Surprising Behaviors That Put Teens At Serious Risk of Depression

Teenagers at risk of depression, anxiety and suicide often wear their troubles like a neon sign. Their risky behaviors—drinking too much alcohol, using illegal drugs, smoking cigarettes and skipping school—can alert parents and teachers that serious problems are afoot.

But a new study, published this month in the journal World Psychiatry, finds that there’s another group of adolescents who are in nearly as much danger of experiencing the same psychiatric symptoms as their high-risk peers: teens who use tons of media, don’t get enough sleep and have a sedentary lifestyle.

Because their behaviors are not usually seen as a red flag, these young people have been dubbed the “invisible risk” group by the study’s authors.

“In some ways they are at greater risk of falling through the cracks,” says Vladimir Carli, a researcher at the National Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention of Mental Ill-Health at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. “While most parents, teachers and clinicians would react to an adolescent using drugs or getting drunk, they may easily overlook teenagers who are engaging in unobtrusive behaviors such as watching too much TV, not playing sports or sleeping too little.”