Stressed out in Silicon Valley

The research of Arizona State University psychologist Suniya Luthar is featured in December’s The Atlantic magazine in a story titled “The Silicon Valley Suicides.” The story details two recent suicide clusters among high school students in Silicon Valley and how families and the community are dealing with them. Silicon Valley is a high-achieving, highly affluent area of the country that incorporates a “live your dream, do your dream” type of lifestyle.

What appears to be happening to youth in Palo Alto, California, and surrounding communities are the effects of what Luthar calls “privileged but pressured” students. Luthar has studied this group since the 1990s and has found that they are as alienated and suffer from as much anxiety and depression as children who come from the poorest families in America.

The pressures to excel at academic and extracurricular pursuits are causing the dysfunction. Luthar constructed a profile of elite American adolescents whose self-worth is tied to their achievements and who see themselves as catastrophically flawed if they don’t meet the highest standards of success. As a result, affluent kids can feel remarkably isolated from their parents, as much or more than children of families living in poverty.