At Penn State University they call it "Penn Face."It refers to students who act "happy and self-assured even when sad or stressed." At Stanford they call it the "Duck Syndrome," referring to students who live like ducks appearing to glide calmly on water while frantically paddling under the surface. As one Penn student said, "Nobody wants to be the one who is struggling while everyone else is doing great. Despite whatever's going on—if you're stressed, a bit depressed, if you're overwhelmed—you want to put up this positive front."

As The New York Times reports, "In the era of social media, such comparisons take place on a screen with carefully curated depictions that don't provide the full picture. Mobile devices escalate the comparisons from occasional to nearly constant."

When students remark to Gregory T. Eells, director of counseling at Cornell University that everyone else on campus looks happy, he tells them: "I walk around and think, 'That one's gone to the hospital. That person has an eating disorder. That student just went on antidepressants.' As a therapist, I know that nobody is as happy or as grown-up as they seem on the outside."

Possible Preaching Angle:

The Christian story has the answer: we're more broken and sinful than we could ever admit; we're more loved than we could ever imagine.

Source:

David Zahl, “Penn Faces and Campus Tragedies: More Notes on the Suicide Epidemic,” Mockingbird (7-28-15)