Supporting student mental health is not a new concern for UNC. The university’s 1789 charter, its early mission, is to “consult in the welfare of emerging generations.” UNC’s founders believed that great education is about more than just sharing knowledge. Our job is to help students build rich and meaningful lives.
That is the old definition of happiness. It’s not just about feeling good in the moment, it’s about having a strong sense of belonging and purpose. Building healthy relationships, taking on causes that are important to you, and honing skills to cope with challenges—all of these things take time, but college provides a place for a giant leap into adulthood. must.
Last month, I was pleased to see special editions of student newspapers focused on student mental health published across North Carolina. Sounding the alarm about rising rates of anxiety, depression and loneliness among young people is a hugely important job, and it was heartening to see the attention being paid to creative solutions.
Since the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, The UNC System added tens of millions of dollars to counseling resources.Expanded after-hours crisis hotline and training to help students facing mental health issues. These investments have made a huge difference and we will continue to work hard to help those in need.
But it is clear that to improve mental health more broadly, we need to change the social, cultural and technological environments we have created for young people. The average teenager spends up to nine hours a day looking at screens. It’s no wonder, then, that many students feel anxious, distracted, and disconnected from real-world relationships.
Every minute spent doom scrolling is a minute not spent sleeping, reading, talking to friends, going out, or preparing for class. Being relentlessly exposed to the tragedies, outrages, and social comparisons of online life can be extremely disturbing. This is one reason why anonymous gossip apps like YikYak and Sidechat, the worst actors in the social media world, are banned from campus networks.
College is about building offline connections with friends, professors, and mentors. It should be a time to encounter new ideas, discover new ways of living, and think about what values you want to live according to. I remember how strange I felt when I first came to Chapel Hill as a student from a small town, and how nervous I was about making friends and finding my own path. It’s normal, even rational, to feel anxious in the face of such great uncertainty.
It’s comforting to understand that everyone around you is in the same position, struggling with daily pressures and grand questions about what happens next. A healthy campus culture emphasizes common bonds and helps people find support in one another. A supportive environment helps them understand that difficult moments are not forever, and that hardship is just one part of a larger, hopeful story. That is the university we all want, and it will take all of us to build it.
— Peter Hans, UNC System President
