A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
We’re much more likely to be hanging out on social media than at the watercooler these days. But just because we’re no longer face-to-face when we chat, doesn’t mean our communication is completely disembodied. Over the last three decades, psychologists, linguists, and anthropologists, along with researchers from other traditions, have come together to understand how [...]
The NSW inquest into recent drug deaths at music festivals is due to start this week. So focus is turning to how to make music festivals safer by reducing drug-related incidents. We know that prohibition doesn’t work to reduce either harms or drug use. But what does? How do drugs cause harm? Most illicit drugs [...]
Education Minister James Merlino has announced a ban on mobile phone use in all Victorian public schools, effective from term one of 2020. The ban aims to counteract several effects of mobile phone use which schools have been struggling with. The most concerning is cyberbullying, which has been steadily increasing in Australian schools and in [...]
Focusing on Sydney teen Matthew, who has struggled with an addiction to computer games, this article examines how Australia is doing at treating gaming disorder following its official classification as a disorder by the World Health Organisation. We hear from Andrew Kinch, founder of Game Aware and former problem gamer, whose mission is to put [...]
Australia has invested an extraordinary amount of time and effort into putting in place bullying prevention programs – especially across schools. But what happens when your bully is your own flesh and blood, and lives with you, so you have no escape? Sibling bullying tends to fly under the radar, in large part because many bullies [...]
You glance at your teen’s smartphone and see a text message light up the screen. Was that a sext you just saw? Questions flood your mind. Is this what kids are doing nowadays? Does this mean my child is having sex too? Sexting — the exchange of sexual messages, photographs or videos via technological devices [...]
Nearly any symptom can have multiple causes. This is difficult enough to deal with in medicine, but in mental health there are few to no physical symptoms, only behaviour and a patient's self-reporting of their thoughts and emotions. Add to this a child's limited ability to express themselves, and it's no mystery why many childhood [...]
There has been increasing awareness recently that many girls on the autism spectrum are overlooked until much later in life, which can be the source of confusion and distress for the girls themselves and those who care for them. The reason behind this has been rightfully attributed to girls with autism presenting differently to a [...]
If your child spends long hours playing video games, you might be worried they’re addicted. “Gaming disorder” is real, and has now been classified as a disease in the World Health Organisation’s International Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD). The new ICD will be adopted in 2022. If you are worried about your [...]
Both in Europe and the US, more than 90% of adolescents have their faces buried in screens before bed. Often, this comes at a cost to sleep. Frequent screen users are much more likely to report falling asleep later, sleeping less, and waking during the night. Such difficulties are linked not only to poorer academic [...]
