The generations that first encountered the Internet as adults came to understand this radical new technology as the “information superhighway,” a medium to dial up content worldwide.

For today’s teens and young adults, rather than a vehicle traveling at unprecedented speeds, their experience is more akin to the proverbial fish that doesn’t realize it’s in water. The digital world may feel indigenous to 6th graders who were born the same year as the iPhone, but, for all its benefits, technology is an invasive species — evolving faster than we can understand its effects on adolescent minds and ecosystems.

Dr. Jeremy Baruch, from the Michigan Medicine Department of Psychiatry, sees correlation, and has a message of caution and compassion:

“We know that with young people today rates of anxiety, rates of depression are rising. We don’t know exactly why that is, but we see that going along with the rise in social media — people becoming more engaged with their technologies than people.”

Social media has upended the notion of social in a few short years — the difference between friends and “friends,” followers and “followers.” The same app that can serve as entrée to a more diverse and expansive world can lead to withdrawal from those around you.

However distant that digital world may seem, anxiety-inducing questions — “Who am I? What’s my place in the world? Do people love me? Will I be accepted?” — can manifest themselves in real life and in real time.

For people looking forward to their 10th or 20th or 50th high school reunion, Facebook can be an invaluable way to stay in touch with old friends and reflect on good times. Navigating high school along a steady stream of status updates, news-feed fodder, snaps and tweets, however, makes for a funhouse mirror whose distortions may start to seem like reality:

“A lot of young people feel like they have to be perfect, not a lot of room for error. Sometimes the goal is to win a sports championship; other times it could be to get into college and get certain grades. When people are trying to live up to a certain standard, they can become very critical of themselves.”

In this new medium — where selfies skew, “likes” drip like dopamine and bullies can transcend the schoolyard — feelings of self-doubt that might have been normal and nominal can swirl and spiral.

Dr. Baruch’s prescription begins with self-compassion: “loving oneself, accepting oneself with all of one’s deficiencies and challenges.”

Psychiatry can offer critical help for people when “what they’re feeling is causing distress or some impairment in their life.” But everyone can benefit from practicing mindfulness regarding their screen time (less is more), exercise (the more, the merrier) and engaging with people (face to face).

For Dr. Baruch, the key is to resist preoccupying and polishing the identity we project to the world and rather that “the more that young people — and all of us — are really genuine and say what we mean and are vulnerable, the richer our lives will be and the more success we’ll ultimately have.”

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