Mary Angel

(7/2021) As many of you know my daughter has struggled with bouts of depression in her teen years. I have slowly but surely been tracking her changes in mood. Of, course as a teenage girl, her mood changes at certain times of the month. Monthly mood swings were not what I was looking for. I wanted to know what external factors might be affecting her mood and possibly determine which factors might be the worst culprits. So, I started paying closer attention. Needless to say, she is a teenage girl, and I am a working mom, so this experiment would not be sanctioned by any reputable science journal.

As I started to track her mood swings there was a pattern, and it was definitely tied to an external factor. This particular factor is one I have discussed at length in many other articles I have written. This would be those tiny little computers that are constantly in the hands of our teenagers. This led me to ask my daughter to help me with an experiment. My proposal was not that she give up her lifeline, her appendage, but rather delete some of the apps that were encased in the dreaded device. She agreed, admitting that it might be part of the problem.

The first app to go was Snapchat (the one I call the NO accountability app). This is the app where individuals feel they can say any sort of hurtful thing with no consequence because it disappears, never to be seen again (or so they think). Along with this app were a couple of other less devious apps, like Instagram. The deal was for 30 days, 30 days without these apps (and no sneaking onto her siblings’ phones to keep up streaks or check messages or whatever the appropriate lingo would be). She was all in, but slightly skeptical that there would be a noticeable change.

The first week was a little rocky, as she felt disconnected from her friends and the rest of the world. We told her she was welcomed to make phone calls and send old fashioned texts. Ironically, my boys’ first phones were not smart phones and the very first one did not even have a qwerty keypad. When they wanted to text, it was way more time-consuming, but they managed just fine. Apparently kids nowadays do not talk on the phone or old school text. At the end of the first week, we were past the growling and pouting and overall withdrawal.

As we rolled into the second and third weeks, she was more relaxed and started to decompress. She was more engaged with the rest of the family. All four kids were caught by me and my husband laughing and watching tv and playing games. My husband noticed that she was sleeping better and that her sleep schedule in general was back to something recognizable. When she woke up in the morning (although not a morning person) she was much more pleasant to be around. Something less noticeable, but still enjoyable when we would catch a glimpse, was her pausing to jump in on conversations. Before the experiment that device was always center stage. If you wanted to have a conversation with her you either had to ask her to put it down or wait in line for her to check and see if someone left her unopened.

All of her siblings commented, on separate private conversation, that she was like the old Molly and a lot of fun to hang out with. We all also realized that she was not short tempered with us, and I noticed that I was finding it unnecessary to send her to her room for sass and language issues. I was, at this point, surprised at how noticeable all of the changes were and contemplated telling her that those apps would not be returning to her phone.

I had not noticed these kinds of behavioral changes in the boys when they were given smart phones. I began to wonder why the different children were having such different experiences. My uneducated, yet knee deep in the situation, opinion was that it was twofold. First there was the fact that the boys were older when they moved from a "dumb" phone to a smart phone, and second, Molly was an impressionable, hormonal girl. Please don’t misunderstand what I am saying. I am not saying that she is an emotional girl who can’t handle the stress. What I am saying is that the boys didn’t care what people thought; they were very confident in who they were.

My daughter on the other hand was less confident (maybe because she was bullied when she was young). What I discovered in all of this is that when she wasn’t relying on her self-worth being determined by whether someone opened her snap or by some mean girls (and oh boy can they be mean) telling her how ugly she is or how much no one likes her, then she has an opportunity to breathe. She can take a minute to look in the mirror and like what she sees.

By the fourth week she was simply put…happy. She would say good morning to me and give me a little kiss on the cheek. Her skin was clearer, and she had started exercising again. She was constantly asking to go to a friend’s house or have a friend over and her and her sister were riding bikes and going for walks almost daily. In a sentence…my daughter was back. She still had her moments, after all she was still a teenager, but overall, she was a joy to be around.

Suddenly week four was over and I was dreading the conversation. I knew she was a healthy human being without the apps, especially Snapchat, but now I had to convince her of that. My other option was to put my foot down and tell her she wasn’t going to be permitted to get the apps back. I took a deep breath and asked her to talk to me about the experiment. She said, "Mom, I don’t think I want Snapchat back." You could have knocked me over with a feather. She continued, "I haven’t been nearly as stressed or depressed since I got rid of it. Actually, I don’t miss it at all."

I am not saying this will solve all of the problems of the teenage years, but if it can just make for a healthier and happier teen, isn’t it worth it?

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