matter what damage it causes because it is a useful weapon of the left for propaganda purposes. If the left think cutting off the breasts of young immature females is acceptable then a few going crazy is considered a plus.

        180

    • #
      farmerbraun

      I suggest that the most damaging aspect will be the effect of never living in the “here and now” i.e failing to achieve mindfulness.
      That is the aspect I find most disconcerting , having thrown my first cell phone away last century, after using it for a couple of years.
      Cell phone nings seem to be always in the future (when the message is delivered ) or the past (when they receive one sent some time ago).
      They have little contact with the present.

      60

      • #

        never living in the “here and now”

        I think that’s a very perceptive observation. First aid for one of these ‘phone zombies’, if you can get them to put down their toy, might be to gently ask them to walk around their present time environment: look at this, look at that, and most importantly feel the solidity and weight of things. About 85% of people will brighten up on this simple process; the other 15% have a more serious mental problem.

        Yes, personal phones are one of the things that make present time become subjectively narrower. How wide is present time? A second? A fraction of a second, like the refresh rate on a video screen? Or can our perception of “now” expand to include a whole day or much longer?

        Once phones were well-behaved appliances that sat on the hall table until someone wanted to use them. They were attached to the wall, not to a person. Mobile phones are becoming de facto identity cards that are uniquely associated with an individual: MyPhones.

        This isn’t meant as a promotion for any particular mindfulness method – there are many good ones, take your pick.

        50

  • #
    Mike Jonas

    The charts are marked with a vertical line at 2012. But if you look at the charts, the problem generally started around 2009.

    Wikipediathe iPhone 3GS, was announced on June 8, 2009, at WWDC 2009, and introduced video recording functionality.

    130

    • #
      KP

      The graphs follow the roll-out of 4G microwave towers, so maybe ‘The Invisible Rainbow’ is right about the nervous system effects of bathing ourselves in EMF radiation.

      Lets see what 5G brings us..

      144

      • #
        Kevin M

        Stray/ambient radio communication waves causing physical harm was an Isaac Asimov bit from the 1960s. I hope its silly as it sounds because I’m a radio engineer.

        110

        • #
          Leo G

          There have been many studies confirming cognitive and behavioural effects of microwave exposure, even at the low intensities experienced close to cellphone handsets. That does not necessarily mean that the effects are harmful, just that they should not be ignored.

          91

      • #
        JB

        I would have thought that the 1000 or so watts per square metre of electromagnetic radiation from the sun would have had a more profound effect long ago.

        111

        • #
          Kalm Keith

          The thing is that we have had two million years to adapt to the Sun in roughly our present form.

          Radio has been with us for a hundred years, TV for sixty, the internet for forty and so on.

          I’m very concerned about the mobile phone/net radiation thing because information about it seems to be under censorship.

          102

      • #
        Sceptical+Sam

        The graphs discriminate on age.

        Does 4G microwave, if it has any affect at all, only affect the young?

        I doubt it.

        But then, I doubt the whole of “The Invisible Rainbow” proposition, in any case.

        20

      • #
        greggg

        Radiation is a big part of the problem. It impacts on people with existing inflammation much more than “healthy” people.
        I’ve electrical hypersensitivity and react to different sources of radiation. Radiation from the computer monitor in front of me is a problem – the left side of my face goes numb after a while and sensation increases in the part of my brain where seizures occur. Sometimes I cannot sit in front of the monitor at all as seizures can be triggered within a minute and have done so (the monitor is flicker free). Wearing a shielded cap over that part of my head helps me tolerate the monitor much better.
        Mobile phone radiation is the worst – it instantly “squeezes” my brain and f**ks me right up in a short while.
        I’ve observed people with existing brain health problems make themselves worse through their use of phones, and the radiation is a bigger problem for those people than the internet is.
        Different types of radiation have different effect. For me, when I’ve lived where there is high ground current, my fatigue (having M.E.) has gone up and down with the background low frequency EMR – probably existing compromised calcium channel function being made worse. Having somewhere to live, away from ground current, towers or smart meters, makes a huge difference to my health.

        00

  • #
    mondopinion

    Just recently I was thinking about how estrogen in our environment is affecting men’s fertility — and then I thought wo, what is that extra estrogen doing to women and girls ? And is that why some are seeking hormones to be “more male”?

    130

  • #
    Penguinite

    Mass hysteria of young females!
    OMG! They’ve got everybody covered in the current acronym! LGBTQQIP2SAA stands
    for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, queer, intersex, pansexual two-spirit (2S), androgynous and asexual
    Gender dysphoria originally described people born with both sets of genitalia. Not anymore! Now it is the distress a person experiences due to a mismatch between their personal sense of gender and the sex assigned at birth. XY and XX genome distinction no longer matters for humans but continues to describe all other mammals!

    170

    • #
      Lawrie

      I reckon they could cut it down to just one; CRAZY or maybe WEIRD. I guess ABNORMAL would not be accepted.

      70

  • #
    Graeme+P.

    Sadly, I know 3 teenage girls and a 4th the daughter of a work colleague of my wife’s who now consider themselves not of the female gender. All are from broken families and at least 1 wants her breasts removed. My wife and myself are under pressure to not just address her as a genuine male but to think and believe that she is a genuine male. This madness needs to stop.
    I once read that the traditional family is the best protection against bad ideas. The older I get the truer this appears to me.

    550

    • #
      Trevor

      Wish that were the case (regarding traditional families) – I know of 2 intact/traditional family units who each have daughters who no longer identify as female. Hard to watch, as I have known those girls since they were very young beautiful girls and now they are a shadow of their former-selves. They are no part of broken homes – in fact, they have been spoiled to have such great parents and yet still fell into this.

      As the father of a daughter it does worry me – trying to get to the bottom of it to ensure my daughter doesn’t fall into this and can live a happy and fulfilling life.

      90

    • #
      TedM

      41 green ticks Graeme, and your comment deserves every one of them.

      40

  • #
    david

    Smart phones and the like may well be a problem particularly for younger generations as outlined above.

    But worse for all is that the government is destroying our economy (inane energy policy) and our social cohesion (“the Voice”). Now THAT gives me sleepless nights!

    250

    • #
      Hasbeen

      That may be a good thing. If the power fails, there will be nothing to charge the phones, which might fix this problem.

      131

  • #
    David Maddison

    It’s a perfect storm of things going very badly wrong.

    I think a lot of it’s to do with the emasculation of men and confusion about gender roles for the two genders (i.e. male and female, sadly that needs to be specified these days).

    Plus I think the deliberate dumbing-down of education and the abandonment of teaching critical thinking skills has impaired brain development in children and therefore lowered IQ.

    1) IQ scores are dropping worldwide:

    a) https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1718793115

    b) E Dutton, D van der Linden, R Lynn, The negative Flynn effect: A systematic literature review. Intelligence 59, 163–169 (2016).

    2) Male testosterone is dropping:

    https://www.icenews.is/2010/05/17/testosterone-levels-decreasing-in-danish-men/#axzz4f1HF2xrr

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/neilhowe/2017/10/02/youre-not-the-man-your-father-was/

    https://www.medichecks.com/blogs/testosterone/why-do-gen-z-and-millennial-men-have-lower-testosterone

    3) Sperm counts dropping:

    https://academic.oup.com/humupd/article/29/2/157/6824414?login=false

    “Temporal trends in sperm count: a systematic review and meta-regression analysis of samples collected globally in the 20th and 21st centuries”

    Our new data and analyses confirm our prior findings of an appreciable decline in sperm count between 1973 and 2018 among men from North America, Europe and Australia and support a decline among unselected men from South/Central America, Africa and Asia. This decline has continued, as predicted by our prior analysis, and has become steeper since 2000. This substantial and persistent decline is now recognized as a significant public health concern.

    140

    • #
      David Maddison

      A trend toward veganism may also contribute to diminished IQ.

      https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1790759/

      On average, vegans had a childhood IQ score that was nearly 10 points lower than other vegetarians: mean (SD) IQ score 95.1 (14.8) in vegans compared with 104.8 (14.1) in other vegetarians (P=0.04), although this estimate must be viewed with caution as only nine participants were vegan.

      51

      • #
        Lawrie

        You have to be stupid to not eat meat. It was eating meat that allowed humans to develop a bigger brain and to give us time to do other things. Besides the cows and sheep have already eaten the vegetables hence no need for salads at BBQs.

        140

        • #
          Hanrahan

          I think the word you need is “sensitive”.

          As a boy I used to chop the head of a chicken before school and eat it that night. My dad worked at the meat works and showed us around once. Seeing a beast poleaxed, strung up, throat sliced is a lesson in pragmatism. A year at an Ag college taught me to like and be kind to animals without forgetting why we were caring for them.

          I am not “sensitive” so scoff at vegetarianism.

          70

          • #
            RobB

            In my younger days I had the pleasure of working in an abattior and in a chicken factory. Saw it all!

            40

  • #
    Greg in NZ

    As John Denver used to yodel:
    ‘Thank God I’m a country boy’.

    170

  • #
    el+gordo

    Following on from the recent IPSOS poll, where Chinese mainlanders are the happiest people in the world. So I had a look elsewhere to see what is happening with the children, which maybe skewered because of the previous one child policy.

    When Xi gained power he restricted what people could see on their smartphones, Western culture was no longer online. Then through the power of propaganda the children are moulded to be confident and happy. They have also banned them from taking their Smartphones to school.

    ‘According to the research, the average score of Chinese children’s happiness growth is currently 82.22, which indicates most Chinese children are “Quite Happy”.

    ‘70.1 percent of the Chinese children regard high grades in school as the greatest happiness, exceeding other factors by more than 20 percentage points.

    ‘Hanging out with friends provides enjoyment for 49.3 percent of children, ranking second.’ (China Daily)

    134

    • #
      Fran

      Chinese are the happiest people in the world because you lose social credit points if you are discovered to have admitted any problems in life or criticism of the way society works.

      40

    • #
      Robert Austin

      You might want to check out some of Serpentza’s video on You Tube.The guy lived in China for 14 years and is articulate and knowledgeable on the subject. Apropos to the subject of the happiness of young people is the “let it rot” phenomenon.

      00

    • #
      Tel

      Do you also believe the Chinese economic and financial data?

      How about their amazing low COVID deaths … everything they have achieved is so incredible.

      10

  • #
    Bruce of Newcastle

    There’s that year again: 2013 or so. Rising mental illness and rising leftwing voting patterns, seemingly in lock-step. Note how young men haven’t been affected:

    https://www.americansurveycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/SV15g-young-women-are-much-more-liberal-than-young-men.png

    100

  • #
    David Maddison

    I just saw an advert for ChatGPT mobile App.

    It says:

    Write essays, emails, homework effortlessly

    The dumbing-down will now rapidly accelerate.

    190

    • #
      Leo G

      Expect ChatGPT mobile apps that can test essays, emails and homework for AI influence.

      30

    • #
      James Murphy

      It’s another tool to cheat with, but it’s not the dawn of a cheating era. I am an occasional instructor for a couple of courses that my company provides to its employees. the students aren’t new graduates, they’ve all got experience of some sort, but the cheating is incredible, especially since we now do so much on-line, and not in person..
      the most recent case, a guy very clearly googled the answer to a test question about basic statistical methods, and argued the point when I said he was wrong. It’s bad enough that we have to ensure the answers to test questions are all clearly in the training material, yet few bother reading it, expecting an easy pass.

      40

  • #
    Neville

    I think smartphones and the endless repetitive, poisonous attacks on everything that held us together in the past are causing this breakdown.
    Young minds can’t handle the incessant questioning of our way of life and the attacks on so many things that once was the glue that held societies together.
    We’ve even seen videos of young girls crying at demonstrations because they fear CC and the end of the world.
    AGAIN just total BS and FRAUD but who cares?
    Just recently we’ve seen a US female swimming champion attacked by trans thugs + their supporters and forced to hide under guard until she could secure a safe exit.
    Her crime was just asking them to listen to her opinion on males unfairly competing against women in the pool.
    And all of this stupidity encourages the loony left to sow even more doubt and for the next few months we’ll be urged to vote for apartheid or racism in our Aussie constitution.
    Unfortunately we have a very long recovery to win back some values and common sense that were once taken for granted.

    220

  • #
    A happy little debunker

    The most ‘notable’ girl in the world is a 20 year old that suffers from Autism, Asperger’s and select Mute-ism, without the wherewithal to attend school and be edumacated on her pet project, but has been awarded a Doctorate in Theology for her efforts.

    The other most ‘notable’ girl is a 26 year old actor that has a huge social media presence & is now the public face of Tampax, Bud-lite & Nike (for Women).

    131

  • #
    MatrixTransform

    the guidance system that pointed a whole generation in a race to climb Mental Disability Mountain

    is Feminism

    dig under the rainbow facade
    and have a proper look at what the kiddies are being taught

    got a young adult at Uni? … have a look a their course-work

    121

  • #
    Kevin M

    I just read the original full article and think – not enough data. The time scale for “reliable” data is too short (shorter than for climate) and the criteria is too subjective (more subjective than for climate). Who knows what will count for sane in 2033?

    But I do agree with the main idea: photo-based social media is challenging for young ladies

    71

  • #
    old cocky

    This is a small sample, so treat it with appropriate caution.

    When my children were in high school, all my son’s male associates were ultra-competitive in sport and the usual skiting about how good they were and “my Dad is better than your Dad” sort of stuff. That applied to both the quieter and noisier ones.
    On the other hand, my daughter’s friends and classmates were ultra-competitive about how hard done by they were and how they weren’t allowed to do ‘X’.

    That’s from a very small sample, and it might just be a case of birds of a feather flocking together.

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  • #
    RetiredNow

    I read a lot about the impact of phones on girls, but I wonder how much of the problem is done by the education system which spends its time gaslighting the children, starting here as babies in what we used to call a creche, now childcare or somesuch.

    With mothers going back to full time employment palming their much-loved children off to someone else has become the societal norm and they continue having their waking hours being programmed by woke leftists that deny so much reality.

    From the time they are babies girls are programmed that being a wife and mother has zero value, that being better than men at work is easy, and necessary. Its a denial of physical reality. Gone are the days that 15 year old girls were looking for a male, male – someone they would want to father their children, the man who would protect and provide for them all, cos “you are better than just being a mother”.

    This won’t be the only issue, but along with phones and other factors (such as my granddaughter changed her personality within 3 weeks of getting her jabs, the last year of primary school) I do wonder about our future.

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    mondopinion

    Back in the 50s people sent Christmas cards to all their friends and family, with little personal written messages. A lot of cards, dozens. Then some people started sending a new kind of card — on the front was a posed photo of their family, and on the back there was a printed holiday greeting and a printed summary of their achievements and changes in the past year. Those cards came from families who considered themselves “achievers,” not “just folks.” When we got one we would roll our eyes in disgust because there was not a trace of Christmas warmth in them. We would not hang them on the mantle with all the other cards.
    And that today is Facebook and the other self-presenting social media. Depersonalized artificial communication. Presentation of Self without true contact.

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    crakar24

    I have two daughters one now in her mid 20’s and a teenager.

    I sent them to a private catholic school so as to be shielded by woke gov. propaganda. To a large extent my plan worked with the older one however UNI did take its toll. Her only saving grace is she is now an ICU nurse so the harsh realities of life are there on display every day (no room for woke crap in the ICU).

    The younger one is still at school however I dread the thought of her attending a UNI, she has friends in her classes that are IT/THAT etc, girls dressed as boys, boys dressed as girls its so F*&^%ED UP now days no wonder our children are broken.

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      Gee Aye

      you must have missed the 50’s 60’s 70’s etc. No changes that I can see.

      Out of interest, can you give a scenario where “wokeness” would be a hindrance to ICU?

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        Crakar24

        Once again your comments show you are so far out of your depth you have lost sight of the coast line

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          Gee Aye

          Good to see you backing your rhetoric with hard data.

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          • #
            crakar24

            For the love of God GA

            I never said Wokeness would be a hinderance in the ICU, OPEN YOUR EYES and read what is written not what you would prefer to be written and then create an argument. For example it does not matter what your pronouns are death is death whether you are an IT/THAT/THING/OTHER its all the same.

            You give drugs based on sex not on pronouns

            You do x rays based on sex not on pronouns

            You deduce illness etc based on sex not on pronouns

            And on and on it goes

            You are a very stupid person

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        Kalm Keith

        Very perceptive.

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        David Maddison

        Out of interest, can you give a scenario where “wokeness” would be a hindrance to ICU?

        In certain medical scenarios for diagnosis or treatment it is quite important to know the biological sex of a person. A diagnosis of a burst ovarian cyst is unlikely to apply to a biological male, for example. Wokeness would prohibit a doctor or nurse even being allowed to inquire as to whether the patient was male, female or “other”. And “assuming one’s gender” is considered a major social crime among the Left, so what are medical professionals meant to do?

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        • #
          Gee Aye

          Wokeness would prohibit a doctor or nurse even being allowed to inquire a

          nope try again.

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          • #
            b.nice

            Doctor.. Are you male or female.

            Patient.. I identify as female.

            Doc.. Ok then, we don’t need to treat that testicular cancer, do we. !

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          • #
            David Maddison

            You are wrong. Many transgenders and Leftists think transgenders genuinely become of the opposite gender. That has serious implications when the diagnosis and lab test results assume the wrong biological gender. The only transgender I have encountered that doesn’t believe this fiction is Blair White who is probably correct in saying that their male body acquired a feminised brain in utero through some adverse maternal hormonal environment.

            30

            • #
              Kalm Keith

              “acquired a feminised brain in utero”

              More accurate to put it:

              ” was left with a feminised brain in utero “

              10

      • #
        David Maddison

        https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2697839

        Acute Clinical Care for Transgender Patients
        A Review

        Observations Best practices in caring for a transgender patient include using a patient-identified name and pronoun, using gender-neutral terminology until the appropriate term is identified by the patient, and obtaining a surgical history inclusive of an anatomic inventory. Gender-affirming hormones can modify disease-specific risk factors or confer risk for in-hospital complications. They can also cause changes in laboratory values;

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        • #
          Gee Aye

          This is about respectful care not about medical treatment.

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          • #
            b.nice

            Out of respect to science… a male should be called a male. !

            Asking someone to call you something you obvious are not, is very disrespectful.

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      • #
        Ted1.

        [email protected]

        My father said that, and he lived to 93. The modern generation was no worse than his. That was 17 years ago.

        But he would have said no room for Woke crap in the ICU.

        Another thing he used to say was, the old blokes always reckon the world is going to pot.

        Well, I reckon the world is going to pot.

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    • #
      Ando

      I had the same ideas – my daughter also goes to a catholic girls high school. LGBQUNEJHFDVKJ rammed down their throats on a daily basis. Purple doors, rainbow this, pride that, half her class say they are lesbians, others identify as males and must be called by their new name that they change every year, ‘married’ lesbian religion teachers, etc, etc, etc.
      I challenged the principal how this extreme left indoctrination program was keeping in line with the Catholic catechisms – ‘we are following our ministry guidelines…’. When I challenged the ministry in charge, they said it was in response to youth suicides. How many LGBIUDJHFDJ suicides at the school? Zilch.
      The leftist lunatics have well and truly taken over the asylum, putting bad ideas into young, impressionable minds, causing all sorts of issues. This is the lefts war against the family unit via the education system and they are winning.

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  • #
    Harves

    Not surprisingly, having to share bathrooms with 17 year old biological males is making 12 year old girls anxious. Who’d have thought?

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    • #
      Gee Aye

      The vast majority of Australian toilets are not male or female.

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      • #
        b.nice

        You mean the single lockable ones, of course.

        eg if a service station only has a single toilet.

        But if a service station, a restaurant, a mall or anywhere else for that matter has two “rest rooms”, they are designated “male” and female”.

        Maybe an extra “unisex”/”disabled” and/or “parenting baby room”

        And the VAST MAJORITY of people know which one to use. .

        It is just a tiny mentally-disturbed minority that want to PRETEND otherwise.

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      • #
        Robert Swan

        They’re also single occupant.

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      • #
        Harves

        Bathrooms are more than toilets GeeAye. So, you’d be happy for a 12 year old female relative to be forced to share a common bathroom/shower room with older biological males at public pools and sports venues as is now happening in the US?

        170

        • #
          b.nice

          Gives free reign for sexual predators… that about all it does.

          Does anyone know of a case where a trans woman->man, uses the “male” change rooms?

          Perhaps there ought to be a third changeroom at large sporting venues… mark it with a warm fuzzy question mark ???

          Let them perve on each other, instead.!

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  • #
    STJOHNOFGRAFTON

    There must be an evil mastermind out there gleefully rubbing their hands together at these figures. We are being reduced to becoming subjects for experiments with the aim of creating a technocracy that is easily manipulated by a small number of elites. Resist all you can. Dumb down your ‘smart’ phone to basic functions. Pull out your TV’s life support. Take back the territory of your autonomy.

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  • #
    Ross

    There were always plenty of girls ” on the spectrum” , so the ones who didn’t really fit in. Not one of the cool girls. These are the ones these days that have been lured into transgenderism, the types that have been notably surgically disfigured and changed sexually forever in some of these clinics. As a sporting coach at high school level, I experienced the first girl wanting to be a boy 5 years ago. She was definitely autistic and had difficulty communicating and then, all of a sudden, she wanted to be Alec and treated as a bloke. It was terribly sad for her parents especially.

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    • #
      Harves

      A family I know had a son on the autism spectrum- very smart but very ‘socially quirky’, so found it hard to make friends. Never showed any signs of gender confusion. When he got to high school, he was befriended by some lesbian girls. A few months later his father gets a call from the school saying his son has turned up to school in a girls uniform and has asked to be treated as a girl. The parents get no say – their son is now ‘officially’ a girl as far as the school is concerned.
      It’s a total disgrace that this kid with autism is allowed to make life-changing decisions while his parents are essentially left to watch it unfold and be there when it inevitably ends in tears.

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      • #
        Ted1.

        Our daughters went to a school with a small boarding facility. Among the boarders two families were delightful kids, some less easy to get on with, and a few with various problems. One kid was a wreck. She wanted to be an accountant, but she was no good at maths. She had been told she was no good at Maths. She said “I can’t do Maths”.
        Daughter said: Nonsense, what’s 1 + 1? 2. That’s maths.

        She then put a bit of work into changing the kid’s attitude to maths. She picked up a noticeable stone off the ground and gave it to the kid, I don’t know what she told her to do with it.

        About ten years later she ran into this kid with a bloke at a railway station. She had passed all her exams and was now an accountant, and was going to marry the bloke in tow.

        And look at this! She took out of her pocket/whatever the stone she had been given years ago.

        Needless to say, daughter was chuffed. So was father to hear the story.

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  • #
    Lawrie

    This was an answer to David Maddison at 16.1. You have to be stupid to not eat meat. It was eating meat that allowed humans to develop a bigger brain and to give us time to do other things. Besides the cows and sheep have already eaten the vegetables hence no need for salads at BBQs.

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  • #
    Simon Thompson ᵐᵇ ᵇˢ

    Apart from the mental illness aspect, Google, Amazon (alexa) and Tik Tok et al have full access to video and audio surveillance of these “Smart devices”. Plus I have seen brain tumours in the location of highest EMF. Basically for the same reason we do not place our heads in microwaves, you don’t want microwave radiation near your head or groin. The standards are deliberately lax. And also developing brains are even more sensitive to EMF (not modelled in the safety standards).
    The use of statistics to churn psychometric questionnaires gives psychology a pseudo science base similar to CC. The alternate narrative defining of mental illness is preferable. The definitions of mental illness are expanding faster than the universe!

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    • #
      John Connor II

      Reminds me of the old psych joke:

      Student: Professor, is there such a thing as a perfectly sane person?
      Professor: I don’t know, but if there is we’ll cure him.

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    Old Goat

    Simon,
    I’m mentally ill and so is my wife. I suspect that you may have a condition called “sanity”.

    110

  • #
    Nabi

    Not to fret. Islam is coming to the rescue.

    51

  • #
    MatrixTransform

    mumble mumble correlation something something causation

    mobile phones are electronic distraction squirrels

    30

  • #
    John Connor II

    Good that Jo is branching out into such areas and this is the tip of a gigantic iceberg. 😇

    The predictable comment is that these highly impressionable kids will go with their peers or a fad or trend or perceived solution to their woes, and the latest fad is absolutely the worst to date, and we all know what that is.

    60

  • #
    farmerbraun

    O.K
    Here’s the conspiracy ; it’s all part of a plan , leading to transhumans.
    I don’t even know what that is , but this researcher is making sense of multiple strands of a grand plan .
    I have an aversion to watching youtube clips that people post , but this seems to me to be different ; a very intelligent person talking to a group ; no music , no drama .
    See what you think.
    https://jbilek.substack.com/p/who-is-behind-the-trans-agenda

    30

  • #
    Stanley

    It’s Tony Abbott’s fault!

    80

  • #
    John in Oz

    See the movie ‘Surrogates’ with Bruce Willis (2009)

    Sci-fi becoming reality

    30

  • #
    Ed Zuiderwijk

    Jack Dorsey c.s. won’t admit it, but they created a monster.

    30

  • #
    Katzenjammer

    What is the typical age range of their parents and teachers. What schooling and peer influences were fashionable in their time.

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  • #

    Many teens desire to own,
    The latest updated smart-phone,
    As they browse their high-tech,
    And messaging check,
    In large groups, but each so alone.

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  • #

    My vote goes to the incessant claims that the world will burn to a crisp in a few years, so why bother with school or anything for their future.

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  • #
    robert rosicka

    There is a man in town you can find virtually everyday of the year at his daughters graveside one hand on the tombstone, rain hail or shine through winter and summer .
    Absolutely heartbreaking and this has been going on for about 3 years , his daughter took her own life and he misses her so much he visits everyday he is physically able to .
    Depression is a horrible thing and if the black dog is following you please seek help .

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    DD

    If we ever have a conservative government, a real conservative government — and I don’t expect to live to see this — children will be taught to cope with self-esteem issues, and especially body image issues. Once children are taught how to live with the hand they’ve been dealt in life there will be a lot fewer unhappy, angry people who are drawn to leftist politics because they see it as a way to punish ‘mainstream’ society for having standards and values that led to their feelings of inadequacy. Banning phones at school would also help — less bullying.

    60

  • #
    Crakar24

    It’s funny how triggered GA is on this issue I am now wondering if GA stands for Gay Abandon?

    40

  • #
    The True Nolan

    Thought experiment: You take an infant and restrict her to bed rest. The child is not allowed to get out of bed or exercise. Food is adequate. Medical care is available. Temperature is regulated. Entertainment is near infinite. Result after twenty years? You know what the result would be. We have done essentially the same experiment with our children, only instead of physical degrading them, we have emotionally and psychologically degraded them. Every team member gets a trophy. Speech is criminalized as “hate”. Failure to be invited to a birthday party is now a crisis.

    Our Western Culture has become hyperfeminized. Struggle, duty, effort, and failure have been stigmatized and replaced with protection, sheltering, unwarranted compassion, and excuses. Our children are metaphorically unable to stand on their own feet. It is not their fault. The so-called adults did this to them.

    Much of the blame goes to us men; we have failed to be the strong part of the population who ought to have said “NO, we will NOT raise a generation of weak, sick, ignorant, parasites!” Men backed down and the majority of politically empowered women did what Nature has wired them for. They hugged, they coddled, they protected, they sheltered, and ultimately they have ruined millions of children — children who, no matter how long they live, will never be more than perpetually frightened and angry three year olds.

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    • #
      Kalm Keith

      First two paragraphs great.

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    • #
      Ted1.

      Hyperfeminised. Just so. Everywhere you look they are putting women in charge. As if they weren’t already.

      What worries me is that in history the ALP put women in charge after the wheels have fallen off. Kirner, Lawrence, Bligh and Kenneally.

      20

  • #
    David Maddison

    Back in the day some girls would do stereotypical boy things like climb trees and she would be called a “tomboy”. Or some boys might do girlie things like play with dolls.

    Mostly they naturally grew out of such behaviours and became normal, healthy, well-adjusted adults.

    Today, the Left would immediately declare such children as “trans” and urgently proceed to hormonally and surgically sterilise and mutilate them.

    Strangely (or not) it is the Left that have extremely rigid gender stereotypes that are to be enforced “no matter what” not conservatives and fellow rational thinkers. And yet this is what they accuse conservatives of having. As usual, every lie the Left tells is the opposite of the truth.

    51

  • #
    David Maddison

    The high levels of mental illness and abnormal thoughts among the young is one of the reasons the Left are pushing to reduce the voting age in Australia from 18 to 16 (or even younger), having previously been reduced from 21 under the Whitlam regime. The madness will be reflected in the composition of Parliament and the laws the “representatives” pass. The most mal-educated and mentally ill generation ever will have a say in our government.

    Incidentally, the Left are trying to do the same in the United States and for the same reasons.

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  • #
    TomR

    Edward Dutton has some material about mutational load growing. Mutational load being lots of mutations, each with small negative impact, rather than one large catastrophic mutation (latter being a genetic diesesase). Especially within rich countries, which have good medical care, and among well-off people who care about their children better. It is because there’s no natural selection. In the past somewhere around 50% kids died because of dieseases, and diesease resistance is better with low mutational load, worse with high. Eg. Jan Sebastian Bach had like 20 or 21 kids, but like 9 survived to adulthood.
    In English world rich people had like 4 surviving chidlren per 5 made, vs. 1.7 for poor (work by Richard Clark), which ment that just before Industrial Revoltion 90% of people descended from the rich. Positive when it comes to intellectual capabilities (genetic IQ of population like 113), approach – ability to solve conflicts via negotiation rather than violence, but not good when it comes to mutational load.
    High mutational load affects mental health.

    00