The most common cause of their anxiety — the future.
Completely reasonable. I’m a Millenial and I also have a lot of anxiety about the future. Previous generations screwed us all really hard.
GenXer here. What drives me nuts is that climate change was taught to me as scientific fact in year 9, back in the early 80s.
The science was clear but collectively every government said “well, I’ll be dead by then so why should we care now”.
Governments got off their collective assess and did something about the ozone layer and acid rain to the point that the problem has largely been corrected. Unfortunately, although climate change and now micro plastics get a lot of media attention, governments have since stopped trying to actually do something about it.
I can tell you (professionally) that the people who saw less anxiety during the pandemic were people with severe anxiety. Statistically.
I can tell you personally it was because we could say, “Something catastrophic finally happened and I’ve been preparing for this my whole life.”
I have serious anxiety about getting up, leaving the house, and other ‘now’ things.
Juuust gonna drop this here again
@ClimateAnxietySupport https://kbin.social/m/ClimateAnxietySupport
The most common cause of their anxiety — the future.
Anxiety about the future is not an anxiety disorder. If almost 2 out of 3 Gen z has anxious intrusive thoughts so bad that they cannot go to school, work, have any kind of healthy interpersonal relationships, etc then the article would have a point, but I don’t think that’s the case. I have more faith in the next generation than that.
I know things are bad and folks are rightly apprehensive about the future, but that is not an anxiety disorder. Anxious thoughts doesn’t mean you have a disorder, it means you are alive and aware of your surroundings.
Some of this next generation will turn their distress about the future into eustress that motivates them to fix it (as long as they don’t give in to defeatest takes like in this article).
Rejoice in the fact that you’re living a higher quality of life than the vast majority of people ever to walk the earth.
I mean…
gestures vaguely
Honestly did not think we would have nuclear war make a comeback so quickly on top of climate change
This article is terrible. First off, where do they get 60% from?
They link to the wrong research. The research they link to is a survey of people who already have anxiety. If you look at the research of the actual survey of the whole sample, not just those with anxiety, (here), it says that 42% have a diagnosed mental health condition, which includes an anxiety disorder amongst other disorders like depression, ADHD, and so on.
90% of the diagnosed conditions (90% of 42%) is anxiety, which would mean the actual number for only anxiety would be 37.8%.
78% of those 42% (32.76%) have depression as well. So a lot of those people with anxiety also have depression.
So the actual title should be 38% of Gen Z have an anxiety disorder. Which is only a bit higher than the total population.
According to large population-based surveys, up to 33.7% of the population are affected by an anxiety disorder during their lifetime. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4610617/
So the actual title should be 38% of Gen Z have an anxiety disorder. Which is only a bit higher than the total population.
According to large population-based surveys, up to 33.7% of the population are affected by an anxiety disorder during their lifetime. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4610617/
During their lifetime, so not that 33.7% of the population are affected by anxiety disorder right now. The study about Gen Z seems to be talking about the “right now” figure.
That’s true. From the same study that gave the 33.7% lifetime prevalence, they have 21.3% annual prevalence (those who experienced the disorder in the 12 months before the survey.)
There was no point prevalence (right now) on the study. So maybe it would be lower?
But the study from the article with the 38% figure provides no peer reviewed research. They are a data management firm that conducted a survey.
The other stats come from actual research with stringent methodologies with a much larger sample (9000 compared to 1000 for the data firm).
I think the point is unless they had done the same survey at a population level to compare the numbers between Gen Z and the whole population, there’s no way of knowing if 38% is high or not. Never mind that the article posted here says 60%, which is completely wrong.
Whilst everything else of your post is on point, the last bit is not really applicable: you can’t really compare “lifetime” probability (i.e. for the age range 0 - life-expectancy) of getting something (i.e. “be affected by”) with the probability of actually having something (i.e. not just be affected by it at any one point but rather being now suffering the effects from it) whilst being in a specific age range (roughly 10 - 30, a subset of the lifetime one).
It might be possible to derive the second one from the first if knowing the statistic distribution in relation to age of that disorder and the average duration of the condition, but as it stands there those 38% aren’t comparable to those 33.7% as they’re statistically quite different things.
That’s not how mental health stuff works. People do not really develop anxiety in adulthood like that. You won’t wake up one day and have suddenly developed a mental health disorder. Mental health disorders require both genetic predisposition and real-life experiences, but those experiences really only affect someone in that way before their brain is fully developed.
To be fair, we have a much better understanding of mental disorders now. Back when I was little, people basically fell under four categories (and these terms aren’t my choosing, just what it was back in the early 80’s): gifted, normal, slow or retarded. That was the extent of our understanding. At least based on my personal experience in an american public school system. I’m sure for older generations things were even more misunderstood.
It’s also important note that people have always had mental disorders. We just didn’t know it was a mental disorder. The main difference is that we know what to look for and we can diagnose the disorder and assign treatment.
This is the same reason people get the ignorant idea of “vaccines cause autism” and then point to the number of people with autism…not realizing all of these new terms aren’t 100 years old. Same with cancer…must be the clean water that keeps our teeth healthy past our 30s…
And some always want to attribute the increase in gun violence to an increase in mental health issues, even though most of those issues have always been there. It’s never the increase in availability of weapons in society.
You’re on an instance which censors some words, use another instance to see it
Okay but I’m unhappy with my ability to function through my life and so is a huge percentage of people my age, and we’re here now.
Why wouldn’t one be anxious about impending environment crisis and inability of institutions to act quickly enough.
Because it is a slow moving event that will unfold over the next century.
It cannot be both so incredibly anxiety causing and also lacking in any urgency at the population level simultaneously.
I think at least 60% of people would beg to differ.
Also, where do your data from? We’re seeing the impacts right now and although we still have a chance of minimising the impact we’re still emitting GHG at dangerous rates.
As a climate activist, my data comes largely from the NOAA/EPA as well as independent think-tanks.
The poster you’re responding to is correct.
Slow moving event? It seems you’ve already gotten used to quarterly news reports of wild fires, floods, cyclones, storms, drought and mass animal graves be it terrestrial or aquatic life forms. Humans are losing their homes and lives to these events routinely. There’s already a term coined for such climate refugees, making all the countries nervous about the future.
Even to generously concede your statement… you’re referring to the course of their lifetime, that century. By the end of which, apocalypse.
Not really, the apocalypse scenario was averted by the banning of CFCs, which were a much worse greenhouse gas that were on track to cause a 4+ degree rise instead of the 2 we’re on track for now.
Also, it was an apocalypse scenario because the damage it was doing to the natural atmosphere was liable to pair that temperature rise with everyone getting every kind of skin cancer imaginable from unfiltered solar radiation.
Watch “The Human Future” by Melodysheep, it gives a real perspective moment on just how hard life would be to dislodge even in a major die out scenario.
An event which wipes out 99% of all humans alive now would still leave the earth populated by 80 million people, which is a larger number than the total global population was for a massive stretch of our history.
I just think they lack any real issues. I grew up poor and constantly insecure. I had real issues, and it has given be perspective. I’m grateful for every day I have food and shelter. I don’t have a lot of bandwidth to care about stuff which might affect people 100 years from now.
Of course I’m glad that they grew up with such privileged lives. I just wish they’d care a little more about poor people today.
You mean like the threat of the end of democracy? Or the housing crisis? Or the student debt crisis? Inflation (which is largely just greed)? Increasing wealth disparity? Frozen wage increases? Loss of pensions? Threats to social security? Medical costs increasing and insurance paying out less and less?
Have empathy, and look around. Just because you are OK now doesn’t mean everyone is.
I mean, plenty of Gen Z end up on the streets too, just like any generation, because housing availability and income is just getting worse for poor people. Anxiety issues are fairly associated with poverty.
Most the young people I know (California, USA, I’m a young millennial) are precarious, and most feel precarious. They are also watching baby boomers (sometimes their parents and grandparents) end up on the streets in high numbers, but also don’t have the extra income to put into retirement or get a healthy savings to secure a future for themselves, much less help their ailing family members. Their health issue incidence is high, and the availability of care for those health issues is low and very expensive. People living off of Gig apps and part time jobs (because jobs with benefits are unavailable without a college education, and sometimes even with). If they live separate from their family most of their income goes to rent.
And climate change isn’t something that affects people 100 years from now, it affects us right now in certain zones. The number of homes destroyed/damaged in various disasters each year where I live has gone way up, and a lot of the people who are displaced end up on the streets or in ever growing slums/camps. There’s a general sense that the future will be worse than the present, which makes present struggles feel worse. People turn to drug use, sometimes to self medicate for physical and emotional issues. People don’t want to have kids, because they don’t see a future for those children, and don’t have the resources to provide for them.
I agree there needs to be more solidarity, especially with the most impoverished. Part of the struggle is worsened by atomization and individualism, and propaganda deriding the impoverished.
