Lo and behold, Gen-Z is the generation with the most mental health issues by far. And sure, while I tend to give them a lot of shit for their outcomes as adults, it isn't really their fault how they were raised as children. For the most part, we have failed them as a society, by pushing profit over wellbeing, attracting attention to the irrelevant over the needs, and creating spaces where drama, victimhood and outrage are the ways to build social collateral. The digital wasteland that the internet has become has claimed countless lives, and will continue to impact heavily for decades and generations more to come.
But there is no going back.
We are products of our environment, but we can't control much of our environment, especially when we are children. We can't tell our parents what to feed us as a toddler, or how to discipline us, or what to let us get away with. We can't say as a child not to put us in front of a screen to keep us quiet, or let us join social media as adolescents. We can't choose the conditioning we face, and the lifelong habits that form from them.
Even when we mature, we are still under a spell.
But as me grow, as we experience, as we start observe the world, what we can do is start to change the environment in which we operate. To spend time working out if there are better ways in which to live, better spaces for us to learn how to improve through personal growth, rather than spaces to avoid having to grow at all. We don't need more safe spaces to protect us, we need safe spaces to learn what we need to learn.
The lessons many weren't taught in childhood.
But, every generation is missing a lot of the information and practice they need to get through life successfully, which is why the recommendation is to follow a path of lifelong learning. Learning practical things that facilitate a better life, not nonsense that has no bearing on wellbeing - or can even create a hurdle for it. The streams of digital content aren't bringing the value to the audience that people feel they are getting. It is an addiction, and like anything overconsumed, there are negative consequences.
Mental health is a serious one.
A child might be a victim of a shitty childhood, but at some point, an adult has to come to terms with it, accept it, and find ways to move on. Yet, I feel that a lot of the younger generations expect to be taken care of, that because they didn't cause the problems they face, they needn't be part of the solution. They are demanding everyone else change for them, cater for them, heal them, and accept them as they are.
It is part of the mental illness.
Another disorder to add to the list.
Entitlement.
I know. It isn't fair. It isn't fair to burdened by other people's behaviours. It isn't fair to be inflicted by illnesses caused by others. But, that is wear we are. No one else can walk in your shoes of life, so if your life is shitty, do something about it. This doesn't mean that help isn't available, but the work has to be done by the person - just like no matter how much someone runs or stretches for you, it isn't transferrable. Your mental health, your physical health -
Is your responsibility.
It sucks. Trust me - I know.
But at some point that suffering gets to a point where one has to realise that no one is coming to save you. For a start, even if they wanted to help, there is little they can do without you wanting to be helped, which often means, being willing to learn and change - because what you are doing now, isn't working. And then, for most, they have their own issues to deal with and likely don't have the time, energy, resources, or information required to help anyway.
Identify your gaps.
Identify what needs to be done to close them.
The world is complex in many ways, but we needn't live complicated lives. Break it down into pieces of you that need care - your mind, your body, and your heart. What does each need to function well, and what activities can provide and keep them in alignment. They each need care, but what each individual needs might differ slightly. Your mind thinks and repeats on what it consumes - so feed it well. Your body operates on what it consumes and how it moves - so feed it and move it accordingly. And your heart - your emotional self - needs quality of relationships - it needs love.
It needs to love.
Take charge of your life and stop living on the defaults you have learned to identify with as who you are. Because in all likelihood, you are not really that person at all, even though you might be behaving that way today. Surround yourself with quality information, quality people, quality conversation, and quality affection, and change what you do and how you do it.
Your current situation might not be your fault.
Your future situation might be.
Don't let it slide so far, you can no longer help yourself.
Taraz
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Do you feel that in general people are weaker these days than they used to be? I want to be careful with this example, because I know it is very close to you and I want to respect that, but even things like peanut allergies. In my whole life for the first twenty years of it at least I knew one kid who had a severe allergy like that. These days maybe because I work in education, it seems like it is every other kid. What happened that suddenly this is a huge and serious thing. Were kids just more private about it back then? I kind of feel the same way about the mental health thing though I know back then it was mostly because it was taboo.
I value your perspective as an experienced educator. It is true that I have seen first-hand the effort and creativity that many young people are putting into solving problems that they did not create. I firmly believe that, beyond any criticism, what we need is dialogue and collaboration between generations to build something better. May we continue to find ways to build those bridges. Best regards.
I do. Not just younger people, but at all levels. There is a lot more emotional and mental weakness, coupled with a lot of physical issues to. The whole meta is set up for ill-health.
As a parent with allergies (not severe and much better now), I am interested in these things. I listened to a podcast on it a while ago that highlighted that the common "avoid nuts for children" advice was wrong.
https://peterattiamd.com/karinadeau/
Avoidance is not the way. And it is likely the same with mental illness too. Safe spaces and intervention can stop kids learning what they need to learn.
Maybe - but I also think that it was far less common.
I honestly find it fascinating too, the whole allergy thing. It's like a mystery that I feel is left unsolved and that drives me crazy. What happened that suddenly nut and other allergies are suddenly so prominent? I know your daughter has allergies and I was hoping I didn't inadvertently offend you. I'd guess in your case you did most things right, so that leads to some kind of environmental catalyst right? It's interesting.
While the points you mention are valid, I think it's more complex. Everybody has some part in one's development and ongoing, true, but just to a certain extend. If you're never taught how to learn, how do you learn it?
I also don't think that Gen-Z has the most psychological issues, but that the stigma of addressing those is finally disappearing and treatment is actually encouraged. Basically everyone I know here from the Boomer Generation has a lot of psychological issues - they just don't address it, because they have to "suck it up" as they were taught to. There is SO much PTSD from several war around me, it's not even funny. People in their 70s checking out the exits when entering and things like that. But they don't talk about it.
My generation is full of psychological issues. But we were told that we can achieve anything we want, that we're totally free, and with that comes total responsibility - so those issues are our own responsibility. Everything is our own fault, and we have to change ourselves to be better all the time. And not a "better" that was meditated on, though through, cautiously selected. No, the "better" that society told us to be. More productive. Better parents. Better humans. Better parts of society. Smarter. Read more. Healthier. Again, not for the sake of being better in itself, but to be better for the system.
I think that the education system is lkely better at teaching now - but the way they teach is worse. The expectation in the past was that a student was expected to learn - now, nothing is expected of them. They are pandered and catered to - by parent and society.
The environment you are observing is a bit different though, isn't it? The older generations went through real hardship, real war, real atrocity - they weren't damaged by someone getting their pronoun wrong.
Yes - for better and worse. Youth of today are old-hands at psychological talk, because they have been therapized since toddlers - well intentioned or not, it has made many of them oversensitive to what they should barely feel. They are like adults who have grown up on a bland diet and had their first taste of a mild chili meal. Sweating the small stuff.
Perhaps this is hand in hand though? If we aren't being better, how can we make a better society. And if we don't make a better society, how can we be better? This degradation down to the lowest common denominator means we are constantly going to keep degrading.
At least in my school, it was learning and learning how to learn. My math teacher (besides teaching us how to calculate when we would be allowed to drive again after a hard night out) always said: "Math is not about teaching you math, it's teaching you how to solve problems."
That is indeed something that is not going well right now. The problem solving capabilities are incredibly low - result of parents and society solving every problem for everyone. Forgot to buy all the ingredients? Call an Uber eats. No need to work something out with what you have. Can't make it up the stairs at first try? No worry, mom/dad will carry you, no need to scramble your way up and maybe bump your head to learn how not to do it.
Absolutely correct, it does seem exaggerated to us. A friend of mine, looking at that generation, very cynically said that the world needs a war to get things back on track. On the other hand, though, everybody suffers at their own level. One doesn't understand the other's suffering, it's too personal. Experience can not be taught.
That is always my main argument. The system keeps itself alive by destroying what is left of values, pushing humans into worker bees lead by instincts, with no deeper connection nor to each other nor nature nor anything, and with no connection at all to themselves. The question is - how to turn that around? It's easy to destroy values and community, but it's very hard to build it again. Anarchism is based on pure value beings, and is a wonderful theory, my favorite Utopia - but for it to work, you need to educate people on values. That was tried before by many, and has led to authoritarianism. It boils down to two questions: a) are there universal values, values given by "god" or whatever you will call it? and b) if not a, then who gets to decide what values are the correct ones to teach?
I think that one mistake which today's parents make in raising children is spoiling them. Comparing to their childhood, they want I couldn't do, let's my children do
This is a part of it to. Spoiled kids don't learn the lessons they need through life.
Quality friendship, quality conversation, quality life are important. Human nature will eventually want more but will not be able to achieve it. This will also damage mental health. I think that not everything should go well in human life, there should be different problems in between.
Life is full of disappointments. The idea used to be that we should carry on and overcome. Now, it is that we should use them as an excuse as to why we can't.
Dude, I don't really agree with your view on Generation Z. To reduce their mental health problems to simple personal failings is to ignore wider contexts. I have seen at first hand how outdated educational systems and economic pressures fall on young people who, far from being passive, actively seek solutions. I don't think they are expecting to be ‘saved’, but are demanding minimum conditions to thrive. In my experience, many are creating supportive communities and sustainable alternatives, something that other generations failed to do. Just as we are getting ahead, they will.
Did you not read?
No. They are largely demanding the conditions that they think they can thrive in - but they can't. There is a sharp difference.
Do you mean like the groups for self-harmers, incels, anorexia supporters and misogynists?
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Hmm
Well said. But many kids don’t realize they are doing something wrong and that they have mental problems. How could they, when they are constantly watching videos and participating in challenges on social media without understanding what is right or wrong? They are simply following trends without critical thinking. And when they grow up, do they know they need to change and start thinking with their own head, and start surrounding themselves with quality informations and quality people? And, if parents don’t prioritize teaching their children valuable lessons, how can the kids learn? It’s truly complicated to understand the mindset of a child growing up in a technological world.It’s also sad to see young parents who, when their child is bored, give them a phone to watch videos or play games just to keep them calm. So of course mental health can be a big problem nowadays. I may not be a parent, but it's clear that how children are raised today has a huge impact on their future.