“Just checking in! How is everybody doing?”

When Elmo asked this question on X in January 2024, no one expected it would generate 180 million views within just two days. Initial responses were light and playful. But people across the internet quickly began sharing more honest status updates, including feelings of distress, loneliness, challenge, and uncertainty. The overwhelming response to Elmo’s question was: “Honestly? We are not okay.”

In retrospect, the outpouring of emotional reactions makes sense. You can’t turn on the news or swipe through social media without encountering a story about the mental health crisis. And Elmo’s years on Sesame Street taught us that he would likely be a soft place to land with an honest account of our feelings. His empathetic responses, such as “Elmo loves you today and every day,” and links to Sesame Street Workshop’s emotional well-being resources proved this true. 

Of course, the Sesame Street crew isn’t the only one talking about mental health, especially when it comes to teenagers. Adolescent mental health continues to get wall-to-wall coverage. Schools, clinics, and organizations are all working to increase high quality mental health support. Non-profits, advocates, and creatives are working to bust stigma and remind us that, “It’s okay to not be okay.”  

Language matters

Given all this conversation, it’s worth pausing to consider whether there are ways to talk about youth mental health that are more helpful than others. According to a report from the Frameworks Institute called Changing the Narrative Together: Three Effective Strategies for Talking about Youth Mental Health, there are. Building on a research collaboration with the UCLA Center for the Developing Adolescent, the report points out that in the flurry of attention to this important issue, we risk activating three old stereotypes. These “cultural mindsets” not only undermine meaningful change but also shape the way that young people think about themselves:  

• Individualism. This is the belief that teens are solely responsible for their own mental health outcomes and that the path to wellbeing involves willpower, habit change, and a willingness to overcome obstacles. 
• Fatalism. This is the belief that the problem is too big, too complicated, and too difficult to address. In other words, everyone is depressed and anxious, and there is nothing we can do about it. 
• Otherism. This is the belief that teenagers are a different and troubled group and that this period of development is defined by risk, danger, and vulnerability. 

Changing the Narrative

When it comes to teens, technology, and mental health, these three mindsets are alive and well. The good news? The report offers three concrete ways to shift the narrative. Let’s start here. 

Center the context.

Individual struggles don’t exist in a vacuum. They are shaped by the broader environments in which young people live. Let’s highlight the supports, resources, policies, or programs that make it more or less difficult for young people to get what they need for wellbeing. 

When it comes to digital wellbeing, this means going beyond personal habits, like enabling downtime at night or delaying the use of specific apps. While those strategies are useful, adolescent mental health is rarely shaped by a single factor that can be solved by turning off a device. Lasting change requires collective action as well. Creating equitable and accessible opportunities for quality mental health care, sleep, exploration, purpose, physical activity, play, and the arts are all evidence-based ways to support positive mental health. Likewise, holding tech companies accountable for making social media safer by design, rather than relying on the user to resist addictive features on their own, is essential.

Personal strategies matter, but let’s consistently pair them with broader, systemic pathways to wellbeing.

Center solutions.

Too much talk about the scope and scale of the problem, without offering solutions, can quickly lead to fatalism. This helps explain why some mental health awareness campaigns can backfire when they lack context, nuance, and actionable guidance.

This insight is also useful for our conversations with young people. If the only thing teens hear is, “Your phone is going to ruin your mental health!” we risk making them more vulnerable to the harms we are trying to prevent. Let’s communicate risk accurately and in a way that helps young people understand that there is something they can do about it. 

The same principal applies to large-scale efforts. For example, Minnesota just passed a bill requiring warning labels on social media platforms. Other states are considering similar policies. But as Dr. Jacqueline Nesi notes on her blog Techno Sapiens, seemingly helpful warning labels like, “Social media is associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents” can have unintended consequences. Without context or response strategies, these kinds of oversimplified messages may leave parents and teens feeling helpless or prompt them to overattribute symptoms in ways that intensify distress. 

Center “us” instead of “them.”

Adolescence is undeniably a time of great change and transformation. Yet we often approach this stage as a high-stakes risk management project. The latest science tells a different story. It reminds us that the teenage brain is built for discovery, exploration, and learning. While there are unique vulnerabilities to this stage (which can make parenting a wild ride), adolescence is not just a problem to be solved. Young people deserve stories that highlight their agency, contributions, and power to shape outcomes. After all, we were teenagers at one point. And we all benefit from their energy, insights, and contributions today.

These suggestions are not about downplaying youth suffering or sugarcoating the risks young people face online. We should continue to turn toward one another and follow Elmo’s lead by asking, “How is everyone doing?” But as we consider young people’s response to that question, let’s ground our language in stories that communicate: You are not alone. We can build communities that prioritize wellbeing. There is something we can do. And our brains are built to discover what we’re capable of. Let’s go.