OK, Now We’re Blaming Teenage Female Depression On Liberalism?

The Culture Wars never end.

There’s been a decent amount of coverage (for people that consume specific news sources) about the rise in female depression, especially among teenagers. I believe it’s tied to some CDC study, but I don’t remember the specific origin and now cannot be bother, as an elitist white male, to look it up. I jest. Here’s the original study that spawned approximately 92 million hot takes.

The primary “hot take” isn’t that hot at all — it’s something we’ve been saying for 13 years: phones. The “phones” narrative is both (a) true and (b) too easy. If you are even remotely familiar with the name “Jean Twenge” or her work, you know basically all the negative externalities for female teenagers started spiking around 2011, which was probably three-four years after the first iPhone and was the first inflection point for mass adoption. I believe this is roughly the chart:

So, “phones” is a good answer, yes. But it’s also too simple.

Now a new hot take (this one is a bit hotter) is that “liberalism” could be the root cause of female depression — and maybe among boys…