With two recent advisory warnings, the U.S. surgeon general issued a powerful one-two jolt to the nation’s consciousness about the severity of the adolescent mental health crisis and the role social media may be playing in it. The warnings are peppered with sobering statistics that illuminate the depth of this emergency. They show, for example, that over a 10-year period, there have been 60% increases in: adolescents reporting major depressive episodes; those experiencing feelings of sadness and hopelessness: and, most alarmingly, suicide rates. Those statistics point to what can only be called an epidemic of loneliness, depression and disconnectedness that is gripping the country’s young people.

The warnings also offer some potential remedies, including things schools and school districts can do to improve adolescent mental health, such as expanding social-emotional learning programs. But as helpful and perceptive as those ideas are, far too little attention is being given to the importance of transforming schools into places that actively combat social isolation by infusing into their cultures a sense of community through which everyone feels supported, looked after and cared for. My experience over more than three decades in education makes clear that when schools establish these kinds of environments, the mental health benefits to students are profound, with isolation and despair replaced by connection and positivity.

Read the full article about the student mental health crisis by Richard Stopol at The 74.