Anxiety. That’s a word I have heard being used more and more often. Time to be a little vulnerable. I was recently put on anti-anxiety medication to help me deal with it. I know that God has a plan for me, and that he has gifted me with incredible doctors to help me on my path. But why is anxiety such a big deal in today’s world?

Anxiety disorders affect 25.1% of children ages 13-18 in the U.S. Many of these children go untreated, and are more likely to perform poorly in school and engage in substance abuse. That’s kind of a big deal considering this is affecting 1/4 of the future generation.

So why is this percentage so high? Why are teens struggling with anxiety? One of the biggest triggers, especially for me personally, is social media and electronics. It’s so easy to use electronics as an escape. I can sit down saying I’ll watch one episode on netflix, and five hours later, I’m still on the couch. We are able to immerse ourselves in social media or electronics, to the point where we are never bored. Those times that we find ourselves becoming bored, our first reaction is to pull out our phone. I’ve texted my friend before simply saying “I’m at the mall and want to look like I’m doing something.” I was so worried about what people would think if I was just standing there, bored.

Another problem with social media is that we only see the good parts of someone’s life. We don’t see the test they just failed or the family pet that just passed away. We see them having fun at the lake with friends. We compare ourselves to others, based on only the good in their life and only the bad in ours. We see how good others look in swimsuits and decide to start working out. We see our favorite celebrity has lost weight by going vegan, so maybe we should as well.

When we escape by immersing ourselves in social media, we lose an emotional connection to real life. We don’t know how to sit at lunch with friends without getting on our phones. We don’t know how to go on vacation without taking perfect pictures and posting them to show how much fun we had. We have the mentality that if it’s not on social media, it didn’t happen.

When we lose our emotional connection to real life, we don’t know how to deal with our feelings. Instead of combatting stress, we avoid it, until it becomes such a big problem that it’s unavoidable. We don’t develop necessary coping skills because we spent our childhood avoiding discomfort.

Now, I didn’t just say all this to judge you or make you feel bad. I’m speaking from personal experience. Netflix and social media aren’t evil and electronics aren’t going to kill us. I’m simply imploring you to immerse yourself in God’s creation. Rather than avoid your problems, learn to face them head on. When you’re at dinner or coffee with friends, try and put all of your phones down and be present with one another. And when that doesn’t work, use the handy dandy time limit on your phone to limit your social media screen time. Now obviously this isn’t the only reason teenagers deal with anxiety, but it is one of the highest reasons. It is also one that can be easily avoidable, if we put our mind to it.

It all deals with perception, and how we want to be seen. It’s not bad to post a picture on instagram, but we shouldn’t feel like it has to get so many likes or it wasn’t worth it. We also shouldn’t feel like we have to post a picture from dinner because everyone else is. You do what you want to do, not what you think others want you to do.