Editorial: Adolescent mental health in a rapidly changing world

Abstract

There is substantial evidence that adolescent mental health has deteriorated considerably since the early 2010s across many countries, and much more strongly among girls than boys. This is probably due to a combination of societal changes that strongly influenced the lives of adolescents. The societal changes include the rise of social media and of academic pressure, the COVID‐19 pandemic and increasing worries about the future. Moreover, the decreasing trend in adolescent mental health might have resulted into more mental health awareness and a tendency to overinterpret negative psychological experiences as signs of mental health problems. Several suggestions for future research are provided to increase our understanding of the origins of the recent trends in adolescent mental health.