by DANNY CARRAHER
Creighton Digital Storytellers

Life in the digital age is a never-ending torrent of memes, YouTube videos, news alerts and limitless information. Thanks to the age of the internet, all types of media are available at the click of a button. However, with this media, there has been a rising concern for the state of mental health in America.

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The National Alliance on Mental Illness states that “approximately 1 in 5 adults in the U.S.—43.8 million, or 18.5%—experiences mental illness in a given year.”

With this sort of prevalence, it is important for people to have access to proper resources so that they can address their own mental health concerns.

Sangeetha Kumar, LCSW, the assistant director for student care and outreach at Creighton University, said she is worried about people’s access to these resources.

“From a caregiving standpoint, I don’t think we have enough resources,” Kumar said. “I don’t think there’s enough therapists, psychiatrists, hospital services. And I think that’s nationwide.”

Kumar also mentioned that she has concerns about the prevalence of media that can exacerbate people’s biological predispositions toward mental health conditions. It’s something that she hopes people will learn how to adjust to.

“While you can’t change biology, you can change the amount of time you’re on media,” Kumar said.

Rebecka Tompkins, PsyD, who is a licensed clinical psychologist at Creighton University, specifically said that exposure to news and social media play a role in the increase of mental health concerns.

“There’s just a constant onslaught of information, and it’s not always positive,” Tompkins said. “And that creates a lot of people feeling very stressed and overwhelmed.”

According to a 2018 study conducted at the University of Pennsylvania, researchers found that decreased use of social media resulted in participants feeling less depressed and lonely.

There is no question that the presence of digital media has complicated society’s understanding of mental health.

“It’s too much too quickly,” Tompkins said of the current digital landscape.

As this digital landscape has developed, however, there has been an increased awareness of mental health concerns, which has helped deflate the stigma associated with mental illness and mental health.

Tompkins said that she sees a lot of “positive progress being made” in regards to stigma because of the fact that more people seem to be more informed.

There are numerous organizations that strive to inform the public about mental health concerns and to eliminate the stigma that is often associated with mental health.

One of these organizations is the Kim Foundation in Omaha, Nebraska. The Kim Foundation is an organization, which started in 2001, that focuses on mental health and suicide prevention.

Kailey Kocourek, the project coordinator of the Kim Foundation, said that the organization began as a radio show that was focused on having a conversation about mental illness and suicide.

“The stigma was so large and no one wanted to talk about it,” Kocourek said regarding the first years of the Kim Foundation.

Today, the organization works on mental health advocacy, outreach, support, and education. Kocourek said that the organization continues to eliminate the stigma surrounding mental illness by providing educational presentations to the public.

“Just because we can’t see a mental illness, it doesn’t mean it’s not there,” Kocourek said.

Kocourek’s message illustrates the way that many people continue to dismiss issues of mental health as unimportant or less important than issues of physical health.

Kumar offered a desire to change this mindset.

“I’m looking forward to a day where people understand that the brain is part of the body,” Kumar said, suggesting that people must learn to treat issues of the brain the same way that they would treat issues of the heart or the liver or the pancreas.

While there appears to be some positive growth in mental health treatment, there are still many concerns that continue to complicate the state of mental health in America.