They are struggling with depression in record number

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that thanks to the advent of smartphones and social media, depression and suicide rates are skyrocketing among American teenagers.

Part of the reason is because social media can seem to quantify exactly how popular students are and where they fall on the social totem pole.

“It’s not just your image at school that you have to uphold, like what kind of shoes you’re wearing, what brand are you wearing, what kind of backpack do you have,” Nicolette told Business Insider.

“Now you have to uphold this image on social media: how many likes do you have, how many hearts do you have, who are you following, how many followers. And it’s just doubled the impact of what it was before.”

Another undercover student, a youth pastor named Daniel, said it’s easy for students to take personally the responses they get to a social-media post.

“Their self-value is attached to social media. It’s dependent on how many likes they get on a photo,” he told Business Insider. “That can be very troubling for a student, especially if no one likes someone’s photo.”

Teen pregnancy isn’t what it used to be

One undercover student, a 22-year-old named Nicolette, said that when she became pregnant in high school, “it was very taboo,” and that she was “ostracized.”

“A lot of people were telling me, ‘Oh, your life is over, you’re not going to be able to go to college, you’re going to drop out of high school.’ I didn’t feel supported at all,” she told Business Insider.

Her experience at Highland Park was completely different, however.

“This school had a daycare, a program implemented to help those students, teenagers who were going through pregnancy or had children, so that they could finish their education,” she told Business Insider.

The school’s changing attitudes toward teen pregnancy inspired Nicolette to create a group to lend support to female students who are pregnant or were supporting children.

And most of all, they just want someone to talk to

Some of the most important connections the undercover students made were with “problem children” — students who were disruptive in class, didn’t have the focus or energy to do their work, and were at risk of not graduating.

Over the course of the semester the participants helped get to the root of their struggles, whether they be a troubling home life, relationship problems, fears about their future, questions about their sexuality, or personal tragedy.

“What I saw going back to high school, more than anything, was an alarming disconnect between teenagers and adults today. There’s just a growing disconnect. Most adults don’t have any clue what teenagers are going through today,” Feldman told Business Insider.

“They are craving for adults to understand them and see them for who they are and the struggles they are facing,” he continued. “I don’t think teachers and parents, respectfully, understand what they are facing.”