American teens and adults are living through a growing mental health crisis. The causes are many, but the main culprits seem to be social media, childhood abuse, trauma and neglect.
Social media’s initial promise was to connect us all online. In the 20-years since Facebook launched, the opposite seems to be happening as evidence of unprecedented social isolation and loneliness is piling up. People have substituted quick fixes of dopamine via likes and comments over real human interaction and the results have been disastrous for our mental health. Humans are social animals and we manifest all kinds of illnesses when we are isolated.
Social media has also made us into a comparison culture. In the past, we compared ourselves to the people in our natural cultural orbit, like our friends, neighbors or coworkers. Today, we compare the way we feel inside with the largely artificial personas of social media influencers and it leaves us feeling overall less-than.
Social media is a plague for GenZ, millennials and GenX, but it isn’t the only cause for the mental health crisis in America. Childhood abuse, trauma and neglect are the next biggest culprits. These are followed by the experience of discrimination and stigma, social disadvantage, poverty and debt.
Here are twenty of the biggest reasons that we started NY Mental Health Center:
- 23.1% of U.S. adults experienced a mental health condition in 2022[1]
- 6% of U.S. adults experienced a serious mental health condition in 2022, which is often defined as a psychotic disorder, bipolar disorder or a severe anxiety or eating disorder that significantly impairs functioning[1]
- In 2022, 32.9% of U.S. adults experienced both a mental health condition and substance abuse[1]
- Approximately 5.2 million veterans experienced a behavioral health condition in 2022[2]
- As of 2020, suicide is the second leading cause of death for U.S. children ages 10 to 14, preceded only by unintentional injury[3]
- The impact depression and anxiety has on the global economy can be measured in $1 trillion in lost productivity each year[4]
- In 2021, 51.7% of U.S. women received mental health services, while only 40% of men received mental health services[5]
- Young adults ages 18 to 25 in the U.S have the highest rate of experiencing any mental health concerns (33.7%) compared to adults aged 26 to 49 years, and the highest rate of serious mental illness (11.4%)[5]
- Women are diagnosed with serious mental health conditions at higher rates than men, 7% to 4% respectively[5]
10. The percentage of U.S. adults receiving mental health treatment rose from 19.2% in 2019 to 21.6% in 2021[6]
11. Nationally: In 2022, 23.1% of U.S. adults (59.3 million) experienced a mental health condition[1].
12. Young adults ages 18 to 25 in the U.S. experience the highest rates of mental illness (36.2%), followed by those ages 26 to 49 (29.4%) and adults ages 50 and over (13.9%)[1].
13. In 2022, multiracial adults in the U.S. were more likely to experience any mental illness in the last year (35.2%).[1] Other rates of mental illness among racial or ethnic groups include:
- White (24.6%)
- Hispanic (21.4%)
- Black (19.7%)
- American Indian or Alaska Native (19.6%)
- Asian (16.8%)
14. Here’s a look at how individuals across the U.S. are affected by mental health conditions.
- Anxiety: Anxiety disorders such as generalized anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder and panic disorder are some of the most commonly diagnosed mental health conditions in the U.S., affecting 42.5 million adults[7].
- Depression: 21 million U.S. adults are living with depression, while 3.7 million people ages 12 to 17 experience major depression and 2.5 million people ages 12 to 17 experience severe depression[7].
- PTSD: There are 12 million U.S. adults living with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)[7].
- Bipolar disorder: 3.3 million U.S. adults experience bipolar disorder[7].
- Schizophrenia: Around 1.5 million U.S. adults have been diagnosed with schizophrenia[7].
15. 93.5% of adults with a substance abuse disorder did not receive treatment in the past year (2022)[8].
16. One out of every eight emergency room visits involve a mental health or substance abuse disorder[9].
17. Mood disorders, such as depression and bipolar disorder, drive most hospitalizations for Americans under the age of 45, adjusting for pregnancy and childbirth[4].
18. Suicide rates increased by 36% between 2000 to 2021[7]
19. Provisional data suggests that nearly 50,000 people in the U.S. died by suicide in 2022, which is a 3% increase from 2021[6]
20. 7.6% of U.S. adults experienced a co-occurring substance use disorder and mental illness in 2021 (19.4 million people)
At NY Mental Health Center, our mission is to bring relief to the people of New York through the delivery of expert, reliable, accessible telemental health services. According to the National Institute of Health, telemental health improves patient satisfaction and reduces the cost of care. (10)
The single biggest obstacle to therapy is access to quality care. It’s a simple math problem. If 20% of the 20 million people in New York State are suffering, that means that we have 4 million people who need a good therapist at any given time. We would need 133,000 therapists to cover that magnitude of need.
According to the NYS Dept of Education, we currently have 12,000 licensed psychologists. Many of those are school psychologists, researchers, organizational or industrial psychologists. Others work in administrative capacities, so even with twice as many masters-level therapists available, there is a huge access-to-care problem.
By assembling a team of leading psychological practitioners and making them easily accessible via telehealth, we are trying to do our part to improve access to desperately needed services.
Schedule a Free 15-Minute Consultation
Schedule a confidential and free 15-minute consultation with a member of our care coordination team. On this call we can:
- Review your goals and preferences
- Match you with one of the therapists on our team
- Schedule your first appointment
- https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/reports/rpt42731/2022-nsduh-nnr.pdf
- https://www.samhsa.gov/blog/supporting-behavioral-health-needs-our-nations-veterans
- https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/suicide
- https://nami.org/mhstats?gclid=Cj0KCQiA7bucBhCeARIsAIOwr-_mryPgVr3hp8Lz9-i-aijtm5GJWQeY_Q8IM0faz9DI722oo2Q2TFAaAjFGEALw_wcB
- https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/mental-illness
- https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db444.htm
- https://mhanational.org/mentalhealthfacts
- https://mhanational.org/issues/state-mental-health-america
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7542476/