Being a teenager is tough during the best of times, which these are not.
Teens have long faced peer pressure, academic competition and other challenges. At some point in adulthood, they hopefully (mostly) conquer the bulk of these anxieties.
Now, though, that’s becoming harder than ever. Thanks, or more precisely no thanks, to the massive screen time social media often commands. Along with lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The result: Teen anxiety levels are shooting even higher.
The symptoms are clear by having even a casual conversations with a teen, displaying feelings of unease, worry, fear, and apprehension. That can interfere with their ability to focus and cause learning problems at school. Effects can last into adulthood, too, with physical ailments like massive headaches, chronic pain, digestive problems, and heart disease.
The good news is that anxiety is manageable, said Denise Dewhurst, a full-time faculty member in the Psychology Department at Montgomery College. And not just for teens and young adults, but folks with more years on them.
“It gets in the way of doing the things you need to do to get through your day. Doing your work, getting through school, and so much more,” said Dewhurst, a licensed psychologist with her own private practice.
“Self-care is key — eating well, sleeping enough, and being self-aware about your anxiety, and then talking to somebody about your problems,” she added.
While anxiety is a common condition across age ranges, teens often are the most vulnerable to it. That’s due to collision of political, economic and social trends that have created a generation in which huge numbers of young people struggle to cope with the present. And many of them feel even worse about the future.
Gen Z, covering roughly ages 13 to 28, has the poorest mental health of any generation, per a recent Gallup and Walton Family Foundation report. Just 44% of Gen Z-ers surveyed said they feel prepared for the future.
Young people, Dewhurst added, have particularly wrestled with anxiety since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic five years ago.
The coronavirus mental health effects linger with many who were in their early teen years back then.
“What I see in my college students is many did their education online,” Dewhurst said. “Corners were cut and standards were relaxed. Some of my students are now anxious about being in a face-to-face class.”
Social habits are another COVID-19 casualty.
“They’ve forgotten how to make friends. They’re anxious about talking to new people,” Dewhurst said.
Sources of anxiety in young people are explored by author Jonathan Haidt in his 2024 book, “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.” Haidt, a professor of ethical leadership at New York University’s Stern School of Business, argues in the book that young people today are damaged products of a massive shift in the culture of childhood.
Dewhurst recommends reading “The Anxious Generation” but adds it’s not gospel.
“That book has generated a lot of conversation. His claims are worth thinking about. But his claims are not scientifically established,” Dewhurst said. “Certainly, social media can create problems.”
After all, American kids and teenagers spend nearly six hours a day looking at screens, according to the Digital Parenthood Initiative. Yet many of these problems were around long before smartphones.
“When you’re thinking about teens, it’s important to remember all the pressures they’re under. Grades, test scores, and so much more,” Dewhurst said.
Adult anxiety, too, is growing in Montgomery County, Dewhurst said. Maryland’s most populous county, at just over a million people, is home to large swaths of federal workers. Or at least has been for several decades. Yet broad layoffs of federal government employees in President Donald Trump’s second, nonconsecutive term, are a new source of anxiety in 2025 for adult workers, many of whom have been in positions for decades and considered them safe, but also their families.
“We live in a time of great uncertainty. In this area, there are a lot of people worried about having a job,” Dewhurst said.
