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Children who read for pleasure experience better mental health during adolescence as well as superior performance in cognitive tests. Research published in Psychological Medicine found that roughly 12 hours of reading per week was the perfect amount associated with an improvement in brain structure. [More]

Teenage girls are experiencing record high levels of persistent sadness. A report from the CDC found that 57% of teenage girls in the US felt hopeless or persistently sad in 2021, that’s a 60% increase over the past ten years. [More]

Two in three parents report that their children feel self-conscious about their appearance. A national poll found that one in five parents report their teens avoid some activities due to their insecurities and one in three parents report their kids have been treated unkindly due to their appearance. [More]

Strong family relationships gives teenagers greater empathy for their friends. Research published in Child Development found that teenagers who had supportive and secure family relationships had greater empathy for their peers. [More]

Just over a year since the COVID-19 pandemic began in the US, parents are reporting worsening mental health in their teenagers. The CS Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health at Michigan Medicine found that almost half of parents have noticed a worsening or new mental health condition in their teenagers since the start of the pandemic. Three in four say the pandemic has negatively impacted the social interactions of their teens. [More]

Teenagers who bully may be using aggression as a technique to climb the social ladder. Research from UC Davis published recently in the American Journal of Sociology found that teens who harass, bully or victimize their peers don’t always do this due to an unhealthy home environment or due to psychological problems, but out of a desire to strategically move up in a school’s social hierarchy. [More]

Teenagers who are unhappy with how they look have a significantly heightened risk of depression by adulthood. In a study published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, researchers found the increased risk of depression ranged from 50 per cent to 285 per cent, with boys being more likely to experience severe depression than their female peers. [More]

Recent research from BYU suggests that spending too much time in front of the screen playing video games can be responsible for negative developmental outcomes for adolescents and result in an addiction to video games. [More]

Research from Washington State University has found that boredom in adolescents is on the rise. Every year rates of boredom for those in 8th, 10th and 12th grades is increasing, especially in girls. [More]

Critics argue teens spend too much time staring at screens, and that this is responsible for a rise in rates of depression and anxiety in teenagers. But researchers from Brigham Young University have found that might not be true. [More]