Three-quarters of these Americans, all under the age of 25, say the pandemic negatively impacted their mental health, with many citing loneliness and uncertainty about the future.
Eighty-five percent of Gen Z respondents say they’re worried about the future in general. The vast majority cite their personal finances, the economy, the environment, and the country’s increasingly polarized political landscape as top concerns.
Nearly 90 percent of Gen Z respondents believe their generation is not set up for success and 75 percent feel they are at a disadvantage in comparison to previous generations (like baby boomers or Gen X) who are at least 42 years-old in 2022. This latest poll portrays Gen Z as overwhelmingly cynical about the post-pandemic world and what role they may one day play in it.
42% of Gen Z diagnosed with a mental health condition, survey reveals (studyfinds.org)
42% are diagnosed with a mental illness, 1 in every 5 young people is seeing a therapist, says the study, and 1 in 3 say their mental health is bad and 57% are on medication.
The media’s focus on negativity and finding something wrong even with good news is destroying the country. We used to laugh at photos of someone holding a “The end is near!” sign; today, the media worships this.
Public health’s pandemic actions were ineffective at stopping the pandemic but they did manage to destroy people’s mental health, students’ education, people’s jobs, and hope for the future, so guess we call that a public health success?
When young people are saturated with negative media and social media propaganda operations it is no surprise mental health is ruined. (Here is an example from today, which is misinformation, highly misleading and parts are not true – but millennials and Gen Z will read this and assume its authoritative.)
Much of what youth believe is not true or extremely unlikely to occur. But they do not know that. Media is literally lying (see above link). They lack historical context – my parents grew up during the Great Depression and lived through World War II. They and many of us also lived through the nuclear war terrors of the 1960s – when we did air raid drills, diving under our desks, every 4th Friday of the month at 10 am when the air raid sirens were activated for their monthly test.
In the 1960s, my older brothers (and us) lived under the threat of them being drafted for the Vietnam War.
We lived through the “oil shortage” of the 1970s and early 1980s, and numerous deep economic recessions. “Earth Day” was created in the 1960s because we were supposedly destroying our planet.
Paul Erhlich wrote The Population Bomb, in which he forecast the end of human life, and wars over food shortages by 2000.
In 1983, we paid a combined mortgage interest rate of over 11% on our first house. But millennials and Gen Z do not know any of this and regurgitate media nonsense that everything was wonderful in the past.
They don’t know that when I fractured my skull in 1970, I was not even x-rayed until 5 days later – where today, the standard of care would be a CT scan within hours, and an overnight stay in the hospital (at a minimum) – I was sent home to puke in bed. Not one health care provider (until decades later) mentioned TBI (I was retroactively diagnosed, decades later, with a moderate TBI and multiple mild TBIs). Today, my bike crash would have been called in by cell phone – whereas mine involved my sister running home, then my brother running to the accident scene, my sister fetching my Mom, and my Mom driving me to our doctor’s office. Yeah, things in the past were so much better.
They are unaware that today is better than just a few decades ago. They don’t know that the fertility rate has collapsed in the U.S., leading to what will become a very strong job market for their generation. They are living through what will soon be among the best of times for most.
But they don’t know that because they lack a big picture, historical context, and the media tells them every day that everything is worse than ever and everyone will die by 2030. Seriously.
