Manufacturing Dissent: How a National Academies Report Misrepresents Consensus on Adolescent Mental Health as Chaotic Discord

The Committee on the Impact of Social Media on Adolescent Health spreads misinformation to imply that concerns over adolescent suicide 'crisis' -- and mental health in general -- are unfounded.

The recently released National Academies report Social Media and Adolescent Health from the Committee on the Impact of Social Media on Adolescent Health undermines suicide prevention and research efforts by misinforming the public and policy makers about the views of psychologists regarding the recent deterioration of adolescent mental health and, especially, the doubling of adolescent suicide rates.

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Adolescent Mental Health

To understand the context of the National Academies report, one needs to know that prevalence of adolescent depression has more than doubled (a 150% rise between 2011 and 2021 — see Adolescent Depression: Is There Really a Crisis?) and so did adolescent suicide, especially among girls and younger adolescents; indeed within a mere decade the suicide rate for kids ages 10-14 tripled and outright quadrupled for girls of that age (see Youth Suicide Rise).

These are the main reasons why the U.S. Surgeon General has repeatedly spoken of an adolescent mental health crisis:

Furthermore, the deterioration of adolescent mental health roughly coincides with the rise of social media while teens who use social media heavily have considerably elevated mental health risks (e.g. the top quarter of users among girls was found to have double the risk of clinical depression). These and related issues have led health experts to be concerned about social media, as exemplified again by the Surgeon General:

An excerpt from the Surgeon General report:

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Adversary Stance

The Committee on the Impact of Social Media on Adolescent Health, however, does not share the view of the U.S. Surgeon General that adolescent mental health is in a state of a crisis.

The first time mental health crisis is mentioned in the report, it is placed in quotation marks (a body of epidemiological literature describing a “mental health crisis”) by the Committee, so as to impress upon the readers that it is not the view of the Committee itself that adolescent mental health is in a state of a crisis.

Later the Committee questions the notion that there is an adolescent crisis directly.

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Disagreements over Causes

Before attacking concerns over adolescent mental health being in a state of crisis, the Committee first notes that there are many theories within psychology about the causes of adolescent mental health declines.

The Committee then quotes journalist Derek Thompson opining that the sheer number of theories suggests that nobody knows for sure what’s going on.

It is at this point — when it is implied that nobody knows for sure what’s going on — that the Committee decides to directly attack the notion that there is an adolescent mental health crisis.

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Questioning Adolescent Crisis

The Committee attacks the notion of a crisis by elevating the “nobody knows for sure what’s going on” speculation to fact and extending it to a supposed ‘confusion’ over the very state of adolescent mental health itself:

This confusion extends even to assessments of whether youth mental health is in a state of crisis.

For this analogy to make any sense, there must be within psychology a widespread disagreement about there having been any substantial declines in adolescent mental health at all. Remember, Thompson’s argument is based on the existence of a widespread discord ("the sheer number of theories”) — so it would make no sense here unless there is a similarly severe discord over the existence of a crisis.

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Zero Evidence of Discord

If its assertion has had anything to do with reality, then the Committee should have had no difficulty whatsoever in listing numerous psychologists who maintain there is no adolescent mental health crisis.

So which psychologists does the Committee points to in order to justify its assertion about widespread disagreements?

None.

There is not a single such psychologist to whom the committee points to directly or indirectly (say by citing a relevant news article).

In fact the committee provides zero evidence of anyone, say a truck driver, who questions there is an adolescent mental health crisis.

The reason the Committee failed to provide a single example of a psychologist who currently questions there is an adolescent mental health crisis is simple:

The assertion that there is a widespread disagreement — not to mention an outright ‘confusion’ — within the field of psychology about adolescent mental health having greatly deteriorated is completely false.

The reality is that there is now a widespread agreement among psychologists about adolescent mental health being in a state of crisis. The disagreements are about the likely causes of this crisis, not the existence of the crisis itself.

During the previous decade, there was initially some disagreement — see The Myth Gambit — but by the end of the decade this evaporated in the face of overwhelming evidence (see A Remarkable Reversal).

That is why it is difficult to find criticism of the Surgeon General for repeatedly speaking out about the adolescent crisis while it it is easy to find opposition among psychologists to his spotlighting social media in relation to this crisis (see, for example, Everyone Says Social Media Is Bad for Teens. Proving It Is Another Thing. or Is social media fueling youth mental health crisis? PROFESSOR CANDICE ODGERS CITES OTHER CAUSES).

Indeed the lack of discord on this matter is so complete that I’ve yet to find a single psychologist who has publicly declared — within the past three years — that there is no adolescent mental health crisis.¹

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Creating the Illusion of a Discord

What the Committee does do, however, is mislead its readers by creating the illusion that there are such psychologists — it does so by using citations that seem to reference dissenting psychologists:

WARNING: the text excerpt above contains severe misinformation about youth suicide (including the egregiously erroneous Figure 1-4) that is not addressed here — we limit discussion to the questioning of a crisis.

This passage gives the impression that Levitz as well as Rinehart & Barkley question there is a crisis and that Garnett & Curtin present youth suicide trends as being unremarkable in view of similar adult trends.

In reality Levitz (a journalist) repeatedly argues there is a crisis while Rinehart & Barkley (economists) call the recent trends in adolescent mental health ‘shocking’ and never question there is a crisis; and Garnett & Curtin, in a routine annual report on long-term trends, take the time to specifically warn readers that suicide of girls age 10-14 has quadrupled (while adult suicide rose by about one third).

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Concomitant Misinformation

We will not discuss here how ‘long-term cyclicality’ is a counterfactual theory the Committee itself made up (it was not proposed by Levitz) or how the argument that adolescent suicide trends are unremarkable in wider context depends on withholding crucial facts — these matters will be addressed in separate articles.

We will briefly note, however, that:

• The committee characterizes youth suicide increases as a ‘spike’ — a term used for short-term phenomena — when in reality it is a massive wave composed of a decade-long climb plus at least a seven-year long crest at doubled rates of suicide.

• The committee refers to the rise as ‘apparent’ — thus implying without justification that there are credible reasons to doubt the evidence of increases.

• While undermining the notion that there is an adolescent mental health crisis, the committee omits inconvenient facts about relevant trends, such as the 150% increase in adolescent depression.

It is also important to note that a key piece of evidence displayed prominently in the report to justify its adversary stance toward the notion of an adolescent suicide crisis is Figure 1-4 — a graph in which recent rates of youth suicide are colossally miscalculated:

That graph should in reality look like this:

Graph created by David Stein based on CDC WONDER data

See Etiology of a Graph Fiasco: How Grievous Misinformation about Adolescent Suicide Spread to the National Academies Press for the origins of the erroneous graph.

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The Damage Done to Adolescents

Why would a National Academies committee desire to undermine concerns over adolescent mental health developments so much that it would create an alternate reality of widespread discord among psychologists and pepper this fiction with further misinformation?

What purpose can it serve? That is an issue we will address in a separate article, prospectively titled Corporate Agenda: How National Academies Protect Social Media Industries While Forsaking Science and Adolescents.

We will also sidestep for now the damage this report is doing to science and to the reputation of National Academies.

What we will note, however, is the damage this report does to adolescents.

The dismissive attitude toward adolescent mental health deterioration, the misrepresentation of current views within psychology as well as other misinformation and half-truths in the National Academies report are likely to influence both the public and key decision makers for years to come and could result in diminished funding for adolescent mental health research and care.

The National Academies report can be particularly harmful to adolescent suicide research and prevention since the committee decided to specifically attack concerns over adolescent suicide. The fact that the egregiously erroneous Figure 1-4, portraying teen suicide as far less frequent than it actually is nowadays, has still not been fixed over two months after publication indicates just how little adolescent suicide matters to the National Academies.²

We need National Academies that accurately report scientific findings and views in order to improve the well-being of all instead of National Academies that harm adolescents by misreporting science.

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1. If anyone finds a psychologist who has publicly questioned the notion of a crisis within the last three years, please let me know (the Forbes article by Vicki Phillips is not by a psychologist — she is an educationist who seems cheerfully unaware that adolescent suicide rates doubled).

2. I notified National Academies of the graph error on December 13 and received acknowledgement from the study director on December 15. The online report could have been easily and promptly modified right away to at least warn readers that Figure 1-4 is incorrect. Instead, readers have continued to be severely misinformed by it for two months and this may go on for several more months (and that’s assuming Figure 1-4 will actually be fixed one day).