Since the pandemic, the US has been especially focused on addressing the ongoing mental health and loneliness crisis, especially among teenagers. While we understandably worry about teenagers, another group’s struggles with depression and anxiety have gone essentially unnoticed. Many young people in the US are anxiously searching for a sense of purpose and finding the transition to adulthood difficult. And many of them are doing so alone.
“Young people are more vulnerable than ever before.”
Adolescence may be “a time of great growth and potential,” but many young people say they “feel neurotic, lonely, disoriented and worried about their economic security,” says Richard Weisbord, dean of Making Caring Common, a project of the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
In Weisbord’s 2023 survey, 36% of 18-25 year olds said they have experienced anxiety disorders and 29% have experienced depression, roughly double the rate of 14-17 year olds in both questions. “Many people are ‘achieving for the sake of achieving’ and see little meaning in school or work,” Weisbord said. Nearly 60% of those surveyed said their lives had lacked “meaning or purpose” in the past month, and half said their mental health was negatively affected by “not knowing what to do with life.”
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Gen Zers have had a tough, rocky start to adulthood: Many of them “started their careers or enrolled in college during a pandemic and a shaky economy,” but now face “rising housing prices, a lack of workplace connectivity, global disasters, misinformation exacerbated by social media and a generational epidemic of loneliness,” according to The Washington Post.
“Young people are more vulnerable than ever,” The Atlantic said. “But much of American society doesn’t see them that way.” Like the Harvard study’s findings, other surveys of young people “have produced similarly alarming results.” In 2020, the CDC said depression is most prevalent among 18-24 year olds and least prevalent among those 65 and older. A Gallup poll found loneliness was highest among 18-29 year olds. “Yet young people’s suffering has not received widespread attention,” The Atlantic added. When Weisbord received the study data, he was “really upset,” he told the magazine. “What on earth is going on? Why aren’t we talking about it more?”
“Less attention and fewer resources”
Since the pandemic, youth mental health “has not received the same amount of public attention as teenagers’ mental health,” said Milena Batanova, director of research and evaluation at Making Caring Count and co-author of the report, who said many young people are dealing with the unique challenges they face while “having fewer resources to support them than younger teens who have multiple daily contacts with parents, guardians, teachers and school leaders,” The Washington Post reported.
Overall, “young people in their 20s are not receiving as much attention or resources.” Kiran Bai, MCC’s director of schools and parenting programs, said there’s still a lot of work to be done to “support youth mental health and put more resources into prevention,” including “reducing the stress young people are facing and helping them develop the skills they need to thrive.”
“Older people need to recognize this crisis,” Faith Hill wrote in The Atlantic. Recognizing young people as “worthy of empathy” means “understanding today’s challenges.” It might also mean “remembering our youth as it was and commiserating with our former selves.” It might be helpful to let young people know that “even bad choices, no matter how imperfect, can lead to a life that contains genuine moments of joy, fulfillment, and self-awareness.” If society “romanticized growing up a little more, and was a little less critical of the golden glow of youth, young people might feel less alone in their struggles,” Hill added. “They might even look forward to finding out what happens next.”
Despite the alarming findings about young adults, there are some silver linings, said MCC dean Weisbord: Teens and young adults “may be more psychologically aware, more expressive and more willing to talk openly about emotional issues than any other generation in history. For decades, people experiencing depression and anxiety have suffered terribly and without a voice, but this generation is speaking out.”
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