Available data through 2024–25 show some aspects of youth well‑being still at historically bad levels, but the short post‑prediction window and ambiguous causality make it too early to say Chamath’s technology‑driven worsening thesis is right or wrong.

Mental health and suicide: CDC’s 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey still finds about 40% of high school students reporting persistent sadness or hopelessness and roughly 1 in 5 seriously considering suicide—far worse than a decade ago—but several indicators improved slightly from 2021 to 2023 (e.g., persistent sadness 42%→40%, and some suicide‑risk measures falling in key subgroups). (cdc.gov) NSDUH data and SAMHSA’s 2024 report show that, between 2021 and 2024, serious suicidal thoughts, plans, attempts, and major depressive episodes among 12–17 year‑olds declined, not increased. (mentalhealthresources.org) So while levels remain high, they have not clearly worsened “on the margin” since early 2024.

Marriage and childbirth: Long‑run trends that Chamath referenced—later and less marriage, fewer children—have continued. Pew and Census show that by 2023 only 7% of 18–24‑year‑olds and 29% of 25–29‑year‑olds were married, far below 1990s levels, and the share of 25–34‑year‑olds who have ever married or live with a child has fallen markedly since the mid‑2000s. (pewresearch.org) CDC natality data report record‑low birth rates for teens and women 20–24 in 2023, with further declines for these age groups in 2024 even as overall births ticked up slightly—so reduced early‑life childbearing among younger cohorts has indeed persisted. (blogs.cdc.gov)

Causality from technology: The specific claim that these negative outcomes will worsen as a byproduct of increasingly immersive consumer technologies remains scientifically unsettled. Large‑scale and meta‑analytic work generally finds that overall screen or social‑media time has only small average associations with adolescent well‑being, explaining well under 1% of variance, although “problematic/addictive” use and cyberbullying are more strongly linked to depression and suicidality. (formative.jmir.org) At the same time, CDC analyses highlight family violence, abuse, and other home‑environment factors—not screens per se—as the dominant correlates of teen suicide attempts and poor mental health. (sfchronicle.com) This mix of evidence does not yet support a clear, dominant causal pathway from newer immersive tech (social, VR/AR) to worsening aggregate outcomes.

Timing: Chamath framed this as a trend unfolding "over the coming years." As of November 2025, we only have full national data through 2023 and partial/provisional data for 2024, with essentially no settled, population‑level outcome data yet for 2025 in the key domains (youth depression, suicide, medication dependence, etc.). Given data lags and the slow diffusion of truly immersive consumer tech, there has not been enough time—or clean causal evidence—to definitively judge whether things are getting worse because of technology versus continuing long‑running demographic and socioeconomic trends.

Because (1) some mental‑health indicators have slightly improved since 2021, (2) marriage/childbearing trends have continued but are driven by many non‑tech factors, and (3) the causal role of technology remains actively debated with only mixed evidence, the prediction’s core claim cannot yet be decisively confirmed or refuted. Hence the result is best classified as inconclusive (too early) rather than clearly right or wrong.