If you're raising a teenager in 2024, you've probably noticed: social media isn't a hobby. For most adolescents, it's the central infrastructure of their social lives — where friendships are maintained, where status is negotiated, where they find community and belonging and entertainment, and increasingly, where they find a curated catalog of everything they might be inadequate at or excluded from.

You notice a headache and find yourself Googling brain tumors at 2 a.m. You feel a strange heartbeat and spend three days convinced it's a sign of cardiac disease. A mole looks slightly different and you're scheduling a dermatology appointment in a panic. You've had multiple medical workups that came back normal — and each one only brought relief for a few days before a new symptom, a new fear, took hold.

This is health anxiety — and if you're living with it, you already know that it's not about being a hypochondriac or seeking attention.

Depression in teenagers doesn't always look the way we expect it to. We picture sadness — a teen in their room, visibly withdrawn, clearly suffering. Sometimes that's what it looks like. But often, teen depression is messier, more confusing, and much easier to miss — or to mistake for normal teenage moodiness, laziness, or acting out.