Debugging Youth Mental Health: How a Moral Bug May Be Responsible for an Existential Threat to The Future

By David J Bidler

The greatest problem of our time isn’t the latest hot button issue to set off our emotional alarms on social media.

The greatest problem of our time is the mental health of the people responsible for solving the greatest problems of our time.

Those people are our children.

Today’s youth are heading into a 21st century maelstrom.

Their ability to navigate what author Ray Kurzweil describes as “20,000 years of progress” in a single lifetime will determine the future for our species.

The problem is that 1/4 of them are currently diagnosed with a “mental health disorder.”

An unprecedented number of U.S children are being placed on psychoactive drugs with an alarming rate of dependency at ages as young as 6 years old.

Rates of anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation among youth are skyrocketing to dangerous new heights.

An equally pressing problem is that no one really seems to care…

This is a problem that may be explained through a simple bug in our evolutionary software. The question is-are we capable of overriding it and rewriting a new moral code to prepare our kids for the 21st century?

Moral Bugs: Why It’s So Hard to Care About the Future.

Any species whose offspring is taking their own lives at a rate which constitutes the second leading cause of death is facing a clear existential risk.

We might assume that an outpouring of resources, funds, and educational initiatives would be aimed in the direction of this growing crisis.

The reality is that no youth mental health education curriculum currently exists in public schools.

Funding for youth mental health education and outreach is virtually nonexistent.

A proactive approach to improving youth mental health is not a priority on any current legislative agenda.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of students are taught nothing about the physiological prerequisites that make mental health possible.

To understand “why” this issue goes unfunded, under resourced, and largely ignored requires examining an age old bug in our mental software known as “the moral illusion.”

Renowned psychologist Paul Slovak has written extensively on the subject of moral intuition and moral illusion.

Moral intuitions are immediate moral beliefs that bypass the process of conscious reasoning.

Imagine witnessing an unprovoked assault. Moral intuition comes easily.

When the primary assailant exists in the form of sophisticated and persuasive technologies and the victim is “the next generation of kids” moral intuition is virtually nonexistent.

The problem is too big-and that’s the problem.

Unfortunately, the inevitable impact on our society-not to mention the pain and suffering of millions of kids-is not blunted by our lack of intuition about the problem.

Moral illusions are the perception of a problem being more or less important than its objective impact on society suggests.

A viral video depicting aggression against a single individual can elicit a greater societal response than a detailed report of mass, systematic, and ongoing violence.

This is due to the existence of moral illusions which determine what we consider important enough to act on.

This short video brings the concept of moral illusions to life.

As Impact Grows, Genorosity Declines: The Paradox of Problem Solving and the Impact of Personification

How much would you give to help a little girl in need?

This question produces a maximum rate of empathy, and a maximum philanthropic donation.

When asked how much a prospective donor might give to help a little girl in need and her brother, studies reveal a 25% diminishment in self reported empathy and material donation.

When adding additional family members, schoolmates, or an entire village to the appeal for empathy both plummet with each additional increase in size and scope of impact.

Is this the bug preventing us from solving the youth mental health crisis?

A proactive approach to improving the mental health of even one child does not have a heart wrenching narrative.

That’s what “proactive” means.

It is an approach to getting ahead of a problem for the purpose of preventing the future existence of a heart wrenching narrative.

This alone stands at odds with our framework for moral decision making. Factor in a proactive approach to improving the mental health of a nation of children and you’ve decoded the puzzle of apathy and inaction regarding youth mental health.

Unfortunately, the future has no buffer for this glitch in our mechanisms of morality.

Each child that we over medicate, send into the gladiatorial arena of the 21st century economy without so much as a shield or sword, or bury far too young is a sacrifice to our inability to debug ourselves and act-with or without an immediate moral impulse to prompt us.

So, how do we break through this glitch in our moral code and become proactive in improving the mental health of our future leaders?

First, we need to debug ourselves. To recognize the framework for our own altruism is to possess the ability to reconstruct the frames.

Second, we need to recognize that this problem has a solution. Today’s youth are not being taught the necessary skills to maintain mental health. Education is a tangible starting point for a proactive approach to improving youth mental health at scale. In this article I describe our approach to youth mental health education and outreach at Physiology First.

Finally, we must recognize that the ability to invest in the mental state of the future is predicated on our own mental solvency.

The current statistics on adult mental health add additional insight into why the needs of our youth are often neglected. The fear that a spiral is already in motion which leaves each generation less prepared to care for the next can either immobilize us, or inspire us to act with urgency.

Unless we invest in the future we will face an unprecedented type of bankruptcy in which the toll of the 21st century is one that our kids cannot afford to pay.

What if we choose to override the machinery of our own morality and invest in the leaders who are assuming their role at the helm of the future?

With our full support there is no limit to their potential to innovate, create, and steer us into the 21st century with agency.

To be part of a movement for proactive mental health education please consider supporting our work at Physiology First.

Through your tax deductible donations and/or active involvement we can override the inertia preventing a positive and empowering approach to improving youth mental health at scale.

David J Bidler is President of the nonprofit organization, Physiology First. Physiology First provides brain and body based learning and 21st century life skills to students and the larger community that supports them.

Learn more about how you can get involved at: physiologyfirst.org