Girls on the Brink: Helping Our Daughters Thrive in an Era of Increased Anxiety, Depression, and Social Media

This clarion call by science journalist Jackson Nakazawa (The Angel and the Assassin) explores threats to girls’ mental health. The author examines the reasons behind the uptick in depression in girls over the last decade by telling the stories of three young women in their early 20s—Anna, Deleicea, and Julia—and offers parenting advice on how to counteract negative influences. Anna’s cliquish high school dovetailed with unrealistic beauty standards on TV shows to give her low self-esteem, a process the author elucidates with research showing girls have stronger harmful biological reactions to social threats than boys do. She also details the dangers posed by social media, noting that “the more time a teenage girl spends on social media platforms, the more likely she is to develop depressive symptoms” and describing how Julia felt compelled by the incentives of social media to sexualize herself when she was still a preteen. To help parents guide their daughters through these pitfalls, the author provides 15 “antidotes” that include helping daughters discover a “sense of something bigger” and encouraging them to pursue their passions. The smart analysis and wealth of neuroscientific and psychological research adds nuance to public discourse around girls’ mental health, and the three profiles drive home the human stakes of these societal problems. Timely and incisive, this issues an acute warning that the kids are not alright. (Sept.)