Social media is supposed to connect us, but for some teenagers, it is triggering emotional problems.

How social media platforms can hurt mental health and what parents can do to help.

And Southern Nevada Health District has outlined its priorities for improving public health.

The four things it says need to be done to improve health in Southern Nevada.

The Las Vegas Raiders are winning games, but they're facing tough challenges off the field, including the departure of coach Jon Gruden and the arrest of a top star.

What's ahead for the franchise?

That's this week on Nevada Week.

♪♪♪ Support for Nevada Week is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt and additional supporting sponsors.

(Kipp Ortenburger) Welcome to Nevada Week.

Well, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok are social media platforms that are supposed to keep us connected, but are these platforms safe for kids and teenagers?

A recently released internal report from Facebook outlined how social media is harming the mental health of our kids.

Joining us to talk about this is Rick Egan, suicide prevention training and outreach facilitator with the State of Nevada, and Ivet Aldaba, a licensed master social worker with the School of Social Work at UNLV.

Thank you so much.

This is really, really important, and it's in the news right now because we've seen a Congressional investigation in this, and I want to come to some of the results of that first off.

Internal research by Facebook, looking at Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, found that it causes teens to feel worse about their self-image and increases levels of anxiety and depression.

I want to get both of your perspectives on this.

Rick, let's start with you.

I mean, how or why are these social media platforms able to increase some of these negative outcomes?

(Rick Egan) When we look at suicide prevention efforts, we can go back to 2011 and look at the CDC report that connectedness is a resiliency factor for suicide.

But over the past decade, if the connectiveness of what a youth is going through is diminished, what is left is isolation, and we know isolation is a risk factor for suicide.

So if we have a platform that is causing some of that, then we're not getting the resiliency factor.

I've seen a report where the generation now is perhaps not dating like they used to.

The human interaction isn't what it used to be.

So the definition of connectiveness, bottom line, balancing social media with human contact, and when that balance is not there, perhaps it's causing isolation which is that risk factor for suicide.

-Ivet, can we talk about some of the elements that lead to this.

You know, I understand connectiveness versus connectedness, which is something you get on social media.

It's the reason why a lot of us are engaging in social media.

But what specific elements are of the most concern here?

(Dr. Ivet Aldaba) You know, social media, I mean, it has positive effects but also negative effects, and I think going off with the lack of connectivity and it leads to isolation, a lot of that is the unrealistic views, right, of people's lives.

It causes distortions within young people.

They start to compare themselves to other young people whether it's the type of life that they live or they're portraying on social media.

It also starts to impact how they see themselves, right, their body image, and that also then leads them right to those comparisons, leads them to feel, you know, feelings of anxiety or they can cause depression.

And so social media, you know, has its positive sides to it, but also some challenging aspects for young people.

-Yes, and we'll get to the positives in a second, but you bring up a great point.

Rick, I want to come back to you.

Social comparison is kind of a new word in our vernacular because of some of the social media discussions we have here where comparing based on pictures that don't necessarily represent the person's life.

Why specifically for teens or young adults is this so critical?

-So the young adult with the view of their friends, which is not realistic, they're trying to compare themselves against what they're seeing, and when you have human contact, you see both sides, the good and the bad, and you help them and you connect with other humans.

When it's in social media, you're comparing and the comparison is not fair to that youth or young adult.

And so in Nevada, we are seeing increased suicide numbers amongst our 24 and under.

And what is driving that is we as parents, we as community members, need to be aware that it's there and if there's commonalities that we can address to help those individuals get that balance, that social media is a tool.

You can use it for good things, but watch out for the negative parts of it.

-Ivet, let's talk about those positive pieces.

Appropriate social development, proper social development, for one, can social media be used as a tool, as Rick mentioned, for those things?

-Absolutely.

Just recently actually on TikTok, there was a-- it came out on the news where a young lady was abducted, and she learned via TikTok how to sign for help.

And if it wasn't for that platform, right, and that specific video, you know, who knows what could have happened to her?

So, you know, young people can utilize social media to get good information, to get educated on a variety of different topics, right?

It's a matter of how they utilize it, and the proper websites that are appropriate, have appropriate content for young people.

-Right, and the informational aspects of it are very important here.

Let's get to solutions, and I think the first thing that comes to mind if you're a parent, or potentially a young teen yourself, young adult, what are some of the warning signs?

Because if I'm hearing you correctly, it's not always evident there's an issue here.

If you have potentially a child or a loved one that is engaging in social media, Rick, what's the most important thing to keep in mind?

-Number one, if you see a change in somebody, whether it's your child, your friend, your classmate, your coworker or your neighbor, if you see a change in their behavior, ask about it.

So when it comes to social media, some of those changes might be anger, might be isolation, might not be doing the things that they used to do.

As an example, if somebody is being bullied via social media and/or their phone, they may come home and be downcast.

But that difference in their behavior is what you need to acknowledge.

Acknowledge that it's there and have a conversation, find out what is behind the behavior.

It may be normal adolescent behavior, but when it's not normal adolescent behavior, that's when you want to help them with it and find out what the drivers are to bring resources to bear, to get them therapy or counseling, or just address the situation so it doesn't build into a realm that the youth thinks that suicide might be the only option.

-The conversation piece is so important here.

Ivet, I want to come to you.

We were talking about it just briefly before we went on air here because the challenge is being able to converse the right way.

Of course I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of a teen and the problem is I don't want to talk to my parents because I like the social media and I don't want to be banned from it, which seems a real challenge here.

How do you communicate the right way if you're a parent or a loved one?

-Some conversation starters can include hey, what's your favorite website?

Talk to me a little bit about, you know, what do you find interesting, right?

What are some of the positive/negative effects of that particular platform?

Another question could also be have you seen something online that perhaps makes you feel uncomfortable?

Those are all really good discussion starters for young people.

You know, some others are what kind of things do you post?

You know, how do you decide who to add as a friend is also important.

How much personal information do you share online, right?

So those are all really good discussion starters, you know, for parents to just get an idea of how their teen is utilizing social media, and if there are any concerns, then it opens that dialogue for them to have that conversation.

-Age becomes such an important part here.

You mentioned teen.

I mean, is there a recommended tolerance of when a child should be engaging in social media?

-You know, in my recommendation, high school years just because they're able to determine what is right, what is wrong and perhaps have those conversations with their parents or with trusted adults, although the age on a lot of social media platforms is 13 and above.

But we all know that, you know, some of our young people will create Facebook profiles and will lie about their birthdate.

So it's really important that parents are in tune with what they have going on.

If they have a phone at a very young age, check their phone.

You know, I think now with iPhones and Android devices, there's apps like Family Link for Android.

I have Android, and I'm able to monitor how often my child is on online, what various social media platforms she's on, and I'm also able to turn it off if she's spending a lot of time.

-Really, really important.

We have a minute left, Rick, but I want to come back to this too, being able to check the phone but also the environment you're allowing children maybe to view this in.

Should it be more communal?

I mean, should we be in our living spaces when our children are on social media?

What are some of the recommendations there?

-Absolutely, and this comes straight from being a father of five.

I recommend teenage, high school age group, and start slowly.

As a parent, I am with my youth on her social media account.

She wasn't able to get it until she turned 17.

And even when she did some of the social media testing, if you would, we sat down and had conversations and be able to help them learn from it and use it properly.

-Yes, conversations are so important.

Rick Egan, Ivet Aldaba, thank you so much for both of your perspectives here, really important.

Well, public health in Southern Nevada needs some work.

In October the Southern Nevada Health District released its top public health priorities, and joining us to talk about them is Carmen Hua, a health educator with the Health District and the coordinator for the Community Health Assessment and Community Improvement Plan.

Carmen, thank you so much for joining us.

We really appreciate it.

It's such an important part, and I want to start by making mention that this happens every four years.

This is not an annual report, correct?

(Carmen Hua) Correct.

The Community Health Assessment Report is a continuous, ongoing, five-year-cycle report that continues to assess the community's health.

So with that, it goes into the Community Health Improvement Plan where we focus on strategies and goals to work on for the future of the community in Southern Nevada.

-So we've got the assessment, and then we've got the plan which comes later, which is obviously talking about the solutions and the strategies to kind of address the assessment area.

So of course the thing that comes to mind right away is you were doing the assessment during COVID and information gathering, I would maybe make the assumption, could have been a challenge.

How did it affect the results of the assessment overall then?

-So with COVID-19 playing its role in the Community Health Assessment Report, there were definitely implications.

That doesn't necessarily mean it skewed any results in any way.

So with that it gave us an opportunity to think more creatively and work with community members, so we were shifting gears to remote work, virtual work.

We had to really go a different route, so we had to go with online surveys.

We also did focus groups via online Zoom meetings.

We had to think about different strategies to approach how we would collect the data.

So with those implications, it gave us the opportunity to just be more creative with data collection.

But other than that, the data that was collected from community partners and community members in general really helped us show what we need to focus on in Southern Nevada.

-And let's talk about that.

That's the most important thing here, and I like to always start with the positive so let's talk about the strengths.

What were some of the key strengths that emerged in this report?

-So there were actually many strengths.

Southern Nevada really thrives with their community partnership, collaboration and engagement, so these are all very important factors that played a role.

Southern Nevada Health District has many partners that played a key role in the Community Health Assessment Report, so without the collaboration, which was actually identified in an assessment within the report as a strength from the local public health system, this was identified as a strength because everyone comes together.

There's so many organizations, nonprofits that just really work on these issues and priorities that really need to be worked on.

So that was a strength that was identified from actually many participants in these assessments.

So I would definitely have to emphasize on community collaboration and partnerships.

-And so important not only in the assessment of the data gathering, but then as you prioritize and you're putting together your plan of course, those collaborations become even more important.

What else, are there any other strengths?

-Oh, yes, definitely.

So the strength that when we come together as a community, we figure out what issues we're facing in Southern Nevada.

We actually had our prioritization meeting back in October, so we have selected the top four priority issues which are access to healthcare, transportation, funding, as well as chronic disease.

So with all this collaboration and coming together, identifying these issues really put out there what we need to be focusing on as well as the target groups, target populations and areas of Southern Nevada that we should be allocating our resources and funding and additional resources to.

So it will really help with putting our priorities and resources where they are needed.

-Yes, and let's talk specifically about access to healthcare.

It's something on this show we talk about a lot.

It is always a top priority whether you're talking about mental health, whether you're talking about any subset of the healthcare system itself.

What are you finding more specifically?

I mean, this might be surprising that this is a continual challenge we have.

What are some of the key gaps you're finding here?

-Yes.

With access to healthcare, it's very important to always mention-- I feel like this has always been a priority.

This was actually identified in the 2016 CHIP, or Community Health Improvement Plan.

As this is an ongoing, continuous issue, we see that accessibility to healthcare is not the same as availability, so this was really echoed within the report.

A lot of participants within this assessment were talking about how there's so many barriers to access to healthcare.

The first thing that comes to mind would be language barrier, so that has been a huge issue that many participants have mentioned as well as not having health insurance to get the adequate healthcare as well as just in general not having transportation, which kind of links into our other priorities that were chosen.

So all these priorities that were chosen in October really tie together with an underlying foundation of actually promoting health equity.

So with health equity, it's really important to state that everyone has the right, the opportunity to healthcare and the access to health and just being healthy in general.

So those are all very important factors to take into consideration.

-Yes, and what's interesting is there is so much intersectionality between these things.

You mentioned transportation and access to healthcare.

You can't access healthcare if you don't have transportation.

That makes sense.

I want to bring in another priority you mentioned right there, chronic disease.

These are-- for one thing, maybe quickly explain what chronic disease is.

-Yes.

Chronic disease, there's a specific chapter in the Community Health Assessment Report that specifically focuses on chronic diseases; for example, obesity, diabetes, hypertension, these are very prevalent in Clark County, so the data was actually compared to the national benchmark as well as Nevada state.

If you look in the report, it's 162 pages so there's an abundance of information, but it really shows the data comparison to where Clark County stands in terms of chronic disease as well as other health indicators.

So it's important to show which chronic diseases we're battling with at the moment.

-It's such an important part of the equity conversation that you talked about too, absolutely.

Carmen, thank you so much; we really appreciate your time.

-Thank you.

-Besides the recent loss, our Las Vegas Raiders are still competitive on the field.

They are at the top of the standings for the AFC West, but off the field it has been a different story.

A Raider star, Henry Ruggs, is accused of driving under the influence and causing a deadly wreck, and before that head coach Jon Gruden resigned after the release of emails that contained sexist and homophobic language.

More recently other off-field issues are leading to more removals.

Well, joining us to break down where the Raiders stand are Monecia Threats and Melissa Ferris, cohosts of the podcast GirlChatSports.

Thank you so much for having you both.

(both) Thanks for having us.

-Yes, I wish it were under better circumstances.

There are a lot of challenges with the Raiders, and I want to talk about that first.

Let's talk about this tragedy, Henry Ruggs, wide receiver for the Raiders, involved in this crash with loss of life.

Tina Tintor, a resident of Las Vegas, lost her life, a huge tragedy.

I want to get both of your perspectives first.

I mean, the Raiders' response thus far to the community and internally, has it been appropriate in your perspective?

Mo, let's start with you.

(Monecia Threats) Well, I think definitely with the immediate dimissal of Ruggs, they knew that was a tragedy, that it was an end-- and let me just preface by saying prayers to the family of Tina Tintor for that devastating loss-- because it is one of those things that Vegas, we always kind of run into a DUI situation, but you never have seen it yet of a newly moved professional team that's moved to Vegas.

And with the Raiders' response to it, I think there probably could be more.

I mean, we have heard statements from Mark Davis, we've heard statements from Derek Carr, we've heard statements from Rick Bisaccia that have been forced to not only acknowledge that this has happened but not elaborate too much on the issue.

They are asking for empathy of course on Ruggs and also prayers to his family because you don't want to be on the side of either call.

As a person you don't want to ever have a phone call that comes on both ends.

But at the same time, I think they've had to compartmentalize their feelings because they've had games coming up, and they've had to move forward.

So I think as we go later down the line, as the season starts to continue, I think more will come out from them, more community outreach will come from them and go from there.

-Mel, I want to get your perspective too, and maybe let's talk about the fans and some of the athletes you talk to also.

Las Vegas isn't immune to this sort of thing, but before, we haven't had professional teams.

They're not our teams, it's not necessarily our community, and that's changed a lot.

Has that changed in the feeling of dealing with a tragedy like this?

(Melissa Ferris) I think it's been a lot of mixed emotions too.

I mean, I feel like there was a huge Raiders base obviously before they moved to Las Vegas, and I think they've continued on to have that steady, you know, passion for their team.

I think when something like this comes up, it's more like gosh, how are we supposed to feel?

And what people don't realize is that, you know, you see people on Twitter or on groups, sports groups or Raiders groups that are, you know, chastising people for getting back to the point of game day and how we're going to prepare for the game when you don't realize this is-- it's an unfortunate incident and, you know, it came at a very bad time during season and there was bad choices made, but there's still a job these people are getting paid for that they have to do.

So we have to kind of be able to understand both sides of things, that they are professionals that still have to show up on Sunday and perform at the best of their ability, to try and do best for the team as well as try and work with the situation they were handed, you know, in a matter of an overnight.

-A matter of an overnight, and let's talk more broadly about this too.

Let's go back to coach Jon Gruden, head coach, also resigning and we'll talk about that more in detail.

But you collectively put these things together.

They form more challenges for a team to focus on the field, but it also provides a little bit of a challenge for us, I think, and I wanted to get to this point.

We're still in the infancy of Las Vegas being a sports city, and here we are in that infancy dealing with some of these really big challenges.

What are your takes on what this does to our psyche as that sports city?

-Well, I can tell you just for a Raider fan what it does for my psyche personally.

It's hard to speak for a community that's new to having a pro sports team here.

There are a lot of ups and downs in sports, but the emotions that run with us being winners to us being losers, and now we're seeing the perception of our losses being greater than our wins by this whole emotional and tragic event.

No one expected to wake up that Tuesday and read news that this occurred, and I think the pulse of the city is kind of, to Mel's point, very 50/50 as far as emotions.

There's a lot of anger out there, there's a lot of justice, swift justice they want to see, and it's going to take some time.

But I think when it comes to having pro teams-- and this goes to all other cities-- these instances have occurred, and people have been able to rally around and come back to the main issue at hand of our team coming together, our healing, and everything else and going forward.

It's just going to take some time.

Everybody is from different places in this city, so it's just different.

We have to see if the sense of community as far as a sports community can rally behind this and move past it to some degree.

-Yes.

As you mentioned, fans from all over for sure, very similar to our city itself.

I want to come back, Mel, to the image of the Raiders.

Experts have said, sports journalists have said they have embraced this kind of villain image.

But then we have to look at some of the cutting-edge things the Raiders have done going all the way back to Al Davis really embracing equity and bringing equity not only to what's on the field but also in administration and even support staff roles.

A lot of zero-tolerance policies with violence off the field started with the Raiders.

They still continue that.

Now what we're dealing with, I mean, can the Raiders keep this balance of still that image and yet still following kind of their priorities which are equity and zero tolerance?

-Well, and I think it also goes back to just having been a fan of sports, whether it be any-- you know, whether it be any league is that a lot of these teams have an image, and sometimes that'll carry through no matter what.

Things happen, there's news that breaks out on different circumstances that each team has, but the team still has an image and I think the Raiders, they've done a great job at always being very ethnically diverse and hiring coaching staff as well as a female executive, being the first to hire there.

But it's going to be definitely a job.

You know, PR has their job out, the owners have their job out as well as the players to be able to maintain the ability to still play well, especially when it comes to, you know, our games every day.

Because the season hasn't ended, even though there's been tragedies and there's been hardships, the season doesn't end because of that unfortunately, and they got to keep pushing.

-Thank you as always for joining us this week on Nevada Week.

For any of the resources discussed on the show, please visit our website at vegaspbs.org/nevadaweek.

You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter at @nevadaweek.

Thanks for joining us, and we'll see you next week.

♪♪♪