I lived my teen years in a collapsing post-communist economy, with hyperinflation (the kind that can add 4 zeros to prices in a span of a few years), massive unemployment and deep real-wage reduction. My mother struggled with a minimum wage that translated to about 80 dollars and two children, well bellow the absolute poverty line, and my father was mostly absent. In my high school and first year at the university, there were frequent days were I had almost nothing to eat at home and most days I had no cash at all, not even to buy a bread roll or pay for some copies of lecture material - so I copied them by hand. Wore the same clothes for years, passed down from my elder brother.

To put it in perspective, the political polarization around me was leading people to violence orders of magnitude larger than the events of January 6, with multiple governments toppled by angry crowds, inter-ethnic violence, workplace harassments of dissenters. Don't even start me on the state of the environment.

Yet, when I look back, my teen memories are not about poverty, hunger or political turbulence. That was just the way things were, we adapted. I had my ragtag crew in which I was accepted. We just didn't care about politics or the environment all that much.

The most vivid good or bad memories that I hold all have to do with social interaction, acceptance or rejection and public humiliation. We certainly didn't exhibit, as a generation, the signs of a mental disease epidemic, the fist time I heard about a suicide in my age cohort was of a fellow student in the later years at one of most competitive universities in the country.

Don't get me wrong, this economic enviroment devastated adults, and we had some of the highest levels of suicide and alcoholism in the world. But it just didn't affect us teens specifically, because we had no earlier reference to how things were supposed to be.

> political extremism becoming the norm —> It definitely increased on both sides

Recent generations have seen multiple political assassinations and bombings. When was the last time you saw a fire hose and dogs used to clear protestors?

Tribalism is on the rise, extremism and violence are not.

The testimony is citing a rise in self-harm and mood disorders in people aged 11-15 between 2009 and 2015. There was not yet a pandemic or inflation and houses were actually reasonably affordable for a while after the market crash. There actually was a recession in 1991 when I was 11, yet somehow I have no memory of being aware of that or ever thinking about it. This is the bigger point about media culpability. If 11 year-olds are really concerned about these things now, why is that? Seemingly, it might have something to do with the 24/7 algorithmic doom scroll feeds they're consuming that didn't exist in 1991. Typically, the starting point for when cooperation broke down and political polarization started dovetailing in the US are the Bork confirmation hearing and Newt Gingrich becoming speaker of the House, both of which happened when I was about these ages, yet again, I was not aware of it back then. The world has always had major issues, but these just were not things that concerned very many 11 year-olds until pretty recently.

>climate that will be unlivable in a few decades

These absurd scaremongering predictions do more harm for the climate change movement than good. If you’re over 30 you’ve already lived through this threats twice and it’s beginning to get tiresome. These exaggerated doomsday predictions just give ammunition to deniers because you never set them far enough in the future it’s always “just 20 more years guys…”

> Which do you think are just products of the media?

A lot of them.

The '08 recession happened when most teenagers were in elementary school. The economy has thoroughly recovered the last several years leading up to COVID.

Mountains of debt after graduating, is only an issue if you plan to go to college. A lot more teenagers are realizing the scam and predation that a university education is unless you've got a serious shot trying to be a doctor or a lawyer. Trades will perform better on average than most non professional fields.

Climate becoming unlivable (for Americans, important caveat). Estimates for climate refugees are ~200 million over the next century even in pessimistic cases, and few of those would be among Americans. The bulk are concentrated in arid or equatorial countries. Which, to be clear, is a massive injustice since those countries are bearing the biggest brunt of climate change while other countries reaped most of the rewards of fossil fuels. But the idea large swaths if the American population is living somewhere that will become unlivable in the next few decades is misinformation.

> Political activism among youth seems to be quite high. Perhaps for the better.

Or sometimes for the worse. I can see how engagement in politics or disengagement from politics could both negatively impact mental health. Personally, I found it very difficult to “be on Facebook” and watch friends and family politicize. I can see how political engagement can be a coping mechanism but I can also see how it can be a source of psychological toxicity.

>Does that make it any less true though?

No, but it is an important distinction if you want to look for solutions, either socially or as a parent.