Today's teenagers smoke and drink less than their counterparts from a decade ago, but they’re substantially more at risk of depressive symptoms. That’s one of the headline findings from a study published by Growing Up in Ireland, a national longitudinal study of children and young people. Chartered Clinical Psychologist Mark Smyth spoke to Sarah McInerney on Drivetime about the survey’s findings.
The survey tracks the opinions of 6,000 13-year-olds and the greater risk of depressive symptoms was more pronounced in girls than boys. Mark Smyth isn’t surprised at the findings that today’s teens drink and smoke less than the teens of 10 years ago:
"One of the things perhaps that’s a contributing factor to the smoking is that we’re seeing young people being a lot more conscious of themselves, about health, about image, about their bodies and I think there is an increase in awareness and education around the negative impact that both alcohol and drugs can have on young people in terms of their image, their skincare and their weight."
While the drop in alcohol and smoking is a positive thing, Mark suggests that the reasons he posits for this drop feed into the conclusion that 2024’s teens are more likely to suffer from depressive symptoms:
"We know that young people who maybe are that little bit more anxious, bit more perfectionistic, can take that focus on self-image and body and appearance to extremes and I think that’s one thing that we’re seeing a lot more of, is young people presenting with higher rates and higher severity in relation to eating disorders."
Although smoking rates are falling, the survey also tells us that one teen in ten has tried vaping. And while the health effects of vaping are not yet fully understood, Mark explains the reasons behind its popularity with 13-year-olds:
"Young people are more likely to see and do what they see adults doing and we know that there are reductions in the amount of people and places where you’re permitted to smoke, so when we make environmental changes, we change the structure of what’s happening in society, people are much more likely to follow those leads."
If and when studies show that vaping is as harmful as smoking, Mark hopes that we’ll see a similar reduction in the numbers of teens vaping.
Sarah asked Mark what he thought about the findings that girls were more likely – twice as much, in fact – to be at risk of depressive symptoms compared to boys. The devil is in the detail, Mark told her, and the raw data may need some informed context:
"We know that girls are more likely to express and talk about their emotions, so you have to also kind of interpret some of that data with some degree of caution because boys are more likely to keep it to themselves, let it build up, they’re more likely to – one of the things that we know with depression in boys is one of the criteria is actually increased irritability."
So teenage boys who are irritable might be tagged as just in a bad mood, when in fact that very irritability might be a depressive symptom. But when it comes to girls, Mark says that statistically, girls are more likely to experience low moods and higher rates of anxiety. But we know that they’re more likely to express their feelings than boys, so what should parents of teenage boys look out for? Mark has an answer that covers everybody, really:
"We can all feel a little bit low, we can all feel a little bit sad, but it’s when that persists. And it’s also when we look at things like functional impairment. So when the difficulty that someone’s experiencing begins to stop them engaging in everyday life, so whether it’d be they don’t want to go to school, they don’t want to meet their friends, they don’t want to go to training, when they’re starting to withdraw."
Another finding of the survey might be seen as a little "old school" – but in a good way. Teens, when asked what they were looking forward to when they grow up, mentioned travelling to different countries, living in their own place and getting a job. Mark definitely sees it as a positive:
"One of the things that protects young people and all of us in relation to our mental health is having hope. So if people are looking forward and excited by something in their future, it’s a sense of hope and if we’ve hope, we’re more likely to be engaging in life, more likely to be positive about the future and that’s something that’s really protective."
You can hear Sarah’s full conversation with Mark by clicking above.