New Responses of Teachers to Mental Health Problems among Students at the Secondary Education Level in the All-Media Era

Research Article
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New Responses of Teachers to Mental Health Problems among Students at the Secondary Education Level in the All-Media Era

Shuyao Qu 1*
  • 1 Fujian Normal University    
  • *corresponding author qsy695349416@outlook.com
Published on 23 October 2025 | https://doi.org/10.54254/2753-7048/2025.LD28269
LNEP Vol.128
ISSN (Print): 2753-7048
ISSN (Online): 2753-7056
ISBN (Print): 978-1-80590-449-6
ISBN (Online): 978-1-80590-450-2

Abstract

In recent years, the mental health problems of students of all ages have gradually receiving a lot of attention from society. However, in school education and daily life, there are still obvious deficiencies in the education of mental health. This paper uses the literature research method to sort out the association between social media use and online information contact with depression, anxiety and social relationships among adolescents in research worldwide, and deeply explores the current situation and mediated representation of mental health problems among secondary school students. The analysis shows that the dissemination of information in an all-media environment has a profound impact on the psychological state of secondary school students, while teachers play a key role in the psychological guidance of students. Based on this, this paper proposes the following recommendations: An integrated mental health education system of "online + offline" should be built to achieve a combination of prevention and guidance; teachers need to comprehensively improve digital literacy from various aspects such as theoretical cognition, media literacy and educational practice to strengthen attention and guidance to students' emotional state.

Keywords:

Psychological Characteristics, Secondary School Students, Secondary Education, Mental Health

Qu,S. (2025). New Responses of Teachers to Mental Health Problems among Students at the Secondary Education Level in the All-Media Era. Lecture Notes in Education Psychology and Public Media,128,41-47.
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1. Introduction

At this stage, students all over the world are in the all-media era of information explosion. This decentralized characteristic of diversified communication channels, instant communication timelines and strong interactivity has a profound impact on the growth environment of secondary school students. The data related to mental health problems of secondary school students in various countries shows that "Overall, 19.0% (95% CI: 16.9%-21.0%) of adolescents experienced psychological distress" [1]. The manifestations of these psychological problems are strongly linked to formative factors and excessive exposure to online social media. ( Such as Internet addiction, social anxiety, experiencing online violence, physical image impairment, information cocoon room, etc.). However, this psychological problem is not effectively addressed and guided, which leads to the core contradiction of this article - the contradiction between the traditional mental health education model for teachers and the complex and changeable needs of students in an all-media environment.

This article focuses on the analysis of the mental health status of students at the secondary school level and the difficulties and challenges that teachers face in guiding students' mental health in the context of the all-media era, allowing teachers to gradually transform their teaching roles and innovate in educational strategies.

2. The influence and evolution of the psychological state of secondary school students in the all-media era

2.1. Current psychological characteristics of secondary school students

The psychological characteristics of secondary school students include such characteristics as ambivalence, implicitness, sensitivity and independence. According to Freud and Erikson's student psychological development stage, one can understand that the mental health of secondary school students is in a slow development stage and is gradually developing from a low-school-age to a mature stage. This unstable and immature transition period also makes them have a series of conflicts with themselves and others. The subjective consciousness of their self-independent personality creates a collision of ideas with other objects from which a series of confrontations are triggered, from which it can be concluded that the psychological characteristics of secondary school students are contradictory.

Secondary school students who have entered adolescence generally have richer inner emotions. Sometimes they hardly take the initiative or are unable to reveal their true inner emotions. In addition, sometimes their parents or other people are unable to provide timely and effective psychological counseling and communication, ignoring their emotions. Emotional needs, some of these young people will reveal their thoughts through social media. This is also another notable psychological characteristic of secondary school students - implicit nature.

However, because they still lack the ability to discern external things and are extremely sensitive, they are easily disturbed by external information and cannot choose the one that suits them from the all-encompassing and massive information, thus easily stepping into the "silt trap" of the Internet. In addition, apart from their own insufficient information screening ability, secondary school students often have an uncontrollable side of their emotions. Since their intellectual brain prefrontal lobe is not yet mature, the amygdala that governs emotions often surpasses the intellectual brain to perform some reckless and impulsive behaviors. If this psychological characteristic of independence can be guided, it can enable students to develop their own adventurous spirit and courageous attitude. However, if this emotion is not controlled, secondary school students will have a bad mentality of being competitive and even violent. Combined with the guidance of bad information on the Internet, they are likely to engage in behaviors that endanger themselves and endanger social security. However, their personality is not fully mature and they cannot take responsibility for their actions. These contradictions are the more obvious psychological characteristics of secondary school students at this stage.

2.2. Mediation of bad mental states of secondary school students

According to the "2021 National Youth Network Usage Survey Report", nearly one-fifth (19.5%) of young users consider themselves to have strong or relatively large dependence on the Internet. "The growing use of social media among young people raises questions about potential drawbacks [2]". As mentioned above, the inner emotions of secondary school students are unleashed through the Internet. They will take their grievances out on social media, from which they will find resonance or satisfaction, and their psychic characteristics of being easily incited will also allow them to unwittingly participate in inciting opposition. It is difficult for them to discern good or bad information in a mixed information network. When they are exposed to bad information, they sometimes develop a copycat mentality, learn some bad behaviors and wrong values through some blind follow-up, and be exposed to such a network for a long time. In this environment, information overload and chaotic thinking make secondary school students prone to greater psychological pressure, which leads to depression and emotional problems such as anxiety, which in severe cases can lead to depression and anxiety disorders. In addition to this, because of the overly convenient online communication environment, secondary school students' addiction to online activities will make them ignore the social needs in reality, ignore the importance of interpersonal communication in the real world, and seriously create social disorders. It is difficult for them to communicate normally with others, and more and more social phobias appear, thus prompting them to further sink into the quagmire of the Internet. "A lack of social connection can pose major threats to one's mental health [3]". They can only hide behind the Internet to present their packaged avatars on the Internet, and they expect to win recognition and appreciation through these avatars, but when the real situation does not match the situation they expected, a great sense of gap will make them feel inferior, which will lead to emotions such as anxiety. There is also the unique negative product of the all-media era - cyber violence, which some students can bring to others by falling into because of their comments posted on social media or by using their comments on social media to cause intentional or unintentional critical invective against others. This public opinion hazard can have a great impact on students and seriously jeopardize their mental health.

2.3. The importance of teachers' psychological guidance to students

The secondary stage is a critical period for the physical and mental development of individual students, who often face multiple challenges such as the confusion of self-identification, the upsurge in academic stress, the complexity of interpersonal relationships, and the imbalance of physical and mental development. "This matters; approximately half of adult mental disorders begin during adolescence, making these early years of life a key time at which to intervene to support good mental health, and to prevent or reduce later poor mental health outcomes [4,5]". In this context, the role of teachers goes far beyond "preaching, teaching and solving doubts" and they are key guides and guardians of the mental health development of students. Whenever students have problems such as persistent low mood and lack of concentration, teachers are the key figures in addressing these problems at the first moment. As soon as they detect an anomaly, they take the first steps to communicate initially with the students, understand the specific situation and propose some immediate solutions and emotional support. For students in need of emotional support, the sooner detection and intervention are effective in avoiding the evolution from a minor problem to a serious crisis.

In secondary school, students' sense of self-worth is largely derived from the evaluation and recognition of others, while teachers are a more important source of evaluation besides their parents. Teachers, through praise and encouragement, are able to greatly enhance students' self-confidence and self-efficacy, allowing them to thrive in moderate praise.

In addition, students are gradually taught in school how to relate, cooperate and compete with others, and the central guide in this process is the teacher. Teachers consciously cultivate their team spirit, leadership skills and sense of responsibility through recreational activities or class building to help students better integrate into the class collective. If there is a conflict between students, the teacher is the regulator of the conflict, they will teach the students how to deal with conflicts with others, generating abilities such as empathy and empathy. To sum up, teachers play an indispensable role in psychological guidance for secondary school students. They are not only imparters of knowledge, but also companions in the healthy growth of their students, guardians of a healthy mind and shapers of a sound personality.

3. The dilemma and transformation of teachers in the all-media era

3.1. Change in teacher's role: from output to guidance

The first thing people want to make clear is that in the all-media era, teachers are no longer the only and authoritative source of knowledge, and on social media, one can ingest knowledge through the rich short videos produced by many quality bloggers. However, it should be noted that the complex knowledge on the Internet is not completely correct. Students may need to spend a lot of time and energy analyzing and identifying the correctness of knowledge. Therefore, in this era, the role of teachers has gradually changed from the indoctrinator of knowledge and transform into a knowledge sorter, selecting the correct parts from the complex knowledge ocean, and then convey them to students in their own way and looking for the reasons behind the difficulty of students entering the learning state, and guide students to actively complete the learning content. In the new era when students' psychological problems are more prominent, teachers should pay more attention to the guidance of students' mental health, and gradually transform from an authoritative party to a communicator who explores on an equal footing. Every student is an independent individual, they all have the ability to think independently and solve problems independently. Teachers should fully respect the students' personal wishes, be good at listening and thinking from others' perspective, do not interrupt, do not laugh, and use more euphemistic language systems, gradually guiding students to form a mature ideological value system.

3.2. Challenges and improvements in teachers' own literacy

"In the digital age, the learning environment must be harmonized with the use of information and communication technology [6]". First of all, for some older teachers, the first difficulty in the all-media era is how to quickly learn to use multimedia teaching tools and online learning platforms to enrich students' learning experience, and they have a generation gap with young people to a certain extent, it is difficult to understand students' learning demands and emotional needs, sometimes they will ignore students' sensitive psychology, and cannot easily communicate with students spiritually. The simple didactic teaching method is no longer suitable for today's society. Some schools and teachers have banned the application of mobile phones. This approach has had little effect and will even make students rebellious. Some less experienced young teachers may, in turn, spend a lot of time and effort in the process of discerning the authenticity of information on the web because of their lack of teaching experience. In the all-media age, all teachers face a major conundrum - how to deal with and effectively intervene in cyberviolence. Sometimes, even with their strong teaching literacy, it is difficult for them to cope with the impact of online public opinion on themselves, their students and the school.

3.3. The boundaries of teachers' responsibilities in the media era

So in the all-media era, teachers are not only faced with teaching tasks in the classroom, but also supervise students' words and deeds on social media and cyberspace, and protect students' privacy and security. This joint responsibility page of behavior relationship between students and teachers gives teachers a higher level of meaning, and students' words and deeds also represent teachers' moral education .Once students have made some negative remarks on the online platform, these remarks will not only make students more likely to be exposed to online violence, but also have a negative impact on teachers and schools. Second, the prevalence of social media also means that everyone has their own web contact details, which, while making working life more convenient, also raises some scruples - whether teachers should give students their own contact details and friends from students through accounts on other social platforms to apply. In addition, the difficult questions of whether teachers are able to share content outside their own teaching activities on social media, and how to deal with students' and parents' calls for help during non-working hours, also allow teachers to constantly explore a clear boundary of responsibility.

4. Coping strategies for teachers in the all-media era

4.1. Teacher literacy

With regard to education at this stage, first of all, teachers should take the initiative to deal with all kinds of potential problems with a positive attitude and proactively establish a system of solutions to the risks of online public opinion, rather than simply reacting passively to emergencies. Only by proactively embracing digital media and developing their strengths can they be integrated with the construction of mental health education, so that students can be interested in learning and be proactive in carrying out learning activities.

4.2. Teaching practice

Integrating educational practice and mental health is a difficult and key point in mental health education for students in the all-media era. Schools and teachers should build an "online + offline" integrated response strategy system to achieve a combination of prevention and guidance. Teachers and schools should actively carry out courses and activities related to students' mental health education, conduct regular class meetings on the theme of mental health education, discuss solutions with students, let students put forward the real concerns they need from their own perspective, and Discuss and analyze hot issues related to the Internet, listen to students' own ideas and opinions, and provide timely early warning Carry out guidance activities in a timely manner when problems are discovered, and at the same time teach students how to view online information critically and surf the Internet healthily.In addition, the rational use of questionnaires is also an effective tool to grasp students' mental health level. "While the studies differed with regard to the specific anxiety questionnaire that was used, all of the questionnaires were standardized measures of anxiety that have been validated for youth [7]".

At the same time, the head teacher should regularly communicate with the mental health teacher about the mental health of the students in the class, communicate with the parents when problems are found, achieve home-school cooperation, form an educational synergy, and jointly pay attention to the mental health of the students. For some sensitive topics, students can be asked if they have a need for face-to-face communication to avoid the embarrassment of students being exposed to their sensitive psychology. If students are willing to choose to communicate face-to-face and offline, teachers should ensure their tone and communication environment, gradually gain students' trust, and protect students' personal privacy. Teachers can also cooperate with some online applications, such as software to record emotional moods, to do auxiliary work in mental health education. In addition, a series of fun and entertainment activities can be carried out to hide the true purpose of exploring the students' mental health situation through the activities, so as to avoid students' sensitive psychology and dare not reveal their true inner world. Build an online communication platform so that students can express their emotions unimpeded."By integrating the features and functions of social media, students can make connections and interact during the learning process, promoting knowledge sharing and collaborative learning [8]." Moreover, some high-quality video accounts and public accounts will also provide students and teachers with a large number of teaching resources. Teachers can use more teaching tools to provide students with diversified teaching, and reduce learning pressure while being accompanied by social media. Understand the knowledge from all over the world as comprehensively as possible, so that students' thoughts are not limited to just a small area.

4.3. Participation of other social structures

Other social structures should also support teachers in their mental health guidance work, constructing external environmental systems that support teachers. "Improving digital literacy in schools must be closely integrated with Information and Communication Technology (ICT) learning [9]". Each school should actively organize special training activities for mental health guidance, build teaching and research groups to share cases and guidance experiences, and develop clear online behavior management norms and crisis management plans to provide teachers with support at the legal and psychological levels. "Improving, adding, and optimizing the use of facilities and infrastructure are essential keys to addressing these challenges [9]". This also represents the need for schools to include full-time teachers who are concerned about the mental health of students for mental health education guidance, because it is difficult for ordinary teachers to have other energy to build mental health guidance work besides their own jobs. "In mental health, chatbots facilitate motivational interviews and tailored guidelines [10]". Social organizations and the government should encourage the development of digital products for mental health education for primary and secondary schools, invest efforts in purifying the online environment, and strengthen supervision of the education industry and the online environment. A win-win situation can only be achieved if all the societal parts can cooperate.

5. Conclusion

The all-media era has given students new characteristics of mental health that are the characteristics of the times. More and more cases of psychological problems are entering the public's field of vision. This has also made everyone gradually realize the importance of paying attention to the mental health education of secondary school students. At the same time, it also poses a high challenge to the role of teachers and their own competence and literacy. For this difficult problem, they need to build a new response system and response measures through comprehensive improvement of theory, ability and practice. This also leaves aside the strong support of other social structures, parents, social organizations, education departments ,as well as the government should all join forces to carry out mental health education activities so that mental health education becomes a planned principle approach and a common goal direction for all.

This article mainly focuses on the debate topic of teachers' new responses to students' mental health problems in secondary education in the all-media era, analyzes students' psychological problems, and focuses on teachers' new measures in mental health education. It is recommended to adopt an "online + offline" integrated coping strategy system to combine prevention and guidance and closely follow the pulse of the times Explore new countermeasures for the new era. At the same time, there are many shortcomings in this paper. This study mainly focuses on theoretical construction and proposing strategies, and lacks a large-scale data support. Moreover, the effectiveness of relevant solutions also requires subsequent further practical research to test their feasibility. Based on this, future research is able to have richer and effective applications to record students' emotions and provide timely warning of potential crisis signals. How should teachers in different disciplines integrate mental health education into online and offline teaching content in the future is still an issue.


References

[1]. Zewude, G. T., Natnael, T., Woreta, G. T., & Bezie, A. E. (2025). A Multi- Mediation Analysis on the Impact of Social Media and Internet Addiction on University and High School Students' Mental Health Through Social Capital and Mindfulness. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 22(1), 57.

[2]. AshrafIqbal, M. I., & Hussain, T. (2024). Impact of social media use on the mental health of university students. Migration Letters, 21(S5), 1848-1862.

[3]. Mohamad, M., Juahir, H., Ali, N. A. M., Kamarudin, M. K. A., Karim, F., & Badarilah, N. (2017). Developing health status index using factor analysis. Journal of Fundamental and Applied Sciences, 9(2S), 82-92.

[4]. Kessler, R. C., Berglund, P., Demler, O., Jin, R., Merikangas, K. R., & Walters, E. E. (2005). Lifetime prevalence and age-of-onset distributions of DSM-IV disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication. Archives of general psychiatry, 62(6), 593-602.

[5]. Jessiman, P., Kidger, J., Spencer, L., Geijer-Simpson, E., Kaluzeviciute, G., Burn, A. M., ... & Limmer, M. (2022). School culture and student mental health: a qualitative study in UK secondary schools. BMC Public Health, 22(1), 619.

[6]. Fitria, H., & Suminah, S. (2020). Role of teachers in digital instructional era. Journal of Social Work and Science Education, 1(1), 70-77.

[7]. Šouláková, B., Kasal, A., Butzer, B., & Winkler, P. (2019). Meta-review on the effectiveness of classroom-based psychological interventions aimed at improving student mental health and well-being, and preventing mental illness. The Journal of Primary Prevention, 40(3), 255-278.

[8]. Chen, C. (2025). Entertainment social media based on deep learning and interactive experience application in English e-learning teaching system. Entertainment Computing, 52, 100846.

[9]. Arif, M., Kartiko, A., Rusydi, I., Zamroni, M. A., & Hasan, M. S. R. (2024). The Existence of Madrasah Ibtidaiyah Based on Pesantren: Challenges and Opportunities in The Digital Era. Munaddhomah: Jurnal Manajemen Pendidikan Islam, 5(4), 367-382.

[10]. Vaidyam, A. N., Linggonegoro, D., & Torous, J. (2021). Changes to the psychiatric chatbot landscape: a systematic review of conversational agents in serious mental illness: changements du paysage psychiatrique des chatbots: une revue systématique des agents conversationnels dans la maladie mentale sérieuse. The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 66(4), 339-348.


Cite this article

Qu,S. (2025). New Responses of Teachers to Mental Health Problems among Students at the Secondary Education Level in the All-Media Era. Lecture Notes in Education Psychology and Public Media,128,41-47.

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ISBN:978-1-80590-449-6(Print) / 978-1-80590-450-2(Online)
Editor:Renuka Thakore
Conference date: 21 November 2025
Series: Lecture Notes in Education Psychology and Public Media
Volume number: Vol.128
ISSN:2753-7048(Print) / 2753-7056(Online)

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References

[1]. Zewude, G. T., Natnael, T., Woreta, G. T., & Bezie, A. E. (2025). A Multi- Mediation Analysis on the Impact of Social Media and Internet Addiction on University and High School Students' Mental Health Through Social Capital and Mindfulness. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 22(1), 57.

[2]. AshrafIqbal, M. I., & Hussain, T. (2024). Impact of social media use on the mental health of university students. Migration Letters, 21(S5), 1848-1862.

[3]. Mohamad, M., Juahir, H., Ali, N. A. M., Kamarudin, M. K. A., Karim, F., & Badarilah, N. (2017). Developing health status index using factor analysis. Journal of Fundamental and Applied Sciences, 9(2S), 82-92.

[4]. Kessler, R. C., Berglund, P., Demler, O., Jin, R., Merikangas, K. R., & Walters, E. E. (2005). Lifetime prevalence and age-of-onset distributions of DSM-IV disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication. Archives of general psychiatry, 62(6), 593-602.

[5]. Jessiman, P., Kidger, J., Spencer, L., Geijer-Simpson, E., Kaluzeviciute, G., Burn, A. M., ... & Limmer, M. (2022). School culture and student mental health: a qualitative study in UK secondary schools. BMC Public Health, 22(1), 619.

[6]. Fitria, H., & Suminah, S. (2020). Role of teachers in digital instructional era. Journal of Social Work and Science Education, 1(1), 70-77.

[7]. Šouláková, B., Kasal, A., Butzer, B., & Winkler, P. (2019). Meta-review on the effectiveness of classroom-based psychological interventions aimed at improving student mental health and well-being, and preventing mental illness. The Journal of Primary Prevention, 40(3), 255-278.

[8]. Chen, C. (2025). Entertainment social media based on deep learning and interactive experience application in English e-learning teaching system. Entertainment Computing, 52, 100846.

[9]. Arif, M., Kartiko, A., Rusydi, I., Zamroni, M. A., & Hasan, M. S. R. (2024). The Existence of Madrasah Ibtidaiyah Based on Pesantren: Challenges and Opportunities in The Digital Era. Munaddhomah: Jurnal Manajemen Pendidikan Islam, 5(4), 367-382.

[10]. Vaidyam, A. N., Linggonegoro, D., & Torous, J. (2021). Changes to the psychiatric chatbot landscape: a systematic review of conversational agents in serious mental illness: changements du paysage psychiatrique des chatbots: une revue systématique des agents conversationnels dans la maladie mentale sérieuse. The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 66(4), 339-348.