A hand holding a wounded heart wrapped in duct tape. A young woman slowly sinking into a sea of social media icons. In these arresting images, two Minnesota teens tried to sum up some of the mental health challenges young people face today. Along with hundreds of teenagers from around the country, the two entered their work in Walgreens’ 15th annual Expressions Challenge, a national creative art contest that gives young people an opportunity to express their feelings about some of the worlds’ biggest social issues.
Lauren Stone, Walgreens director of ESG and interim director of community affairs, said that over the contest’s history, several challenging themes have emerged, including school shootings, Western beauty standards, social media, self-image, body image and relationships. “But,” she said, “we have been most surprised that more than half of the entries address teenagers coping with mental health.”
Emily Smerud, 15, a sophomore at Bemidji High School, entered the contest at the urging of her mother, who’d seen it advertised on a poster in a local store. “I thought it sounded cool,” Smerud said. “I’ve been doing art since I was a kid, as soon as I learned how to draw, as early as I can remember.”
Seoyoon Jang, 16, a sophomore at Shattuck-St. Mary’s School in Faribault, heard about the contest from her art teacher. She said she was intrigued by the challenge’s theme and quickly knew that she wanted her art to dig deeper into one of the biggest mental health challenges faced by teenagers. Her bright, detailed acrylic painting is titled “SNS — Social Media Never Stops.”
“The topic I chose was the internet and mental health,” Jang said. “It was really interesting to me because every day we live with the Internet, and many young people feel like they cannot live without it.”
In her painting, titled “Fix It,” Smerud wanted to use her art to underscore the importance of community support during a mental health crisis. Many young people struggle with mental illness, she said, and because of shame or discrimination, they often try to take care of their problems by themselves.
“Opening up to someone, even talking to a friend, is so much better than keeping your problems to yourself,” Smerud said. “If you don’t open up, eventually, over time, when something bad happens, nobody will know what has been going on inside you all along and they’ll be freaked out.”
Recently, I spoke with Jang and Smerud about their art, their inspiration and their thoughts about the state of youth mental health. These interviews have been edited for length and clarity. Jang, for whom English is a second language, answered questions primarily through prepared statements.
MinnPost: Your painting depicts a young woman literally drowning in social media icons. Do you feel like you are sometimes drowning in technology?
Seoyoon Jang: Many young people around me, including my friends, are exposed to the internet. There are many who spend more than 10 hours a day online. Their worlds have become such that living without the internet seems impossible.
As I was drawing this picture I thought about myself. I looked at the total amount of time I spend the internet each day. The most I used it was for five or six hours a day. When I discovered this, I found myself reflecting on the social problem of internet addiction and feeling its severity more deeply. My friends, people around me, they use a lot of Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and similar platforms. It is common to see children comparing their faces to beautiful celebrities on the internet, resulting in feelings of inadequacy.
MP: Are you depicting these feelings of addiction and inadequacy in your painting? What was your creative process?
SJ: Before I got to this idea of a person sinking into the sea, I was thinking about how I could express the issues in a drawing. The story of “Gulliver’s Travels” suddenly came to my mind. In the land of Lilliput, the giant Gulliver appears as a threat and is tied up with ropes by the small inhabitants to immobilize him. But Gulliver learns the language of the Lilliputians, makes efforts to be kind to them, and strives to build a positive relationship. When we first encountered the world of mobile phones and the internet as children, it seemed unfamiliar and unknown. Just like Gulliver approached the Lilliputians, as we learn the language of the internet world, we gradually become deeply involved in a relationship that we cannot easily detach from.
To illustrate this, I depicted a person sinking into the sea, trapped in the vast social media. The woman’s face is divided into two parts — one submerged in the sea and the other still above water. The face above the water is full of scars, and the eyes are lost. This symbolizes the extent of internet addiction where daily life seems impossible without the internet. On the other hand, the remaining half-face submerged in the internet-filled sea is vibrant, wearing makeup. This represents the fake face that is far from the true self.
MP: You are from South Korea, studying here in Minnesota. Do you think that social media has a different mental health impact on young Koreans than it does on young Americans?
SJ: Koreans value relationships more than anyone else. They live within the relationships with those around them more than formal roles within a group. They want to confirm their presence and influence, and through social media, they maintain those relationships, wanting to feel their own existence. However, as one becomes increasingly addicted, the massive social media network ends up binding them, and the constant comparison with others and feelings of frustration lead to sinking into depression.
MP: What message do you hope viewers will take away from your art?
SJ: Because the internet is getting bigger and bigger these days, people can easily get addicted to it. Like in the drawing, people can fall into the internet sea and it will cause really big mental problems for them like depression. By creating this drawing I wanted people to get a message that the internet can make them laugh and have fun but on the other hand it can really hurt them and make them sink down into the internet sea.
MP: How did you come up with the image that’s portrayed in your painting?
Emily Smerud: At first I wasn’t super sure what I wanted to do for a topic. I always make little sketches and tiny ideas before I put effort into something. Then, I was like, “OK. I could do a painting about people at a younger age trying too hard and pushing themselves too much.”
MP: What are some of the most common stressors that you and your friends face?
ES: Not everyone admits it, but there are countless young people who put themselves through so much stress and pressure. Even the adults in their lives don’t always see how much they are going through. It’s not just schoolwork. It’s also stress about bad decisions they might make and the impact they’ll have on their future or what they have to look forward to and get ready for as they are growing up.
For me, I feel pressure to keep my grades up. Usually, I get upset even if I get down to a B. I also feel pressured to be in a good friend group or keep a good social life with cool clothes. I have to take care of myself. I have to plan a future, get a job. I am going to get into drivers’ ed soon. My sister talked about how this age is really rough on your mental health. She said that after high school, things will get better.
MP: Do you think that teens today have greater mental health challenges than young people did back when your parents were growing up?
ES: I’m sure they did have a lot of stress growing up back then. I can’t really say for sure, but I’ve noticed that lately mental health has gotten so bad to the point that what seems like average mental health issues today would be enough to put a person in a psych ward in the past. We are dealing with so much more. The rate of people with mental disorders or abnormal psychology in general has been rising. The average high school student today has the anxiety levels of a psych ward patient from the 1950s.
MP: Tell me more about your painting. Why does it depict a heart wrapped with duct tape?
ES: My painting shows somebody holding a heart and trying to wrap it with duct tape, as if they are trying to fix it. Their heart was broken or hurt. They are trying to use duct tape to fix it themselves because they think they don’t have people in their life to help them.
MP: Why is the person using duct tape for their heart repair?
ES: In a figurative kind of way, duct tape falls off. It doesn’t stay on forever. When you try to fix yourself like that, you think it will last but it doesn’t. It gets wet and fails.
I hope people look at my painting and think about the message that I’m trying to get across: that people try to fix things themselves but they actually can’t do it all alone. I think they’ll look at my painting and they will reflect on how much they are actually pushing themselves to recover and pushing past the pain with no help from anybody else.
MP: Have you ever tried to fix a mental health issue by yourself?
ES: I experienced that when I was younger, when I first showed symptoms of a mental disorder. When I reached out, my mom said that what I was feeling was normal for a teenager. For a while, when I first started feeling my mental health issues, I had to depend on talking to a friend, which is not very healthy, especially if they are going through their own struggles. I’ve also had an experience where I’ve been really stressed but I didn’t feel comfortable talking about it and kept it bottled up for a long time until I had to tell someone I needed help.
MP: What happened then?
ES: When my mental health symptoms became severe a year later, I went to therapy. Therapy did help me a lot. At first, I was scared to go. I’d heard stories from people who went to a therapist and had a bad experience because the therapist was old fashioned and had a weird way of communicating. But that wasn’t what happened to me. I had a good experience with therapy and I learned that it was OK that I couldn’t fix everything myself.
Andy Steiner
Andy Steiner is a Twin Cities-based writer and editor. Before becoming a full-time freelancer, she worked as senior editor at Utne Reader and editor of the Minnesota Women’s Press. Email her at asteiner@minnpost.com.
