Rethinking the campus mental health “crisis”: 3 things journalists should know

Headlines warn of a college mental health crisis. We hear statistics about high rates of depression and anxiety and the picture seems clear: Gen Z faces unprecedented challenges to their mental health and well-being. The culprits are seemingly easy to identify, from growing up during the pandemic to social media. But what if that narrative is getting in the way of helping young adults? As a developmental psychologist with more than 25 years of experience working with young adults, I have seen the “crisis narrative” impede our understanding of what is going on for young people. Even more troubling, this narrative can inadvertently create obstacles to supporting youth who need help. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among Americans ages 10 to 34. We should never underestimate the struggle that young people are facing or the reality of the data about youth mental health. Instead, the key is to develop a better understanding of what is a clinical mental health concern and what struggles are typical, expected and developmentally appropriate to this age group. Here are three shifts journalists can make when covering college mental health. 1. Retire the “kids these days” narrative. Growing up, coming of age and navigating the disorientation of the college experience has always been hard. The opportunity to ask the big questions — Who am I? What do I want for my life? How am I going to get there? — has always opened the door to stress and uncertainty. Nearly 80 years of archival research on college students reveals that this generation of young adults is struggling in ways that are familiar. As co-director of the Transition to Adulthood Lab, I have studied college student experiences dating back to the 1940s. Together, developmental psychologist Nancy Hill and I have documented how the pressure to succeed, uncertainty about the future and the stress of an uncertain job market have shaped the experience of coming of age across generations. These challenges and their emotional impact are developmental, not generational — meaning 18-to-22-year-olds in previous generations navigated extremely similar emotional terrain while dealing with typical challenges, such as moving away from home and building one’s own adult identity. The most striking evidence of these intergenerational connections comes from a cohort of students from the Class of 1975 at Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges. When we returned to this cohort and re-interviewed them fifty years after graduation, they assumed their experiences were profoundly different from those of their children and grandchildren. But, when they listened to their past interviews, they discovered instead how much they had in common with later generations. When we share quotes from the 1970s interviews with college students today, they marvel at the surprising similarities around achievement pressure, anxiety and depression. While the language and cultural references change, the emotional experiences persist. This does not mean nothing has changed. Social media, the pandemic and artificial intelligence have reshaped daily life and intensified many emotional experiences of young adulthood, including an increase in perfectionism and risk-aversion. But this is a story of intensity — a heightened emotional experience — rather than something new and unprecedented. Given the increase in intensity, it is more important than ever that we continue to expand and fund campus mental health services so that students who do need clinical care have access. For journalists, a “generation in crisis” might feel like a compelling narrative. But a more accurate and nuanced story would look at how common experiences that transcend generations may have intensified for young people today. By helping audiences understand what is typical and what is not — and resisting the “kids these days” framing — caring adults will be better equipped to identify the signs that someone needs a clinical referral (like when emotional challenges persist, highs and lows are extreme, and daily life is impacted). 2. Identify hidden successes in the data. Because the crisis narrative is focused on clinically diagnosable conditions, it is worth interrogating what those data truly capture. The numbers can be difficult to parse. Measurement instruments change over time, new language emerges and diagnostic criteria evolve — as does our clinical understanding of mental health. Similarly, as society talks more openly about mental health, young adults may be more likely to share what they are going through with researchers. Even more notably, rising diagnosis rates suggest that more students are seeking treatment for conditions that may have gone undiagnosed and untreated in previous generations. Read that way, the data reflect a leap forward in mental health care: Decreased stigma, increased help-seeking, a more robust network of care on college campuses, and a changing public health context in which more students are getting the care that they need. There are also signs that the diagnosis trend line is shifting. The Healthy Minds Study, an annual survey of more than 84,000 students across 135 colleges and universities, documented three consecutive years of improvement in rates of depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation. But those numbers are hardly cause for complacency: 37% of students report moderate-to-severe depressive symptoms and 11% report suicidal thoughts, though the decline in both rates is notable. Justin Heinze, a principal investigator of the Healthy Minds Network out of the University of Michigan, has said “sustained reductions tell me this is not a blip.” He laments that these findings are less likely to garner headlines than those supporting the crisis narrative. Averages conceal disparities, and the encouraging trends do not hold equally across groups: Suicidal ideation among LGBTQ+ students remains substantially higher than among their peers and racial disparities can impede access to care. And not all indicators are reassuring. Some metrics, including emergency department visits for self-harm and attempted suicide among young adults, have genuinely worsened. Those data also require serious attention. But, even here, the story needs to be more nuanced. A single statistic rarely reveals whether we are seeing more suffering, more disclosure, increased access to more lethal means of self-harm, or more willingness to seek emergency care. For journalists: Interrogate what the statistics truly measure. Ask: Are more students struggling? Or are students who may have been untreated in the past now accessing the care they need? The honest answer is almost certainly both — and that is worth parsing. When the data show a positive trend, that is a worthwhile story as well. 3. Reframe inaccurate language as an opportunity for support. The newest narrative that has emerged about college student mental health centers on misuse of “social media language” when talking about mental health. Studies have found that the majority of mental health information on TikTok is misleading or inaccurate and that language has quickly populated youth conversations. Terms like “panic attack” and “high cortisol” are being substituted in place of “stress” and “overwhelm.” Similarly, young people are using terms like “PTSD” to talk about singular events and bad days, rather than accurately reflecting the diagnosis of a chronic psychological disorder. But the key thing to remember is they are using those terms to share something important: They are struggling. This is true independent of the terminology. Using social media to self-diagnose can create its own issues, including mislabeling what’s happening, avoiding professional support or seeking the wrong treatment. The inaccuracies are real, but the journalistic framing can be both more generous and more accurate: Students are making a bid for support. But it’s important to clarify what kind of support is truly needed. Otherwise, we risk pathologizing the normal ups and downs of college life that students have faced for generations. Students who experience typical homesickness or sadness after a romantic relationship ends are being referred to clinical counseling because we conflate the language they are using with clinical terminology. This can exacerbate the issue for young people, causing them to panic when their emotions are labeled as needing intervention. Meanwhile, common issues that do not require therapeutic interventions can tax university mental health systems. Critically, imprecise language cuts both ways: A student saying “I had a panic attack” may be describing ordinary stress or an emerging clinical condition with the only vocabulary they have. The right response to a bid for support is not dismissal; it’s asking follow-up questions. To counter this trend, reporting must move beyond “teens are getting bad advice on TikTok” to a constructive frame for what we can do to help. Three practical tips for reporting on this issue: - Note that terms may be colloquial and not clinical when directly quoting students. - Define clinical language and clarify terminology when writing about mental health. - Share the themes students are talking about broadly rather than adopting clinical terminology when the student does not have a medical diagnosis. It is also helpful to share free and confidential resources like the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline and The Trevor Project helpline when writing about mental health. A recent poll from the University of Michigan found that information about these supports is still limited, especially among adults over age 50, who are likely to be teaching, raising and otherwise supporting college-age students. Getting the campus mental health story right isn’t about softening the reality of the struggles young adults are facing, or dismissing the data. Some pressures young people face today are genuinely new. But resisting the “crisis” frame lets us tell a more complex and accurate story about what we are seeing — and how we can help. Expert Commentary