Gen Z’s mental health crisis coincides with the birth of the smartphone | Alexander Downer

Let’s be realistic, there’s not much SA can do to fix climate change or the economy, but we can do this, writes Alexander Downer.

Ask any South Australian state politician to name the state’s most serious problems and you can be sure they’ll give you a lecture about the cost of living and climate change.

Let’s be realistic: anything they do to address these issues will be marginal. They are national and, in the case of climate change, global issues.

But there is one deeply disturbing issue which they can address and that is the deteriorating mental health of our young people – the Gen Zs.

We need a high-profile royal commission into this crisis.

For a while I thought the statistics reporting a steady but quite marked increase in the mental health problems of young people was caused by a greater propensity of adolescents to claim they suffered from mental health problems.

Why that would be, I didn’t know.

The data, though, tells us a different story.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs holds up an Apple iPhone during his keynote address at MacWorld Conference & Expo in San Francisco on January 9, 2007. Picture: AP Photo/Paul Sakuma

All around the developed world there has been a sharp increase in adolescent depression, anxiety, self harm and even suicide.

In America, the US National Survey on Drug Use and Health shows an astonishing 145 per cent increase in major depression amongst teenage girls since 2010.

The figure for boys is even worse: 161 per cent but off a much lower base.

Another survey of college students shows that since 2010 there has been a 134 per cent increase in anxiety and a 106 per cent increase in depression.

What is interesting is that this deterioration in mental health has affected the young, not older people.

The data for South Australia is broadly similar.

Social psychologists have understandably been trying to work out why.

Some commentators have blamed politicians – it’s all the fault of the Liberals/Labor etc. Others have said it’s a function of climate change catastrophising by activists. Some put it down to the unrelenting negativity of the media.

I’m sure all have some responsibility.

But research suggests it’s something else: the arrival of the smart phone in around 2008.

It’s no coincidence that the growth in depression and anxiety has coincided with the arrival and spread of smartphones.

First, adolescents have become totally absorbed by their phones.

Instead of interacting with their peers and learning to engage socially through play and friends, Gen Z has become wedded to social media platforms.

Their human relationships have become virtual.

When once students would play and socialise during recess and lunch breaks at school, in recent years they’ve just reached for their phones and engaged with social media platforms.

Secondly, school students have been distracted during classes by their smartphones.

They’re not concentrating as much as they should in class and nor are they doing so at home.

And what about home life?

Gen Z have replaced interaction with family and friends with devotion to their devices. But so to have many parents.

You see it the whole time: Mum, Dad and two kids sitting in a restaurant all gazing at their phones!

And before my friends write to the paper screaming “hypocrite” let me get in first: I spend way too much time playing with my phone or tablet.

So we need to address this deep societal problem.

The SA government has got off to a good start by banning mobile phone use in schools. The Malinauskas government deserves a lot of credit for that.

There’s some early evidence this has made a very real contribution to the development and academic performance of children.

South Australia was the first state to introduce this ban but other states have followed.

Education minister Blair Boyer with Year 12 student, Matilda Jewell, Year 9 student, Reikaya Everwinter and Principal of Norwood International High School, Jacqui van Ruiten after SA became the first state to ban phones in school. Picture Dean Martin

Of course children are allowed to take phones to school particularly if they are travelling on public transport.

They need to contact their families or school if they require urgent help.

But mandating that phones can’t be used during school hours except in an emergency has been an excellent policy.

But parents need to play their part too.

There’s no point in children coming home from school and retreating to their bedrooms to devote the evening to social media.

Parents should introduce and enforce tech time rules at home both on school days and at weekends.

And parents need to be given guidance on the sort of rules that make sense and how best to enforce them.

And then there are social media companies themselves.

I’m not a great one for the state imposing too many restrictions on freedom of speech and expression but children and adolescents need to be protected and so access to unrestricted social media platforms should be limited to people over 16 years of age.

How social media companies can do that is an issue for another time.

I think the development of the internet has been one of the wonderful changes in my life.

But think about it: In SA we won’t change the climate but we can help our children.