this post was submitted on 05 May 2024
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Maybe his analysis considered this, but the article doesn't mention real-world factors like the climate crisis, the cost of living crisis, and what feels like the resurgence of fascism and the spectre of World War 3. It's noted that liberal families seem more susceptible - perhaps it's because right-wing families are more likely to believe these things aren't real, or aren't a problem?
This is what keeps being ignored in these studies, and it seems like the only reason is that copping to the real reasons young people are showing higher rates of mental illness would require admitting that the status quo is unsustainable and frankly evil.
A report that said “gen z is profoundly distressed by the reality of global warming” means admitting we need to fix the climate or see our kids suffers deaths of despair in unprecedented numbers. The same is true if we admit that the economy won’t provide most of them a job that allows basic survival, much less a comfortable fulfilling life; or that these factors have combined to cause a turn to fascism.
Yes, I am predicting that at some point society will reach a tipping point when certain parts of the society will start to revolt against the status quo. Because younger generations are really screwed.
I don't think they can even afford paying their rents and buying their own food by simply working. And this is pushing more and more young people to stay with their parents as long as possible, which ultimately is responsible for lowering birthrate in developed economies. And this puts additional pressure on the social system and weakens the economy of the said country as there would be less working age people for a pensioner.
Social media is creating this social stigma, where everyone pretends to be a better selves and you have a lot of comparing and this of course is unlocking mental diseases. It doesn't help that now we are living in a looming climate crisis, extreme data collection, and exploitation that benefits very few, creating an even bigger social divide.
And call me sceptical but I think a lot of things will change in the future and probably not for the better. We see what is happening in Gaza and this is just like a sneak peek of a bleak dystopia, where the working class will be controlled by the upper echelon with buzzing drones monitoring their every step, and everything monitored for even the slightest signs of descent and violently crushing them in order to preserve the status quo. We already have something similar in China with their social credit system. Authoritarian governments would become more common across the globe and it will be way harder for their population to overthrow them.
Either this or we will experience a big financial crisis when a lot of people will lose huge chunks of their savings and their livelihoods destroyed. And this will be followed by perhaps full restart or the dystopian future, where we won't own anything and everything will be loaned to us by huge corpos.