The Age Of Depression

Once an afterthought in the American psyche, mental health — especially for young adults — has, in the wake of the pandemic’s isolation and uncertainty, now come to the forefront of our imaginations. A recent New York Times article found that American teenagers reported a 60 percent increase in depressive episodes from 2007. The US Surgeon General released a statement warning of a “devastating mental health crisis.” And in 2020, the National Institute of Mental Health reported that 17 percent of young adults reported a major depressive episode — by far the greatest of any age group. 

So this much is clear: We live in the age of depression. 

Of course, depression and anxiety have long been significant, yet underreported and therefore undertreated illnesses among Americans — the National Institute of Mental Health estimates that, as recently as 2017, a total of 17.3 million Americans reported at least one major depressive episode. Yet of those affected by depression, over 35 percent reported receiving no treatment. The likely culprit, of course, is our long-standing societal taboo around mental illness — for too long, these conditions have been outright denied, downplayed, or relegated to hushed tones and social ostracization. 

But in recent years, the conversation around mental illness has changed significantly. The ongoing pandemic has clearly played a large role in this, as the cataclysmic emotional toll and upheaval of societal norms caused more to seek mental health treatment than ever before, but the growing acceptance of these disorders can be traced further back than that.  In the social media age, depression and anxiety are more normalized —and therefore more visible — than ever, in the bright pastels of mental health awareness Instagram infographics, in celebrity and athlete testimonials, and, of course, in stories. And so it follows that, in recent years, depression-centric narratives for young adults have garnered attention and acclaim across the silver and streaming screens. Netflix’s Thirteen Reasons Why, for example, garnered over 476 million viewing hours in its first month of release alone. For many adolescents, seeing stories like these across their screens may be the first time they’ve engaged with this type of subject matter. 

Still, the framing of youth depression within the format of a television show or movie presents a complex set of issues. Stories, of course, can have tremendous impact — they allow us to enter another’s shoes, creating empathy and helping to normalize mental health conditions. They create a collective societal understanding of these issues — a recent study from the National Mental Health Association found that 70 percent of Americans form opinions on mental health through watching TV. And for those youth that struggle with depression, seeing themselves represented on screen can be a tremendous source of both comfort and empowerment, giving validity to conditions that still are too often stigmatized as simple byproducts of teenage angst. 

Yet there is also danger to the misrepresentation of depression in these stories. Too often, these stories oversimplify, exaggerate, or even romanticize these conditions, creating stereotypes and alienating those who see experiences depicted that are far from their own. Some depictions have even been criticized for their potential to intensify feelings of self-harm or suicidal ideation. When we consider telling stories about and aimed at a population as vulnerable as adolescents suffering from depression, there is, I believe, a need for great care to be taken. 

Art, of course, does not have a moral obligation. Nor does it have an obligation to have a message or lesson. It exists for its own sake. Yet we cannot talk about art as if it exists within a vacuum, because art does not exist within a vacuum — it exists in the real world. Art affects and is affected by public perception. It influences policy. It shapes the lives of individuals. There are consequences. And so while there should not be allowances on what should or should not be depicted in fiction, we do have to consider the way in which art moves through the world. Because art can cause harm. Because, in the depictions of adolescent depression, it has.

This essay series, therefore, aims to explore how adolescent depression is represented in fiction through the lens of one of some of the most popular recent depictions of it.

Read the first essay here: “Thirteen Reasons Why and the “Good Story Problem”