In the News: New Study on the Lives of Teenage Girls

Every once in a while, you can find some solid long-form reporting on Buzzfeed. Today, I stumbled across this article about a long-term, in depth study on the lives of teenage girls: https://www.buzzfeed.com/lisahinkelman/teenage-girls-study
Some of the findings including growing silence and insecurities in our teen girls: “My most recent research study, which included more than 17,000 fifth-grade through 12th-grade girls in The Girls’ Index, reveals a troubling trend: 67% of the participants reported that they don’t say what they’re thinking or disagree with others because they want to be liked. Let that sink in for a moment. Two-thirds of girls are silencing themselves to be accepted. As someone who was often labeled as opinionated or bossy, I understand the pressure to conform, to be quieter, to take up less space. But I can’t help but wonder: What are we losing when our girls are silenced?”
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Other findings include: “Since 2017, the percentage of girls reporting confidence has declined from 68% to just 55%. A staggering 53% of girls report feeling persistently sad or hopeless. As one seventh-grade girl told us, “Girls my age don’t feel happy the way we are. We want to be someone else.” Reading this, I feel a painful twinge of recognition — like I’m hearing my younger self speak.”
At the same time, I can’t help but thing about the growing misogyny we are seeing online, and how teen boys are increasingly being drawn into toxic online incel culture and how frequently now girls and women are being told “your body, MY choice” online. These trends are definitely concerning, and anyone who works with teens or cares about them should be paying attention. We have long been aware of the increase in mental health issues and anxiety in our teens. How to address them is an entirely different question, and I don’t think there is any one approach. But I do think we need to be paying attention.
Filed under: Professional Development

About Karen Jensen, MLS
Karen Jensen has been a Teen Services Librarian for almost 32 years. She created TLT in 2011 and is the co-editor of The Whole Library Handbook: Teen Services with Heather Booth (ALA Editions, 2014).
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