Stan questioned the methodology of the data, and as a youth, I question both the results and the hypothesized causes. True, maybe “callous reality television” is making us youth more ‘detached’, but maybe not. Ok, so we may not develop empathy watching the girls on The Hills shop for purses (except maybe for the poor cameramen who have to film Spencer and Heidi’s nauseating displays of affection), but what about reality shows that highlight very real issues like drug addiction, health problems and poverty? Is there a difference between letting someone cut in front of you in line and crying into your Ben and Jerry’s for the contestant on American Idol who has had a difficult life struggle?

The other day I heard a story on CBC radio’s Mainstreet about a school in Halifax that implemented a problem solving strategy based on restorative justice, which focuses on the needs of both the victim and the perpetrator. The students at this elementary school regularly engage in ‘circles’, where everyone involved in the conflict answers five simple questions about the incident and their feelings about what happened. This approach has been effective in helping kids mend relationships and put themselves in someone elses shoes. Through this process, the kids are strengthening their ability to empathize, and in fact now regularly ask to engage in this dialogue! The effectiveness of this technique was highlighted in a teacher’s comment that recently she returned to her classroom after running across the hall to find that her grade two students had self-organized and were taking turns sharing compliments about one another!

Maybe these students displayed empathy since they are too young to be corrupted by the ills of social networking. Because of course, no conversation about the self-centeredness of today’s youth would be complete without a discussion of the hazards of Facebook, Twitter, and other tools of social media. Do these tools merely make it easier for us to “ignore others pain”, as the article suggests?  How about Facebook groups formed in support of political prisoners, ill friends and relatives, or victims of natural disaster? Avaaz.org, the largest global web movement in history, has had 20,000,000 actions taken since 2007, many of those by youth who are concerned about injustices faced by friends and strangers worldwide. Youth may now be less likely to look after a friend’s plant (keep in mind Stan’s point about the reliability of this data), but how about youth from across the globe who participated in an online photo campaign that was instrumental in pressuring coffee giant Starbucks to create more equitable policies for Ethiopian coffee growers? Social media allows us to empathize with both our local and global neighbours.

Is taking the time to sign an online petition in support of others more or less empathetic than returning incorrect change? Does watching reality television chip away at our sense of concern for others? Are parents actively failing kids today, by teaching them success first, sympathy second? Or are we as youth merely finding other ways to express our empathy and connection with others? The article neglected to mention that youth volunteerism has been steadily increasing over the past decade, as has service-learning. So let’s stop stereotyping youth and start celebrating them. What a show of empathy that would be!

What do you think? Are youth more or less empathetic than in previous generations?
–Jess

Recently the Globe and Mail published a story about a study that purported to show that college students in the USA were 40 percent less emphatic than those of a few decades ago.  Whether this is indeed correct cannot really be determined by the methodology used in the study quoted but that does not seem to stop enthusiastic speculation about what has “caused” this so called drop in empathy.  As expected, the usual boogy-men have been trotted out.  None of these have been demonstrated to be causal in this change but that does not seem to stop pontification, particularly if it leads to sales of programs or newspapers.

So what are the suggested causes?  Of course, the digital media – facebook and myspace.  The argument here is that they are “physically distant online environments”  [that allow] people to “lionize their own lives” and “functionally create a buffer between individuals, which makes it easier to ignore others’ pain, or even at times, inflict pain upon others.”  This hyperbole makes good theatre but is not very good social science.

Of course the usual cause for every generational “issue” is then also brought to the table.  It’s the fault of the parents: “These kids were born around 1980. It could be a change in parenting style. … Kids are getting the implicit message from parents that success is what really matters. It’s hard to spend your life pursuing success and at the same time pursue empathy, because empathy takes work.”    So here we are treated to more unproven hyperbole.  It sounds plausible so therefore it must be true (that at least is the reasoning).  And guess what – there is a program that can be purchased to fix this supposed deficit.

So what is the back story?  First, is there really a significant change in empathy (even in the face of the research limitations of this study)?  Well the first question is:  what does a drop in 40 percent mean?  Is this a relative drop or an absolute drop?  A drop from 0.1 percent to 0.06 percent of the population is a 40 percent drop – but likely means very little.  A drop from 100 percent of the population to 60 percent of the population is also a 40 percent drop but likely means a lot!  Beware any news story that uses percentages!
Stop confusing co-relations with causality.  Sure facebook and myspace are new social realities.   So are globalization and climate change.  Parenting styles are blamed for every social ill.  Darn parents, if only they could learn to do things right!
Well there are some very interesting things on the horizon in terms of understanding empathy and how it develops and how it may change over time.  Research into children with the rare genetic condition called Williams syndrome (one of the features is extreme sociability) is peeling away the complexity of interactions associated with racial stereotyping.  Other research has identified mirror neurons in the human brain that are associated with abstract thinking, planning and ability to empathize. This type of research, linking our understanding of how brains develop in response to their environments will help us sort out these important issues.  The rest provides lots of impetus for speculation and opportunities to spend our money on programs that work about 40 percent of the time.

–Stan

So, our teenagers are a mess.  They mostly cause trouble.  They are at best annoying and a pain!  Sound familiar?  Try this on for size: “What is happening to our young people?  They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents.  They ignore the law.  They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions.  Their morals are decaying.  What is to become of them?”  Sound familiar?  It’s a quote attributed to Plato!

So what are todays teens really like?  Reginald Bibby in his book “The Emerging Millennials” provides a fascinating snap shot of todays Canadian teens.  His research finds that teens today value their families and their friends.  That they share significant concerns and problems with their parents and that they value honesty and personal freedom.  Over the last decade, the numbers of teens who smoke, drink alcohol or use cannabis has gone down.  More than before they expect to do well at school, to marry and to have children.  No you are not hallucinating.
Of course they have their problems.  We all do.  But they are not “lost” or “floundering” as a group.  And a recent report of a study in the Globe and Mail highlights similar findings (Youth today?  Just like you were, study suggests): http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/family-and-relationships/youth-today-just-like-you-were-study-suggests/article1504467/ . 

So there we have it.  No some Freudian fantasy (for example, Anna Freud can be noted as one of the most important people to have created the mythology of the universally troubled team).  And so, so different than popular culture would have us believe.  For example, here is a quote from a movie critic in the National Post writing about the movie Ferris Buelers Day Off:  “Ferris is … what every teenage guy dreams of being: a raging, narcissistic id who gets away with it all. Cameron is an actual teenager: alienated from his parents. painfully insecure, angry, depressed.”  Nothing could be further from the truth!
I gave a lecture at the Academy of Medicine in Halifax last night.  The title of the talk was:
Modern teens, their brains and their lives - a primer for grandparents.  If you are interested in reviewing the materials, you can link to it here: Canada’s Youth.  Enjoy and remember.  Teens are just like adults, only maybe a bit more fun!

–Stan

So it was late afternoon and I was chatting with some of my young, active and thoughtful research team members.  And guess what came up?  We need a mental health break during the “dog days” of winter.  The more I thought about it, the more I liked it.

We know that the winter blues are very common at northern latitudes – such as all of Canada.  We know that there is a mental disorder, called Seasonal Affective Disorder that is linked to the relative lack of sunlight during our winter months.  We know how long that stretch of going to work when it is dark and going home when it is dark is – especially between Christmas and the first holidays in the spring.  Apparently there is even some anecdotal evidence that work and school problems peak in February.  And, we know how important a good down day – preferably one in which we can go exercise outside in the sunshine- is for our mental health.

So here is my proposal (actually it is the proposal of Jess Wishart and Christina Biluk), but I am putting forward as mine.  Let’s have a national holiday in early February.  Lets call it mental health day.  Why not?  We can just prorogue for a while.  I bet that it will be good for all of us. And the researchers can study to see if the two weeks after the day show less work and school stress than the two weeks before the day.  Or they could do a controlled trial – one part of the country with the day off and the other part without.  Hah.  Maybe we should just take the day off!

Arguably, the area of mental health is the newest domain of health in using independent, empirically valid and scientific approaches to determining what works, for whom, at what financial cost and with what potential harm.  Perhaps because of this “newness” we seem to spend a lot of unproductive time arguing or discussing what we should be doing and frequently confusing opinion with evidence and often not understanding that all evidence is not equal.

The Health Development Agency of the National Health Service (United Kingdom), in a 2004 critical review of youth suicide prevention programs provided the following four criteria to be used in the application of all mental health programs:

1 – Apply good and effective interventions
2 – Avoid ineffective interventions
3 – Eliminate harmful interventions
4 – Facilitate public accountability

These seem pretty reasonable to me.

The problem we seem to have is making sure we do each of these things.  This is especially a difficulty when our pet theories or personal perspectives do not stand up to independent, substantive and appropriate scrutiny.  Yet these are the things that we need to do.

So here is a suggestion.  Before implementing any mental health program can those people charged with doing that simply tic off each of these four criteria.  Have you clearly and with the proper and most substantive type of evidence demonstrated that the interventions are good and effective?  Are you using programs or other interventions that have none or inadequate evidence of effectiveness?  Are you sure that your programs or other interventions do not cause harm?  Have you been open with the public about the effectiveness, cost effectiveness and safety of all the programs and other interventions that you have in place?

If not, why not?