Plato

Parker Plato
Jean Coco
English 1001
10 December 2015
Audience- parents of teenagers
The Truth About Depression
I am proud of my work on this paper and there is not much that I would change. If I had
two more weeks to work on this paper I would probably lengthen the paper and add more
information. I would also attempt to add a chart of the statistics in my paper, but I am not sure
how to do that. I am not very good with computers. I spent a lot of time on this paper and I
would not change anything else.

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1. What would you do if you suspected your child was depressed? A lot of parents do not
notice their child is depressed, but it is time for that to end. One to 6% of teenagers acquire major
depression every year. The National Institute of Mental Health found that, 439 youths ages 12
to 17 with major depression, only 20% showed typical symptoms of depression (Harvard
Medical). Sometimes it can be very hard to figure out if someone is suffering from depression
and the symptoms vary from each person. There are all kinds of reasons people develop
depression, but social media has had a great effect on teenagers recently. In a Harvard Medical
article, readers learn teenagers can become depressed because of their parents, environment they
live in, and because depression has a genetic component. The different thing about those reasons
for depression and social media being a reason is that sometimes parents, or even kids, can
prevent depression from social media. Why is the depression rate for teenagers increasing and
could social media be to blame?
2. A lot of the time people use the word depression way out of context. Whenever
something goes wrong people say how depressed they are but it is actually just ones mood
changing, which is completely normal. In an article from researchers in the Harvard Medical
department, readers can understand what exactly depression is and the different types. Readers
are reminded that there is a difference between being upset over something small, grieving over a
great loss, and depression. Signs of depression are being unmotivated, listless, or irritable
(Harvard Medical). Another article from Harvard Medical teaches parents way to prevent
depression in their children. They suggest keeping a close eye on them while they use social

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media, set limits on how much they can watch television, and teach them about online safety.
Also, cyber bullying has caused a lot of issues in teenagers because kids find it easier to bully
behind a computer screen. Younger and younger children now participate in all forms of social
media and suffer from bullying and are at risk for some type of depressive disorder.
3. Teenagers are three to fours as likely as other youths to develop depression if their
parents struggle or have struggled with depression. There were also studies that showed
teenagers who play a sport for five or more times a week were depressed (Harvard Medical).
Recognizing depression can be very difficult and The Treatment for Adolescents with
Depression Study (a clinical trial sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health)
concluded that of 439 youths ages 12 to 17 with major depression, only 20% showed typical
symptoms of depression (Harvard Medical). Nowadays, teenagers have the reputation of being
rebellious and always wanting to be alone and away from their family which makes discovering
depression more challenging. Most teenagers who have already suffered from depression are
likely to relapse back into the disorder. Research shows that 50% to 70% of adolescents who
are treated successfully for depression will experience depression again (Harvard Medical).
4. A lot of people just think a person is very sad when they think of depression, but there
is not easy definition. Depression is a lot more complex than just simply being sad and many
people forget that (Dignam). Nowadays, more teenagers are developing depression and it is
going unnoticed by adults. The rise of social media has had a lot of impact on teenagers. There
have been a lot of studies on how social media has caused depression in teenagers and C.R.
Blease wrote a very interesting article about the dangers of Facebook. The article talks about the
effects on kids with too many friends on Facebook and also how upset people are becoming over

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not getting enough feedback online. Blease calls it Facebook depression and a lot of teenagers
are suffering from it. From reading this article, one can become aware how obsessed teenagers
are today with social media. Kids with too many friends on Facebook sometimes become
obsessed with repeatedly checking on what their friends are posting. Blease proposed that kids
who have a ton of online friends are more susceptible to becoming depressed.
5. Major depressive disorder is becoming more common among college students and it
can lead to suicide. Kisch, Leino, a Silverman (2005) conducted a study that showed that 9.5%
of college students had experienced serious suicidal ideation and that 1.5% of the students had
attempted suicide (Youn, Trinh, Shyu, Chang, Fava, Kvedar and Yeung). Also, Sonawalla et
al., (2001) found that 16.4% of students at a given college had experienced suicidal ideation
(Youn, Trinh, Shyu, Chang, Fava, Kvedar and Yeung). Along with the suicidal thoughts, major
depressive disorder can lead to academic and major health issues. College students are often
surrounded by alcohol and when suffering with depression, college students are more inclined to
excessively abuse alcohol. College students also are more likely to develop eating disorders. A
lot of times this depression disorder goes un-noticed because most of the time college students
do not have parents keeping a close eye on them. There have been online screening tests to test
college students to see if they have or are likely to develop major depressive disorder. They will
screen on college campuses to make it very easy on students. It was determined that sending an
online questionnaire is an easy and inexpensive way to reach college students. Researchers also
use Facebook to screen college students for major depressive disorder. Almost all college
students participate in some form of social media and Facebook is a very popular website that
todays college students all use. In 2009, 259 students from five U.S. colleges consented to
participate in the study (Youn, Trinh, Shyu, Chang, Fava, Kvedar and Yeung). A lot of the

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participants were female (77.4%). Out of the females, (62.7%) were Caucasian, 24.9% were
Asian, 5.3% were Black, .9 % were American Indian or Alaska Natives, and 6.2% was
anonymous. Most of the participants were juniors in college and it came out to 34.7%.
Sophomores came in second with 27.6% participants, followed by 15.1% freshman participants,
and then only 8% of seniors participated. Undergraduate students, graduate students, and fiveyear students all participated in this screening. After conducting the experiment, 26.7% tested
positive for major depressive disorder. Unfortunately, 18.9% screened positive to showing
suicidal symptoms and sadly only 14.2% confessed to going to receive some sort of treatment for
their issue. Most students (37%) wanted to receive medication for treatment and only 22% of
students were going to get help through therapy, but 40.7% of students admitted to trying
medication and therapy to help recover from their depression and suicidal thoughts (Youn, Trinh,
Shyu, Chang, Fava, Kvedar and Yeung).
6. Facebook ads are a great way to get attention from college students because most
college students are online so much. It will also make them more inclined to take the online test
because it is convenient and sometimes they will be curious to see their results. Researchers
created the survey through SuveryMonkey, which is a popular online tool, used for high school
students and college students. The tests are very credible because all surveys, advertisements,
and instruments were approved by the Massachusetts General Hospital's Institutional Review
Board (IRB) (Youn, Trinh, Shyu, Chang, Fava, Kvedar and Yeung). After receiving their
results of whether or not they tested positive for major depressive disorder, students were asked
to complete a survey and out of the 58 students who screened positive for MDD, 21 (36.2%)
said they would take the survey. Regrettably, only 20 actually completed it by providing
responses to the questions (Youn, Trinh, Shyu, Chang, Fava, Kvedar and Yeung). After eight

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weeks, it was shown that the rate of students receiving treatment for MDD remained constant at
40% (Youn, Trinh, Shyu, Chang, Fava, Kvedar and Yeung). Obviously college students remain
very busy throughout the year with classes, extra-curricular activities, and social life, and being
too busy and/or forgotten were the main reasons for not following through with the original
treatment plan. Out of the results, 35% of said they were too busy and/or forgot, 25% said that
the depressive symptoms did not bother them enough to make them seek treatment, 20% did not
believe that treatment would not be helpful, and another 20% of participants did not believe
that they suffered from depression (Youn, Trinh, Shyu, Chang, Fava, Kvedar and Yeung). This
study was important to help make people realize how real major depressive disorder is and how
much it affects college students. This will make people realize how important it is to receive help
for depression because readers can see how much college students have thought and even
attempted suicide.
7. Social media has had a great effect on todays youth and parents should try their best to
educate themselves and their kids on what to do online. Teenagers become so obsessed with all
things social media and when things go badly online, sometimes they react in a dangerous and
negative way. Depression in teenagers is rapidly increasing and social media is a huge part to
blame. It is hard to control what teenagers and college students do online but parents should try
and monitor what they can.

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Parker Plato
Ms. Coco
English 1001
7 December 2015
Works Cited
Blease, C. R. "Too Many friends, Too Few likes? Evolutionary Psychology and Facebook
Depression." Review of General Psychology 19.1 (2015): 1-13. Web.

Dignam, P. T. "Classifying Teenage Depression." Australian & New Zealand Journal of

Psychiatry 48.8 (2014): 774-75. Web.

"Preventing Depression in Adolescents." Harvard Medical School Commentaries on Health.

HarvardHealthPublications. Boston: Harvard Health Publications, 2014. Credo Reference.
Web. 19 Nov. 2015.

"Social Media - a Brief Guide for Parents." Harvard Medical School Commentaries on Health.
HarvardHealthPublications. Boston: Harvard Health Publications, 2014. Credo Reference.
Web. 19 Nov. 2015.

"Understanding Depression." Harvard Medical School Special Health Reports.

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HarvardMedicalSchool. Boston: Harvard Health Publications, 2012. Credo Reference.
Web. 19 Nov. 2015.

Youn, Soo Jeong, Nhi-Ha Trinh, Irene Shyu, Trina Chang, Maurizio Fava, Joseph Kvedar, and
Albert Yeung. "Using Online Social Media, Facebook, in Screening for Major Depressive
Disorder among College Students." International Journal of Clinical and Health
Psychology 13.1 (2013): 74-80. Web.