Susan Donaldson James Mental Health Problems Rising Among College Students

The world that we live in today is now consumed by social media rumors and news networks stories and no one knows what is real or fake anymore. Since the evolution of the internet and smart phones it is easier than ever to stay up to date on what is now trending or what new health concerns pop up. With this easy access though comes easy corruptions and miss leading information. Therefore it is important to understand where the information is coming from and how valid the source is. This paper is going to compare and contrast the same topic from two different sources. The first is Susan Donaldson James’ (2017) article “Mental Health Problems Rising Among College Students” which was published by NBC News, a news media giant. This paper is being

James (2017) was formed to appeal to the general public to inform future and current college students about the struggle of college life. She uses the life story of a recently graduated college student to connect to the target group of people. She states, “Amy Ebeling struggled with anxiety and depression throughout college, as her moods swung from high to low, but she resisted help until all came crashing down senior year (James 2017).” This story helped Ms. James hooking readers by providing an intriguing story of a helpless college student. She than provides facts after facts leaving no room for debate, “More than 75 percent of all mental health conditions begin before age of 24: collected from 139 institutions, 26 percent of students who sought help said they had intentionally hurt themselves, 33.2 percent had considered suicide (James 2017).” Then James goes on to finish the college students saddening college break down. Which is followed by her informing college students and their parents how to prevent or fix their own college break down, “Let your child know that mental health conditions are common; emphasize the importance of exercise, sleep, and diet; know the warning signs of mental stress and when and how to seek help (James 2017).” Ms. James used her own knowledge and interviews to relay her message to the public without conducting any experiments or having her work reviewed by experts in the

James’ article was to entertain the public by saddening stories, VanKim and Nelson’s article was written to broaden the knowledge on the subject. These two researchers formed hypothesizes about their experiment, explained their method of experimentation, conducted an experiment, and concluded their findings. They first start their article with background information on the situation at hand, college students’ mental health, and how to improve it, “Research has shown a substantial decrease in physical activity (PA) during the transition from adolescence into adulthood. This behavioral change is of particular importance because lack of PA is one of the top three modifiable risk factors of chronic disease and premature death (VanKim and Nelson 2013).” After providing documented and cited information about the topic, the writers gave their hypothesis, “We hypothesized that meeting vigorous PA recommendation is associated with better mental health and lower perceived stress (VanKim and Nelson 2013).” They then went on to explain their methods of conducting their experiment, from where they were acquired the pool of participants, to what criteria the students had to meet to participate. VanKim and Nelson provided the exact number of students they were focusing on, as well as their race, sex, weight, ethnicity, socioeconomic position, and education level. Which lead into them explaining the results of their experiment, “Socializing was significantly associated with