To leave it there but zeinab hijazi, thank you for joining us today. Thank you, paige. Will be back hello and r those joining. I am the deputy newsletter editor at the Washington Post. I am pleased to welcome my next guest, someone who i have spoken with before, the u. S. Surgeon general to talk us through the Mental Health of Young Americans. Welcome back to Washington Post live. Thanks. It is good i want to throw a couple of questions at you about monkeypox. It is certainly dominating headlines. Us and we will incorporate those. A lot to talk about in terms of youth Mental Health, but i want to throw a couple of questions at you about monkeypox, because that is top of mind for a lot of people and dominating headlines. At the moment, the u. S. Has the most known cases in the world, spreading particularly rapidly in new york city, and the administration has been under fire for its response. I would love to hear from you, but should the government be doing more of to get this outbreak under control . Well, i am glad you asked. Here are some key things people need to know and what the government is doing. Monkeypox is an illness we are concerned about. We are mobilizing resources to address it. It is a virus that has symptoms that include swollen lymph nodes , symptoms that can mimic a flu or cold, but has a characteristic painful rash that many with monkeypox will experience. It is spread primarily through skin to skin contact that can occur through sexual activity, as has been discussed in the press, but other forms of close physical contact. As important as monkeypox is, it is not spreading with the level of contagiousness we saw with covid, which is a different illness altogether. The key is to recognize that treatments, vaccines, and tests are three critical aspects of the response, and with the administration has been doing is mobilizing the vexing portion of the response, more than one million doses of vaccine, and working on more on the way. Testing is available in commercial labs and state labs, and treatments have been sent to jurisdictions across the country, but there is more that has to be done in all these areas, and thats why were seeing across the administration , the cdc, the fda, health and human services, a lot of work is going into speaking to those communities, especially where there is spread. We will continue to work on this. We should be aware of what this is and how it spreads, as well as how to keep safe. My colleagues have been working on a story about what the cdc recommendations will look like, and as you know, this is chiefly spreading among gay men. The agency has been hesitant to recommend limiting sexual partners among this population for different reasons. With that be a helpful recommendation at this moment in time . I think people should be aware of all the different ways they can reduce risk. If you are somebody who has many sexual partners, many new sexual partners, you should know that does increase your level of risk, and certainly thinking about how to reduce your exposure during a time like this was the virus is spreading and we are still working to make vaccines more accessible, that is an important consideration we want people to be aware of, but it is important people know how this is spread through skin to skin contact, and that vaccines are available in many parts of the country, 100,000 doses have been shipped with many more on the way. Testing is available too, so we want to make sure people have all the tools necessary to protect themselves against this virus. On the question of vaccines, there is a limited supply in the administration has talked about splitting doses to go further without supply, and in response, the manufacturer has threatened to cancel future vaccine orders from the u. S. If that happens, so there seems to be a conflict, but is it a good idea to split vaccine doses . This recommendation was was made by hhs more broadly. They have some data from a prior study that indicates this strategy would be effective, and thats when they made the recommendation to split the doses. It is the notion of taking a single dose and splitting it into five and administering it in slightly different ways. This is a strategy that will allow for more vaccine doses to be available, but still have a robust response in terms of protecting people from monkeypox. It is a reasonable strategy to pursue, especially under the circumstances now. It does not mean the fda will not continue to look at the data to make sure people have the protection they need from the vaccine, but this is a very reasonable strategy to take at this point in the monkeypox outbreak. Ok, let us get on to talking about youth Mental Health. There is so much to address. You have given the assessment that what we are currently in is something that you Mental Health pandemic as we come out of the covid pandemic. Can you unpack the challenges you are seeing at the moment when you look at what Young Americans are facing in terms of their Mental Health . Yeah, i am deeply worried about the Mental Health of young people in america right now. We are in the midst of a crisis, and we have been for many years and even though it has not or was made the headlines. Covid pulled down the curtain on how severe the Mental Health epidemic is in the u. S. , particularly among youth. There are three numbers that stick in my head. 11, the number of years on average it takes a child to receive treatment after developing symptoms. The second is 57, a percentage increase in the suicide rate we had among kids in the decade prior to the pandemic, and it has gotten worse for kids during the pandemic. The other number i remember is 42 , the percentage of 44 , the percentage of High School Students who say they feel persistently sad or hopeless, and when you think of high school where a time your life is opening up for you, and nearly half of High School Kids are feeling despondent about themselves in the future, so these numbers give me a snapshot of where we are. It is echoed by conversations i have with people all across the country who routinely tell me they are struggling with anxiety or depression. Many say their experience on social media often leaves them feeling worse about themselves and their friendships, and finally its important not to lose sight of the experience of parents. I say this as a dad with two small kids. My interest is partly motivated by them. I think about their future and want to make sure they are well. When i speak with parents, they are struggling, dealing with their own anxieties and worries, covid, economic anxieties, but they are also worried about the kids. One of the worst kids you can have as a parent is to see your kid struggling and not get them the help that they need. That is the situation many parents are in. The good news is we can do something about this. It does not have to be this way. We in fact know much of what we have to do. We have to expand access to treatment and we know how to do that and we know we have to increase the workforce of people who can provide and deliver Mental Health care, and we have to invest in prevention programs, especially schoolbased, that we know that work. Finally, we have to shift our culture around Mental Health to one that is not imposing this terrible stigma on Mental Health and make people feel ashamed to ask for help. These are things we have started to do, but we have to accelerate because there are millions of children who are struggling now and cannot wait any longer. It strikes me when we talk about youth Mental Health, there are perhaps two aspects. As you know, very troubling statistics with suicides going up, serious mental illness, but there is another aspect i would like to ask you about. We have removed stigma of talking about Mental Health and mental illnesses, but one thing i hear among my friends who are parents, and i am a parent myself, although my kids are not on social media, thankfully, but in some cases it has become trendy for young people to say they have a Mental Health condition, to say they have multiple personality disorder or something else, and of course we know that teenagers are highly susceptible to suggestion and social contagion, so without diminishing the seriousness of real cases of mental illness, i wonder if there is another component to this that perhaps social media contagion. Is that something you heard about or was discussed . Sure, it is something i have thought about and have heard others ask about this and wonder if there is a contagion here among people, people wanting to admit they have a Mental Health problem, but while i do hear those concerns, my sense is not where the vast majority of people are. I still find young people all across the country ashamed to mid they are struggling, and if they are struggling, they feel ashamed to ask for help and continued to get help. There are so many children i encounter who are bullied, who dont feel comfortable admitting that because it says something about him, that they are weak and cannot defend themselves, so there is a heavy burden, stigma, and shame people carry around the country. We need to make sure were talking about Mental Health in the right way. We know that everyone struggles at some point in their life, whether they are public about it or not, shortlived or longlived, everybody struggles at some point. We have to be open and honest about that. We have to be clear we do not want anybody to struggle. What we want to do is meet those moments of struggle with compassion, help, and support. That is how we will ultimately help this crisis. You said the challenges todays young people face are unprecedented and uniquely hard to navigate. What are some of those things . I think so often about my own expense growing up. I also struggled with my Mental Health as a young person. I struggled with loneliness. As a kid and later as an adult, i struggled and wondered if i was experiencing depression at various points during my childhood. I did not know how to talk about it and rarely told anyone, including my parents, even though they love me unconditionally and were supportive, so it is a very personal sort of matter to me as well, but when i think about the broader crisis, there are a couple things we have to keep in mind. One is young people are growing up in an environment where they are Digital Natives and surrounded by social media. Years ago, if i did something embarrassing in class, 25 to 30 people knew about it. Now, a child does something that may be embarrassing and hundreds of thousands of people may learn about online. Bullying, which has been happening for generations, can now take place offline and online. You also look at the experience that social media creates for ones selfesteem, that is deeply concerning to me. Social media accelerates the culture of comparison that already exists in society, people comparing themselves to each other for hundreds of thousands of years, but social media makes that a moment to moment experience happens numerous times throughout the day, and all this leads to experiences that can be hurtful to people in terms of the relationships and sense of self, at a time when kids are still developing their identity. Some technology that is profoundly different from kids, the young people growing up today are surrounded by crises they look at us existential on the profound crises that they think about, whether their future is truly bright or not, climate change, racism, and violence. Yes, these challenges have existed for years, but they are seeing them 24 7 on the news and social media and other venues. When i meet young people i asked, do you think the future is brighter than the past . Many wonder and theyre not quite sure because of these crises. These are all challenges in the media environment, especially social media environment, features of growing up today that are different that i in prior generations had. It is why we have to be mindful of how unique the challenges are in the current challenges they are facing here the suicide rates, the rates of homelessness, the rates of loneliness which were skyhigh among adolescents, we have to take this seriously, because our kids are suffering and theyre telling us after their stories and their numbers. I have an audience question which i think fits well with what we are talking about, and this is from lisa in maryland. Lisa asks, i have followed the Surgeon Generals profound work on the loneliness epidemic in america. I worry greatly that our children, who are exposed to Virtual Learning and play around every corner, will and are suffering from alone together syndrome. Please discuss the relationship between screen time if you could elaborate on that. I know there are some positive things about technology, but a lot of negatives, so can you tell us more about that . I love this question because this is a question i grappled with is apparent too, which is how much screen time is ok for my kids . What kind of screen time is enough . If i am exhausted and i give my kids a device to relax, does that make you a bad parent . No, it is a universal struggle for all of us as parents, but there are a few things we can use as guidelines. Number one is to recognize screen time, and more broadly the use of technology, whether social media, watch videos online, engage in other forms of entertainment are learning, technology is not bad in and of itself. It is a tool we can use to help or hurt ourselves. There are some cases where kids can find ways to use tech that are helpful. Some kids have used technology to learn and connect with other friends and find communities in moments where they felt like they did not belong in no insured there interests or identity. That is powerful. As parents, we have to be aware of how much time are kids spending on social media . And what is their Actual Experience of social media and technology more broadly . Are they getting bullied . Is it experience leading them to feel worse about themselves . We can only understand this if we start a conversation with her kids on the use of technology, screen time, and social media in particular. The second thing is to look at the impact of their screen time on the rest of their life. It is a crowding out time with family and friends . Is it reducing the amount of time they go out and play . Is it compromising the work they do for school . If the answer is yes in any category, that may tell us something. And finally, keep this in mind, all of us, we needed sacred spaces in our lives that are free of technology. You might decide that is a dinner table and you will have meals where there is no technology, no telephones, and it is all of you talking. It might be right before your child goes to better they get up in the morning. We all need these. The last piece i will mention is the toughest one for many of us as parents, myself included but we have to be good role models. The truth is we all struggle with our own use of technology, right . I have been having conversations with my friends and i find i am reaching for my phone to refresh my inbox or checking the scores on espn. Com, and i will realize, oh my gosh, what, doing . It does not make us bad people. With kids in particular, we have to be conscious about modeling the right behavior for them. If we are going to draw boundaries and ask kids to draw boundaries, then we have to do the same. If were going to prioritize our time with people, make sure we are fully present, so we have to do that as well. This is to say this is a challenge how to manage technology with your kids and i am right there with you as a parent, but these are a few tips that may help you along the journey. On that note, lets imagine one moment you wake up tomorrow and somebody hands you a magic wand and you are able to eliminate social media for all kids under say, 18, would you do it . Well, that is a really good question. I certainly think kids starting to use social media way too young nh right now. Even though the legal limit is 13, many platforms routinely have kids who are 10, 11, 12, who were utilizing multiple platforms and have multiple accounts on individual platforms, so i think the age needs to be higher. If it was left up to me, i would not want kids using social media in middle school, and i would be concerned about them using it in high school, or may not early in high school, at the age at which they use it should be higher, but for parents, if youre interested in your kid waiting to be older until they use social media, i recognize that is not always easy, because if they are not on social media and their friends are, that could be difficult and make them feel left out and not part of the conversations everyone else is of. That is why these movements i emceeing among parent groups to make a pact with one another that among a group of parents that theyre going to make sure that none of their kids actually use social media until an older age, maybe 15, 16, 17 these parents are much more effective than an individual parent trying to make the decision, because then your child looks around and they have peers who are similarly not using social media, of the bottom line is i would be in favor of our kids waiting longer until they use social media. I think it is starting way too early right now and that that should change. Id like that advice, parents need to band together. Lets talk about schools for a minute. Students are preparing to return to school and to college campuses. For some college students, this is their third year of college life with pandemicrelated restrictions, although less than the last two years. What is your advice to these young people as they start the new school year . Yeah, well, let me just say, young people today the weather college or grade school, they have gone through so much during this pandemic. Life has been turned upside down. They have not been able to react and spend in person time with her classmates as much prepandemic, and in their learning as well, both academic learning and social learning has been profoundly interrupted, and we will be seeing the impacts of this for some time, which is why it is so important to focus on our kids come to think about how to make their educational experience more robust, to get them back to school more safely, but to recommend for young people who are going back to college, here are a few things. Number one is a recognized the last few years has taken a toll on all of us and if you feel like youre struggling and youre having anxiety around, engaging with other people socially or youre worried about being behind academically, just know that you are not alone. There is nothing to be ashamed about and struggling in a moment especially this. The second thing, it is important to ask for help when you need it. Hope is there for a reason. It can help you over a difficult moment, and all of us have those difficult moments. When i first got to college, i struggled mightily, let me tell you. I did not want to be there. I did not know how to engage and build a community. I really struggled. I never ask for help. That is something we did not want to feel compunction or shame over. There is help available. Universities have counselors set up to provide care for moments like this. We want everyone to know that we have a 988 number available. It is a number you can dial simple, easy to remember, for Mental Health emergencies. You will find a trained counselor there who is willing to help you and support you, and finally was less think that is important for young people to know is you return to college, dont forget how incredibly powerful your relationships are to help buffered the stresses and Mental Health struggles you may experience in the months ahead. One of the things i learned over the years as a doctor and surgeon general, but also as a human being who struggled with loneliness myself, is our relationships are healing, natural buffers to stress and so it is in moments like this when were feeling stress are going through transitions that it is especially important to reach out to the people we love and who care for us. It might be our friends on campus, our parents and friends from back home. I know things get busy when you go back to school, but stay in touch with the people you love. It could be five minutes a day, calling home, calling a friend missing i was thinking about you and want to see how you are. Those connections are like lifelines that help to sustain us during the difficult moments we have in our journeys. We are running out of time, but i want to fit in a question on the 988 number that you reference, this new Mental Health crisis hotline that was launched early this summer. We have heard reports that these call centers may be understaffed. Is that something you are watching . Are you concerned about that . Dead people in serious distress or calling and there is nobody to pick up the phone . I am glad you asked. We are following closely what is happening with the 988 surface. The good news it is being utilized more in the number of calls and texts have increased, and people utilizing that function. We are seeing yes, in some parts of the country, there are longer wait times than we want and we are working on this. In fact, the administration has put in hundreds of millions of dollars into strengthening the 988 system, because it has been underfunded for years. This is a place where localities, states and local communities, have an important responsibility to help filled up that local system so there is more capacity and we reduce wait times. It took five decades for the 911 system to build up to the capacity it has today, we cant wait that long for 988. That is why we are pulling out the stops, getting more funding and working with states and localities to increase capacity. Just more broadly, as we think about Mental Health, if i could leave you with one key message, this is a make or break moment for youth Mental Health in our country. We cannot afford to continue down the path that we are on right now. Too many of our kids are suffering. Too many children are losing their lives. Too many parents are suffering as well as they watch their kids go through these incredibly difficult struggles, but the good news is we know how to turn this around, and now is the time for us to summon the will and determination to do so. I want to be able to look back in a few years as i think about my own children and the many children i have met across the country and no that we seize this moment to make investments we need to make and have the conversations in our communities we need to have come to step up and talk to our children and open up a conversation about Mental Health, recognizing the conversation we have with them as a parent is telling them it is ok to talk about the struggles. It is a conversation that can make a huge difference in their lives and ultimately save their lives. As much as the policy changes are important to expand access to treatment and prevention we will not solve this problem if we do not also build a culture in america that supports youth Mental Health, and that has to be a culture that is centered around compassion, around kindness, and around belonging. There are too many children Walking Around today who feel that they dont belong, who feel they do not matter, who feels that nobody cares about in the world. Even if youre not up legislator or Mental Health expert, you can make a difference in someones life by reaching out, checking in, and letting them know you care. Together, we can solve the youth cspan brings you an unfiltered view of government. Our newsletter update you from press briefings and remarks on the president would scan the qr code to sign up for this email and stay up to date on every thing happening in washington each day. Subscribe using the qr code oracle to our website. Cspan is your unfiltered view of government, funded by these television stations and more, including cox. Cox is committed to providing eligible families access to affordable internet. Bridging the Digital Divide one connected and engaged student at a time. Cox, bringing us closer. Cox, along with these other providers giving you a front row , seat to democracy. Now available on the cspan shop, cspans 2022 congressional directory. Go there to order a copy of the directory. This spiralbound book is your guide to the federal government with Contact Information for every member of congress, including bios and Committee Assignments and also Contact Information for state governors and the Biden Administration cabinet. Every cspan shop purchase helps support spans nonprofit operations. On cspan now. Host this is william arnone. Guest we have existed from the mid80s in our is to educate the American People about di