Is Technology Really Ruining Teens’ Lives?

In early 2021, the journalist Matt Richtel spoke to a father who was a few weeks into a nightmare. Tatnai Burnett was a doctor, his wife was a therapist, and, until middle school, their daughter Elaniv had seemed to be the happy beneficiary of loving parents and a stable home. Then, without apparent external cause, she became depressed and began cutting herself. Her parents sought treatment, including medication and therapy, but on March 1, 2021, Elaniv took an overdose of pills. She arrived at the hospital conscious, then started hallucinating and having seizures, before going into cardiac arrest and being placed on life support. She died on March 5th, shortly before her sixteenth birthday. Later that month, her father tried to make sense of what had happened while talking to a reporter.