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The rise of social media activism and wide circulation of news on police killings of unarmed Black men might have increased the prevalence of collective and race-based trauma in adolescents, especially with the unprecedented isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to mental health professionals.
A fictionalized case involving Carter, a Black 15-year-old from Brooklyn, served as a discussion point on the topic at a session of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) virtual meeting.
In the example, the teen was referred for treatment at the end of June 2020 by his father for what he thought was social media addiction and depression, noted Asha Martin, MD, of NYU s Grossman School of Medicine in New York City, who presented the composite case with Stephanie Alexis Garayalde, MD, a psychiatrist in Jacksonville, Florida.