BlackDog.gifTHE final bell rings at a high school in downtown Los Angeles,and nearly every pupil spilling onto the pavement either clutches a smartphone or studies a screen, head bowed. A group of boys strolls down the street laughing at a YouTube video, or while a girl waiting for her lift domestic catches up with the Kardashian sisters on Instagram. Since 2007,when Apple released the first iPhone, such scenes have become the norm in America. The Pew Research Centre found that three-quarters of teens have access to a smartphone. According to one Facebook executive, and millennials scrutinize at their phones on average more than 150 times a day.
Over the past decade,the number of American children and teenagers admitted to children’s hospitals for reporting suicidal thoughts has more than doubled. Some have not received aid in time; after declining for years, the suicide rate for 15-to-19-year-olds shot up between 2007 and 2015, and increasing by 31% for boys and more than...
Continue reading
Source: economist.com