What's with all the anxiety in today's youth?

[Admiral Beez]

My friends who work in education tell me they're seeing a significant number of high school students who are claiming anxiety disorders, with the schools maintaining crisis management training for depression and suicidal tendencies. Some classes have multiple students who need special accommodations for test taking due to their anxiety issues.

So, what's changed? Is life so much more stressful for today's youth? Is it social media and the ever-present need to be connected or in front of an electronic screen?

I look back on my family's history, and I have to think my kids have it far less stressful than their ancestors. My great granddad was a master on a clipper ship at about age 20 after likely seven years at sea, my grandfathers fought in the Second World War, with my maternal grandfather fighting the Japanese in India. My father started work right out of high school, married young and brought his family to Canada. Myself, sure life has been stressful, but I've never felt I couldn't cope to the point where I lost it.

So, what's different with today's youth, or their circumstances that we're seeing diagnosis of anxiety disordered dramatically increasing?

 

[sixrings]

I wish I could remember where I read a book which researched the effects of this. But I remember part of the conclusions. People are more connected by things such as the media. The media basically reports negative things much more often then they used to despite the fact that the crime rate is not actually any higher. This in turn makes people anxiety much higher. Also we are constantly telling our kids the boom years are gone and now you need to either be a DR. Lawyer or whatever to afford a decent house in Toronto. Many of these kids have no ambition for these types of jobs and or they are not interested in them. The idea of a nice house in the suburbs is no longer feasible to obtain (at least that is what they hear). At the same time there is less a desire for the suburban dream. The new dream has no actual image to it though and as a result it makes the idea of entering into it not exactly as safe as it was in the past.

 

[Skeezix]

I'm not an expert. But anxiety disorder wasn't even in the lexicon when your great grandfather was on that clipper ship. Part of the issue is that we know a lot more. Also, we are willing to talk about it. Even when I was in high school in the 1980s, anxiety was seen as weakness.

We shouldn't look at the past with rose-coloured glasses. We largely ignored mental health issues back then, and many people suffered greatly in silence. And it's horrific how we ostracized and marginalized whole groups of people.

 

[sixrings]

there is something to say that we live in a world which in some ways has no limitations. We use to have limited information but now we have so much information that we cant seem to process it all and it makes one realize as much as i know there will be plenty I dont know...

 

[AndreaPalladio]

now you need to either be a DR. Lawyer or whatever to afford a decent house in Toronto.

Twas ever thus, and ever thus twill be. People said the same thing when I was in school too. And what we learned, and generations before us learned, and these kids today will learn, and their kids will learn too, is that you can have the life you want, or even a nice life that you didn't even know you wanted, but it won't happen all at once, no one will hand it to you, and you have to work for it.

 

[sixrings]

Twas ever thus, and ever thus twill be. People said the same thing when I was in school too. And what we learned, and generations before us learned, and these kids today will learn, and their kids will learn too, is that you can have the life you want, or even a nice life that you didn't even know you wanted, but it won't happen all at once, no one will hand it to you, and you have to work for it.

except that when I was young although there may have been a huge gap between rich and poor we did not see it so much on movies, tv shows in our culture. Brands such as Michael Kors and Coach just set kids up to eventually want whats at Holtz. When I grew up the Cosbys (huxtables) lived in a town house. Now days people in movies like ironman live in the penthouse or own the whole building. Athletes are paid more and they are followed more and their life styles include things that most youth cannot envision ever owning. These types of things eventually make one think well there is no hope for me. As an adult I can see that there was always a rich and poor or I can see that some things like athletes or music artist are extremely rare and I am ok and content with what I have. Owning less does not make one a failure. However youth see things from a in the moment perspective and as a result these are hard things to grasp.

 

[doady]

I don't think the decline of machismo is such a bad thing. The results speak for themselves: life expectancy is higher now than it was in the good old days. People don't deny their health problems and seek professional help when they need it. What's the sense of pretending anymore? Generally speaking, I like people more when they are true and honest with themselves.

 

[AndreaPalladio]

except that when I was young although there may have been a huge gap between rich and poor we did not see it so much on movies, tv shows in our culture. Brands such as Michael Kors and Coach just set kids up to eventually want whats at Holtz. When I grew up the Cosbys (huxtables) lived in a town house. Now days people in movies like ironman live in the penthouse or own the whole building. Athletes are paid more and they are followed more and their life styles include things that most youth cannot envision ever owning. These types of things eventually make one think well there is no hope for me. As an adult I can see that there was always a rich and poor or I can see that some things like athletes or music artist are extremely rare and I am ok and content with what I have. Owning less does not make one a failure. However youth see things from a in the moment perspective and as a result these are hard things to grasp.

Oh, that was just the same too - the Cosby townhouse was unatainable to most people then, GQ was filled with clothes I couldn't afford, celebs on ET went on holidays I could only dream of having, even Gordon Gekko thought $50-100 million dollars was enough to be a player and have your own jet. Eventually everyone realizes that no matter how much you have, someone always has something more. Or better.

Except Coke. Warhol was right. No matter how rich you are, you can't get a better bottle of Coke.

 

[sixrings]

yea I dont think it was as blatantly obvious as it is today the difference in money. Anyways helicopter parents dont help either.

 

[AndreaPalladio]

I don't disagree, but at some point one has to stop blaming one's parents for one's unrealistic expectations and disappointments.

 

[sixrings]

were talking about youth not people in their twenties...

 

[typezed]

The more things change the more they stay the same? Places like Hamilton and London have at the edge of their old cities these grand falling apart buildings on large campuses that housed the mentally ill early in the 1900's. (Aren't there foundations of older hospitals at Queen St. East?) Many of their patients were probably under 21. Difficulty with living has always been all around. Books and movies and personal histories created or based in past decades are full of abuse, dysfunction, mothers who go in the parlour and draw the curtains and hardly ever come out for the next seven years . I too can look through my family history and find those who were adventurous and those who - surprising to me - rose to great heights, but I can also find people in institutions, suicide, unwed mothers or rushed marriages, midnight escapes, downcast bachelors and spinsters who seemingly never in their life ventured a day away from the farm. (And that's with the bias in family memory and institutional record-keeping that leans always towards the strivers and away from the black sheep.)

In the past youth who couldn't cope with school just wouldn't go. They'd run away and join the circus, or a clipper ship, or find a menial job, or just stay home and help their mother or father. Now that's not considered an option. I have a niece in early adolescence who has struggled with attending school for the past few years, due to issues that remain not fully understood to those around her. There are professionals now who are there to help, if you can access them, but I don't know how much they can ultimately do. Everyone wants to push her towards school, but I'm starting to think they need to look for alternatives. She's not a dumb or irresponsible kid; school's not for everyone.

Anyway, I'm in my 50s and full of anxiety. Always have been. When I was in high school I circled the halls with my head down, ate lunch alone, sat in the furthest back corner of every class and never answered a question or made a statement aloud. But I attended every day and never caused any trouble, flew under every teacher's radar. And mostly sucked at life ever since. Should have joined a clipper ship.

 

[Johnny Au]

The ubiquity of electronic screens may be partly responsible for the anxiety of teens of today.

Teens of today are much more connected than ever before.

I am in my mid-20s. My generation grew up with video games (just like teens of today) and social media consisted primarily of instant messenger clients for computers (along with message boards).

Nowadays, almost every teenager needs a smartphone and peer pressure does not make things easier.

 

[prosperegal]

There was ALWAYS peer pressure and bullying. It's just that the forms are more public now. In the old days, it was notes dropped in lockers, slam books and passed notes, but today, it's all on social. And kids seem to be more opinionated than in the past. While yes, there were the rebellious kids who had blue hair (completely illegal at my school) and wore their uniform skirts too short in my day, in 2016, these kids would be protesting the rules and probably creating videos of themselves doing so, hoping it would go viral and picked up by mainstream media. Personally, I think kids like that are brats. Sure, it's great you're trying to make your voice heard by attempting to change the "establishment," but things can't be that way overnight. Besides, I kind of LIKE dress codes.

 

[wild goose chase]

Maybe it's the case that we are more open about these things now, and people in the past just "grinned and beared" it, and were less likely to voice their issues out loud even if deeply stressed.