Social media aren’t to blame for rising anxiety

I seems clear that it’s Guardian policy to blame everything on social media (Anxiety on rise among the young in social media age, 5 February). But while a YouGov survey carried out for the Prince’s Trust may note a doubling of 16- to 25-year-olds disagreeing with the statement that “Life is really worth living” since 2009, in that same period we’ve had the fallout from the 2008 financial crash, nearly a decade of Tory austerity and hostile environment policies, the ongoing Brexit calamity, and all things Trump-connected, from tearing up environmental policies to abandoning nuclear limitation treaties. I don’t know about 16- to 25-year-olds, but this 71-year-old is as anxious as he can ever remember being. Facebook is positively healing therapy by comparison.
Ian Anderson
Bristol

• I dislike this current trend to blame the decline in children’s mental health on social media. When I trained as a teacher 35 years ago education was seen as a system which supported children’s mental health and wellbeing. We talked about child-centred learning. We educated the whole child. Dramatically, in the last 20 years this holistic agenda has been stripped out of education to a system where only numbers count. It serves the government very well to focus on social media and take the spotlight off its disastrous education policies. Social media is a reflection of society’s ills, not the creator of them.
John Walter
Bude, Cornwall

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