Youth Risk Behavior Study (YRBS) by CDC

LiveMore ScreenLess’ Summary

Key Takeaways:

About the survey: this data Summary and trends report covers 2011 – 2021; it is done by the CDC every other year

Goal: Document ongoing challenges teens face

• Findings very similar to Minnesota Student Survey 2022
• Mental Health indicators showed huge change from 2011 – 2021, all in the negative direction. 
  • The percentage of students across every racial and ethnic group who felt persistently sad or hopeless increased.
  • The percentage of female students who seriously considered attempting suicide, made a suicide plan, and attempted suicide increased.
  • In 2021, 42% of high school students felt so sad or hopeless almost every day for at least two weeks in a row that they stopped doing their usual activities. 
• Jon Haidt’s analysis (in After Babel) of this data states that the trajectory of mental health downward was not affected by the pandemic; he argues rather that this is a steady worsening of the overall mental health condition of all teens due to the prevalence of phones and impact of social media. 
  • Haidet also points out that the big jump was between 2017 and 2019, and the rise slows down between 2019 and 2021. 
  • This view supports his argument that: “When school closures and social distancing were implemented in 2020, teens had already lost most of their social lives to their phones…Gen Z’s in-person social lives were decimated by technology in the 2010s. They were already socially distanced when Covid arrived.”
  • Haidet’s argument that young women are more affected than young men is that young women spend more time on social media, whereas young men tend to game more.

• In the Experiencing Violence category of the YRBS Report, it showed that it In 2021, 16% of high school students were electronically bullied, including through texting, Instagram, Facebook, or other social media. 
  • Female students were more likely than male students to be electronically bullied. 
  • American Indian or Alaska Native and White students were more likely than students from most other racial and ethnic groups to be electronically bullied. 
  • LGBQ+ students and students who had any same-sex partners were more likely than their peers to be electronically bullied

• Traditional risk factors such as sex, drugs, tobacco use, and alcohol were lower.