What I found most interesting in the NYT article was the tremendous upsurge that coincided with the widespread usege of smart phones. The self-reported percentages of anxiety in the UCLA survey are striking. I don’t know what the solution is, but from my own experience with teens, the constant comparisons with their peers and the need to project a certain image regardless of the truth can cause great anxiety. That combined with a college application frenzy which seems to grow more intense every year leads to a warped perspective that their futures are going to be ruined if they don’t succeed perfectly in every situation. You see it here all the time–kids who think their lives are ruined if they get a B. It’s so sad.