Half of young adults had anxiety and depression in 2023

The U.S. Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey found that about a third of American adults reported anxiety and depression symptoms in 2023, and that young adults are more likely than adults of other age groups to experience these symptoms, with half (50%) of adults ages 18 to 24 reporting anxiety and depression symptoms.

Latest Federal Data Show That Young People Are More Likely Than Older Adults to Be Experiencing Symptoms of Anxiety or Depression | KFF

study: The Implications of COVID-19 for Mental Health and Substance Use, Nirmita Panchal, Heather Saunders, Robin Rudowitz, and Cynthia Cox, published March 20, 2023

It's a sign that young adults are under a lot of psychological pressure and not doing well psychologically.


related thread: Millennials' Chronic Health Problems Will Limit Their Lifetime Earnings


Here's an article with a graph that shows that the suicide rate for younger Americans between the ages of 10 to 24 increased 60% between 2011 to 2021.
Suicide rate increased 60% since 2011 among US youth and young adults: CDC report - ABC News (go.com)

The suicide rate for those between the ages of 15 to 24 increased 67% between 2012 and 2022.
CDC: Child, Teen Suicide Rates Fell in 2022 (edweek.org)

 

Similar situation in the UK. I wonder what the cause is?
My view is that its a lack of hope for the future. Poor job prospects, automation and wealth distribution making for a bleak future with no cure.
What's your view?

 

yep, social media at such a young age is going to have an effect, almost everyone has a phone and is connected all the time

 

I'm sure this is not the only factor, but there seems to be a consensus among experts that at least one large factor is increasing internet use on mobile phones.


I speculate other factors could be economic, possibly having to do with parents, but perhaps diminished job opportunities and unaffordable housing costs, or even just anticipation of future worries, even if the teens and young adults are not really actually so much directly affected by those problems yet.
Perhaps academic pressure, a larger share of this age group being pushed towards college, even if they may not feel inclined towards it.

There might even be a correlation to declining religion.

Maybe increased racial diversity is having some subconscious effect on increasing feelings of social isolation, some sort of lower level incompatibility issues.
just a hypothesis.

 

Maybe they are just more open about such things compared to past generations, but that would not explain the suicides.

Yet at the same time, a study shows most younger people feel they are better off financially than their parents, so its probably not a money issue.

 

Seems to me its the general hollowness of civilization. The entire purpose of civilization is (was) to create a better environment for raising children. It seems we've transitioned to expecting civilization to provide us with luxury and status and protect us from adversity, instead. Thats not what we spent all of our evolutionary history to be good at and fulfilled by. We spent millions of years overcoming frequent danger and adversity and suffering, and part of how we overcame that was by developing an enjoyment of overcoming the adversity. Meeting a report quota in a sterile cubicle or painting 5 more widgets this month than last is hardly a suitable replacement for the sensation of almost freezing to death in a snowstorm before getting a fire made or outrunning the neighboring tribe while they hurl spears at you. Thats not to say there's no real adversity in this world ...but a lot of us are totally insulated from it, suffering merely the 'first world problems' of racial microaggressions or slow wi-fi.

But its hard to learn calculus or civics while almost freezing to death or warring with the neighboring tribe. So this isn't to say civilization is a bad thing. What we need is a new adventure. Something dangerous and difficult, but with a potentially worthwhile payoff. And until we find that, I think the casualties of meaningless luxury will continue to mount.

Large scale space exploration would fit the bill. Dangerous, risky, uncomfortable, but also interesting and very important. Once the average person can have substantially more than a 0.00000005% of making it to the next frontier of exploration, I expect morale and optimism for the future will drastically improve.

 

I'm sure social media plays a big part. The problem is that people only post good stuff so there's always someone doing better than you. Better holiday, nicer car, bigger party, prettier dress etc. My son had to point out to his wife (late 20's) that the new kitchen, landscaped gardens, dream holidays she was longing for were all from different households and not what everyone had.

How we cure that one I don't know.

 

As the Eagles said, "There are no new frontiers"

 

The societal shutdown associated with the coronavirus was responsible for some of the increase in youth suicide rate, but if we look at a graph, the rate was already 32% higher by 2018-2019 than it was in 2012-2013, and this is before the coronavirus pandemic began. By 2022, the shutdown was completely over, but still the suicide rate was 91% of its peak the previous year. This suggests the "damage" from the shutdown may have left a lingering effect persisting a full year after the shutdown was over.

 

I do wonder how much of that survey might be skewed by immigration. A big percentage of the children born in the U.S. in the last 20 years are children of immigrants who came from other poorer countries. So of course they are likely to respond they are "better off financially than their parents". But this could be greatly throwing off the total average for the other children.

(A 2019 Census study found that 26.3% of the total children had at least one foreign-born parent)
Over a Quarter of Children Lived With At Least One Foreign-Born Parent (census.gov)

And while at the same time Gen Zers (those between the ages 18 to 26 ) are more likely (57%) to say they feel they are doing better financially than their parents were at the same age, more than three-fourths (77%) of Gen Zers say they are still somewhat or very dependent on their parents for money.
Young adults turn to parents during economic instability | Fortune

I wonder if some of them simply feel they are doing better than their parents because they have a college degree or are going to college and their parents did not.

You can find plenty of articles that suggest Millennials are financially worse off than their parents, by several measures.
Many millennials are worse off than their parents -- a first in American history | CNN Politics

 

That's a study in 2020, so that might have been the sentiment back then, but I was talking about now.

 

Brilliant!

And the combination of not producing the next generation with anxiety about the future both
I would suggest feed into each other.

When we face uncertainty about the future, then we are reluctant to start the next generation. This problem might get worse due to Joe wanting to start wars everywhere, and no, starting
wars to prevent wars is not a viable strategy.

Lack of children gives a lack of meaning and a lack of a sense of progress and failure to
engage with others in the shared experience of raising the next generation.

 

A less enigmatic reply than my last.
I think the problem today is that many see no chance of surmounting their problems, there is no new frontier to move to, no escape from the civilisation that's causing your anxiety. The governments making the rules, the automation taking the jobs, less and less opportunity, less and less prospect of doing better next year.
Our ancestors may have had to face harsher conditions but they also had more opportunity to prosper.

 

It's fear.

Fear that not graduating from High School would mean no future
Fear that a bad grade of degree would mean working in a factory
Fear that if I get ill my health care plan will decide, with no warning,
not to cover treatment.

Fear reinforces fear circuits in the nervous system and
gets worse and worse the more fear events there are

 

Lifelong customers. Just the way the big Pharma want them....

 

No duh! We're in end-stage capitalism. There is no economic future.

 

Yes, unfortunately the fear I mentioned might be justified.

 

Single-payer healthcare vs for-profit
is to some extent a question of balance.

For-profit means you have to earn enough money to afford adequate healthcare
insurance, and make sure you continue to do so, for life. It motivates people
more, and is a stress raiser.

England is in some ways a similar country, and has universal healthcare coverage.
People there I met were a lot more laid back, really laid back, not just pretending.

And certain data that could indicate that are: car fatality rate is 5 times greater here.
The high car fatality rate might have contributions from driving too fast, drunk or on
drugs, driving distracted, but overall each of those factors could be related to high stress.

The homicide rate is also five times as much here, and again a more laid back
approach to life would help there.

Productivity is higher here than in Britain, so there's the down side.

But I think quality of life matters more, so I'd opt for single payer universal coverage.

Or maybe a balance, Germany usually gets most things right.

 

Agree with most of this; Just a note on productivity in the UK. Productivity in the UK has fallen off a cliff since Brexit (Our Trump moment)
We lost a lot of trade and jobs and many of these well paid jobs were replaced by low paid self employed work (Making jewellery at home, cleaning windows)
Many people found they loved this more laid back life, but its causing real issues with funding the NHS, police, social services we were used to having.

 

I found this post on Quora that might be revealing:

Why is Generation Z so depressed?

Olivia Baggett in Denver, CO

I don't think it's one reason. It's a bunch of stuff piled up. We, as future adults, know that we probably won't be anything. We'll grow up, work at a low paying, boring job, then go home and sleep for a while. Then repeat. Nothing exciting, nothing new.

Everyone is always saying that you're not special and that everyone has the same problems. Whoop de ****ing do. Thank you for informing me. Then you have those who think we all think we're special snowflakes. Guess what? Some of us know we're nothing special at all. I'm 14 and I already know this.

I already know that if I don't get a scholarship I'll spend the rest of my life paying off debt. Hell, me and my mom might have to move because she is still paying off her debt and she's 35. She has a degree in law and she's working in some school in Human Resources. We already know this will be us. Crushed under student loans and probably other bullshit like hospital bills and struggling to make ends meet.

Most of us have friends who talk about us behind our backs and we know it. Loyalty is rare now; people can't keep their mouths shut.

We're not allowed to make mistakes. If we do it'll ruin our reputation, make school a living hell, and be told that we'll never get anywhere for getting a B in math class.

School takes up all our time. If you want good grades you have to study all the time and drop the stuff that makes you happy. We're poor and can't afford to do stuff we enjoy that costs money. We're called fat and blamed for it when we're sat down on our asses for 7 hours everyday in a classroom. We're pressured into having hourglass figures and perfect faces. It’s all so exhausting.

But we're all thrown into the idiot group because a couple of dumbasses decided to eat tide pods. We can't have opinions, we're too young. “You're 14; you don't know what it's really like”.

Yeah. Yeah, I do. I've watched my mom have to hop from job to job to make ends meet, I've watched her work her ass off to keep this town house and keep me fed. I've seen her put in extra hours to get me the newest video game. Trust me, I know what's waiting for me when I physically become an adult. It won't be partying, getting married, having fun, etc. It'll be paying off debt and working day and night to come home and make my own food and then sleep and repeat.

And I realized this all at the ripe age of 12. Not even a teenager yet.

Sorry this turned into a little rant, I didn't expect to feel so strongly about it lol.
​

Why is Generation Z so depressed? - Quora

 

The way to stop being depressed is to have an aim, like: Make America Great,
or my version: Make America Good.

 

Anxiety is something I would expect in the present era,
nobody knows what their skills will be worth next year -

it will depend on the skills the immigrants will have, and
some of them are very highly skilled.

 

This means the main locus of control is not with us but
with the government which has opened the border, and
loss of control is itself a source of depression.

 

I disagree. I am childless and have never regretted it. I've had a very active social life. When I wanted the 'child experience' there was no shortage of friends and family to visit.

 

I don't know if there is such a thing as "end-stage capitalism," although we do seem to be in end-stage democracy. But I don't think either of those have much to do with the through the roof rates of anxiety and depression.