Shalini Ramachandran

So you're starting to see some school districts move to roll back student browsing of YouTube.

American children and their education is what is at stake here.

Because a few years ago, everybody pointed to pandemic learning loss as kind of one of the main reasons test scores were going down.

And there are learning scientists and educators who say that, you know, we can't only look at that.

We have to look at what's happened since then, which is this dramatic increase in school screen time.

And others say, well, look, there's other factors that could be at play.

You know, social media and smartphones rose in the same time frame.

So it's really hard to tie a direct line to it.

But there is this unmistakable correlation.

And some neuroscientists say that's enough for us to all be taking it really seriously.

On social media, especially TikTok, there's a growing community of young people talking about their antidepressants.

For over a year now, Betsy and Shalini have been on an investigative journey into some of the most commonly prescribed medications out there, psychiatric drugs.

As they dug into psychiatric drugs, they found that corner of the internet where thousands of people are sharing their positive experiences.

On TikTok alone, the hashtag antidepressants has more than 1.3 billion views.

But over the course of their reporting, Betsy and Shalini found that there's also a dark side to these drugs, especially for some people who've been on them for a long time.

As they kept looking into psychiatric medications, not just antidepressants, but also anti-anxiety drugs and others, one big question popped up.

Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power.

I'm Jessica Mendoza.

It's Wednesday, December 3rd.

Coming up on the show, the overprescription of psychiatric drugs in America.