Supporting student mental health is not a new concern for the University of North Carolina. The university’s 1789 charter, in some sense its first mission, is to “consult in the welfare of emerging generations.” The founders of the state’s public universities believed that a good education was about more than just sharing knowledge. Our job is to help students build rich and meaningful lives.
That is the old meaning 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, finding causes and vocations that are important to you, and developing skills to cope with challenges and make a difference in the world all take time. Universities should provide the space and encouragement to realize these goals. A big leap into adulthood.
Last month, I was pleased to see special editions of student newspapers focused on student mental health published across North Carolina. Student health is central to our mission, and raising the alarm about rising rates of anxiety, depression, and loneliness among young people is critical work.
It was especially heartening to see student advocates focused on solutions to problems. In recent years, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, the UNC System has spent tens of millions of dollars to expand counseling resources, 24-hour crisis hotlines, and training to help students facing mental health issues. I’ve added dollars. These investments have made a huge difference to our students. We will continue to make every effort to provide even more support to those in need.
But it is also clear that improving the long-term outlook for mental health requires deeper changes to the social, cultural and technological environments we have created for young people. I am very convinced by the work of researchers like Jonathan Haidt, a social scientist at New York University, who believes that a “phone-based childhood” has done tremendous damage to students’ psychological health.
The average American teenager spends nearly nine hours a day looking at screens, leaving many students feeling anxious, distracted, and disconnected from real-world relationships. Of course. Every minute spent doom scrolling is a minute not spent sleeping, reading, talking to friends, going out, or preparing for class. There is plenty of evidence that daily exposure to tragedy, outrage, and graphic social comparison in online life is bad for people. This is one reason why we took steps last month to ban some of the worst actors in the social media world, anonymous gossip apps like YikYak and Sidechat, from campus networks.
College is supposed to be a place where you make real-world connections with friends, professors, and mentors. It should be a time to encounter new ideas, discover new ways of living, and reflect on the values you want to live by. I remember how anxious I felt when I first came to Chapel Hill as a student from a small town, how nervous I was about making friends and finding my place in the larger world. 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 these common bonds and helps people support each other. A supportive environment can help you understand that difficult moments are not forever, and that your struggles are just part of a larger, more hopeful story. That is the university for all of us, and it will take all of us to build it.
