If our existing schooling system is unnecessarily exacerbating mental health issues, then parents, teens, educators, and policy-makers should re-evaluate the premises of our existing schooling system. If schooling-as-we-know-it is excessively different from our environment of evolutionary adaptation, then how should we rethink schooling in order to create healthier adolescent populations in the future?
It is a long essay, which covers a lot of research on the problems of contemporary adolescents. As I read it, I applied my rule of thumb, which is to focus on technology as a cause. Also, I came across the essay concurrently with my reading of Panic Attack by Robby Soave.
For example, Strong lists five characteristics of adolescent tribal life that are not shared by today’s youth. I will put them in a table.
| tribal life | modern life |
|---|---|
| (1) small tribal community of a few dozen to a few hundred with few interactions with other tribal groups. | exposed to hundreds or thousands of age peers directly in addition to thousands of adults and thousands of electronic representations of diverse human beings (both social media and entertainment media). |
| (2) shared one language, one belief system, one set of norms, one morality, and more generally a social and cultural homogeneity that is unimaginable for us today. | exposed to many languages, belief systems, norms, moralities, and social and cultural diversity. |
| (3) immersed in a community with a full range of ages present, from child to elder. | largely isolated with a very narrow range of age peers through schooling. |
| (4) engaged in the work of the community, typically hunting and gathering, with full adult responsibilities typically being associated with puberty. | Have little or no opportunities for meaningful work in their community and no adult responsibilities until 18 or even into their 20s. |
| (5) mating and status competitions would have mostly been within their tribe or occasionally with nearby groups, most of which would have been highly similar to themselves. | are competing for mates and status with hundreds or thousands directly and with many thousands via electronic representations (both social media and entertainment media). |
Of these five contrasts, (3) and (4) are linked to our schooling process. (1), (2), and (5) are much exacerbated in the world of smart phones and the Internet. I speak of it as the world of our new species, Homo Appiens.
The mental health problems of Homo Appiens have been emphasized by Jean Twenge and Jonathan Haidt.