A mental health crisis for boys

"On any measure related to anxiety or depression, girls have higher absolute rates ... For suicide it’s the opposite: as a new research brief from the American Institute for Boys and Men makes clear, the rates for boys are much higher, and their high rate is the deepest sign of a crisis for boys....
    "[T]he rate of reported depression for girls was up by 145%, while boys are up 161%. That’s right: The relative change since 2010 was actually slightly larger for boys...

    "[O]nce I read an early draft of Richard Reeves’s book 'Of Boys and Men,' I realised that ... [f]or boys and young men, the key change has been the retreat from the real world since the 1970s, when they began investing less effort in school, employment, dating, marriage, and parenting.
    "Figure 2 illustrates one aspect of this gradual withdrawal. It plots the percentage of American high school seniors who agree with the statement 'People like me don’t have much of a chance at a successful life.' As you can see, very few girls agreed with that statement back in the 1970s, and as girls and women made progress relative to boys in school and employment, the line stayed low. It wasn’t until girls’ social lives moved onto smartphones and Instagram in the early 2010s that they reported feeling much more pessimistic about their lives and themselves (across many survey items). ... For boys, the pattern is somewhat different. ...

"To understand what has happened to the mental health of boys and young men, we must begin our analysis long before the early 2010s, and then we must use a 'push-pull' analysis. In other words, what were the factors pushing them away from investing in real-world pursuits? And what were the factors pulling them into the virtual world? ...
    "Boys are in trouble. Many have withdrawn from the real world, where they could develop the skills needed to become competent, successful, and loving men. ...
    "[T]he problem is not uniquely American; it seems to be happening at the same time and in the same way in all of the Anglosphere nations, and in the Nordic region too ...
    "I am extremely concerned about what is happening to girls, and to boys as well. ... But the struggles of boys have received far less attention. I hope that is now changing, and we can figure out how to help boys and men flourish."

~ Jonathan Haidt, from his post 'Why I'm Increasingly Worried About Boys, Too'