The Times: Friends and early nights help girls stay happy

Seeing friends face to face and getting a good night’s sleep are the best ways for teenage girls to ward off psychological ill health, according to a government report.

The first state-of-the-nation report on children’s mental health found that these two actions were far more important than staying off social media, which had only a small effect on teenage girls’ happiness.

Teenage girls were particularly at risk of poor mental wellbeing, the report said, noting that the most recent NHS mental health survey found that almost a quarter of 17 to 19-year-old females had an emotional disorder compared with 7.9 per cent of males of the same age.

“Seeing friends and getting enough sleep were consistent protective factors for positive psychological health across adolescence,” the report said. “Social media use had one of the smallest effects of all the factors we examined: getting enough sleep and seeing friends were about three times larger.”

Enough sleep was judged to be eight to ten hours for those aged 14 to 15 and at least eight hours for those aged 17 to 19. Serious unhappiness among boys and girls alike grew sharply from 3.5 per cent in 2009 to almost 6 per cent in 2015, but has since fallen.

The full online article can be found here.