Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

The youth of today are the unhappiest ever

126 replies

Unfinishedkitchen · 06/04/2018 08:42

www.theguardian.com/society/2018/apr/05/young-people-have-never-been-unhappier-research-suggests

Some are stabbing each other. Some are killing themselves. Some can’t escape social media bullying. The nihilism, hopelessness, anger and hate is rising. Its like many of them see no real future. It feels like we’re entering a dystopian age. It scares me. Our country is sick and the youth are displaying the most painful symptoms.

OP posts:
Dangerousmonkey · 06/04/2018 08:45

Unfortunately given a recent family I can only agree. I am very concerned for my young children.

Dangerousmonkey · 06/04/2018 08:46

*recent family tragedy

GlacindaTheTroll · 06/04/2018 08:47

Yes, I think that's probably true.

And I think it"s probably perennially true.

ShatnersWig · 06/04/2018 08:50

Of course they are. They spend hours on their phones rather than going out and actually doing things like we did when we were younger. Social media, selfies, obsessed with celebs and image, people becoming famous for doing fuck all.

BusterGonad · 06/04/2018 08:53

I'm not surprised tbh.

Madbengalmum · 06/04/2018 08:55

Shatnerswig, I couldn't say it better. Absolutely true.

IIIustriouslyIllogical · 06/04/2018 08:55

I honestly think it's because they've got too much time to sit round & get bored.

I was either working (paper round, chip shop) to earn money or spending it when I was a kid in the 80's.

Now a lot are given an allowance which is proportionally more than my whole family had as "spending" money, they sit round reading crap & don't have any incentive to push themselves.

(sounding older than I feel!)

ShatnersWig · 06/04/2018 08:57

I'd also venture to suggest that for some of them it's also down to shit parenting.

HolidayHelpPlease · 06/04/2018 08:58

I think 24h rolling news has had an impact. Ever since 9/11 there has been the ‘ticker tape of doom’ on the bottom of the screen. Constant, constant stories of horror, awful images of war all day every day and a culture of fear. If you’re exposed to that from being tiny child what do we expect?

Aloneandscared25 · 06/04/2018 08:58

I do not think this is a new issue and all the news the last week about the crime in London especially amongst young people.
I’m a youth worker in London we run a centre which provides numerous different things.
When I was at school especially secondary school in south east London between 2002-2007 it was awful.
Postcode gang crime was rife,
Our school was shut down for 2 days due to a drive by shooting, teenagers were being stabbed and shot constantly.
A women was shot coming out of church by accident in a cross fire.
My sister commutes suricide at age 14 and teenage pregnancy was so high.

Youth centres started opening, connections started to become more used and schools out more in place.

By 2010 all of the above had decreased but year but year connections had shut, youth centres lost funding and closed.
There is very little support now for them.

Instead what is happening is places like hackney , Tottenham , Brixton and Peckham are developing in to “ high flyer “ areas.
More bars and fancy restaurants are opening and the decor becomes prettier.

However they forget the same people who live in poverty, children in the system, teenagers with mental health all still live there to.

You no longer walk past a connection anymore and there’s barely a youth centre left.

HuglessDuglas · 06/04/2018 08:58

I have quite a few children aged 6-20 and the change that I have notice most is that we have become a society that does not let children fail - all inclusive sports days were everyone is a winner for example - have led to children being unable to process and cope with the natural emotions of failure. We think we are protecting them but we are causing more harm further down the line when they don't get the grades they expected etc.
Combining this with the increasingly insular lives they lead due to gaming social media etc it's no wonder at all that these poor kids are struggling with their mental health.
I've read similar reports over the last year and made a point of drastically limiting screen time, making sure the younger ones go out to play, ride their bikes and they all have joined something so St Johns for the oldest, army cadets for one teen and scouts for the rest. I want them to get social interaction, hopefully a wee bit of competition, a sense of achievement.
We also talk about how cyber life is not real life online friends are not real friends and how we can always talk about cyber bullying etc.
All of this may not be the answer but it's the best I've got at the minute.

BusterGonad · 06/04/2018 09:01

Doesn't anyone thing it's because of the impossibility of getting a mortgage these days? Or the lack of jobs for life? Or that if you have a child both if you still need to work to pay the mortgage? My parents own a 3 bed house in an expensive town, my mum was a sahp and my dad had a average job that didn't need any formal education for. To be honest I think the older generation had it pretty easy.

LongWavyHair · 06/04/2018 09:05

I have to agree with this. Social media and technology definitely play a huge part in it.
I'm in my mid 20's and honestly, I feel fed up. 10 years ago iPhones/Facebook/Instagram etc.. weren't as popular as they are now. I'm constantly glued to my phone and it's like an addiction.

I do feel hopeless like I'm never going to do anything with my life. I'll never get a mortgage or get a good job. Just plod along until I die and have social media to remind me just how much of a failure I am.
So yes there is a lot of truth in that article- at least there is me anyway.

God that all sounds so miserable! Blush

Dangerousmonkey · 06/04/2018 09:06

I can assure those happy to lay blame that the parents of the child in my family are far better parents than my own or indeed myself. Blami g shit parenting is just away to comfort yourself in the misconception this doesn't happen to well supported, loved and motivated youngsters.

Dangerousmonkey · 06/04/2018 09:09

I hope you get to stay in your happy judgemental place and every time you read an article about someone else's broken heart you cancomfortably decide the parents are shit and that tragedy never touches you or anyone you know.

dejectedharry · 06/04/2018 09:10

Social Media making people have unrealistic expectations of what their lives should be. Only feeling validation through 'likes'.

It's amazing the amount of effort all these people spend perfecting their fake social media life. It must be emotionally draining keeping up appearances. I'm not surprised so many people are unhappy.

BarbieBrightSide · 06/04/2018 09:11

I think there are a few things that all play a part, but I'm not sure what the answer is.

Regarding teenage jobs, I heard something on the radio about this and one of the problems is that in order to employ a young person, all staff must be DBS checked, which is cost prohibitive to smaller businesses.

I rarely buy a newspaper and keep up to date on line. Where I live there isn't a chance that I'd let a young teen out alone in the early hours to do a paper round anyway.

I think the prevention of failure does have a part to play. The school I went to as a child was keen to allow competition on sports day to allow the less academically bright children to compete from a level start. It was also good experience for those who were bright to feel what it was like to not be the best at something.

There is an unrealistic view of the world perpetuated by the media and striving to meet a fake ideal is always going to cause problems.

Regarding youth clubs, it is a real shame that they don't really exist any more, but as well as funding issues I think there is an image problem. Technology has a lot to answer for.

CakeOfThePan · 06/04/2018 09:11

I can see why.
Social media allowing a constant compare of haves with have nots. It also allows constant contact with ‘friends’ so it reaffirms them as family.
Lack of parental support due to constant working which reinforces above.
Pressure on children to do well in English and maths, tough if your not academic but would have made a brilliant scientist, builder or barber or hairdresser.
Lack of apprenticeships and uni costing so much. If you don’t know what you want to do your pretty screwed.
Insecure Housing so the future looks pretty bleak. Cuts and caps in housing benefit forces people to stay or be in places they shouldn’t.
Mental health is just not being supported so it harbours this complete not giving a fuck about life, that includes your own.

We are failing our young people massively.

HRTpatch · 06/04/2018 09:12

Would these kids even go to youth centres if they were provided?

TheSecondOfHerName · 06/04/2018 09:13

I have four teenagers and work with dozens of others. For those young people I see every day, I can tell you where stress and unhappiness enters their lives.

It is true that social media can add stress, and some young people I speak to realise this and have made their own decision to limit their use of social media or even avoid it completely. However, social media is not the biggest cause of stress that I hear about.

At school, they are frequently assessed in every subject and their performance is measured against a hypothetical trajectory calculated by software. My daughter (Y9) works as hard as she possibly can, yet feels that what she does is never good enough, because she is still struggling to meet her targets. She cried at a recent parents' evening, and this is a young person who hardly ever cries.

The goalposts are constantly changing. My son (Y11) is about to take 10 GCSEs. 7 of his courses are new. The textbooks weren't published until after the courses had started. Other than one set of sample papers, there are no past papers to use for practise. In one of his courses, the way it was to be assessed was changed when he was already 75% of the way through the course. He spent 20 hours on a controlled assessment which he was tod would be 20% of the GCSE. Halfway through the assessment, he was told that it would count for nothing, but had to be completed anyway.

Part of my role at work involves supporting young people with mental health difficulties. For those with anxiety, the most common contributing factor they report is academic stress.

And this is before you add in the effects of poverty, family conflict/breakdown etc.

WowLookAtYou · 06/04/2018 09:13

To be honest I think the older generation had it pretty easy.

They really didn't. Do some research.

Oblomov18 · 06/04/2018 09:13

I agree that it is depressing. Prospect of getting a mortgage. And jobs generally.

But:
Both my ds's and all their friends are very self entitled (whilst they are actually all very nice boys, polite, bright and doing well academically) and don't know how Good they have it, that drives me wild. And sad.

Older ds plays x box all day, meets his mates and ride around on bikes, meet up to play football, plays on a football team (so taken to training and matches) , got taken to see a champions league match against one of the biggest clubs in the world Real Madrid, have Tesco vouchers Thorpe Park tickets.
I go to all parents evenings, options evenings, sports days.
Prepare different meals of spaghetti and meatballs, steak and kidney pie and steamed veg, lamb shank and mash.
And in return I'm talked to like dirt. And I spend most of my time saying 'don't speak to me like that'.
Football mums on both Ds1 and Ds2's team report that their boys are all exactly the same.

Saddened and puzzled how my parenting (which I always thought was loving, but firm but fair) has resulted in this generation.
Hmm

Unfinishedkitchen · 06/04/2018 09:14

In years to come social scientists will publish papers on how it was a mistake to allow social media to flourish without restrictions.

I was on the train and heard a few boys becoming very exercised about something someone had written about one of them. One was encouraging one of the others to not take the disrespect and ‘shank’ whoever had done it. I assumed it was just bravado talk but I’m guessing how some of these situations start.

We can see how much people can wind each other up on MN. People say outrageous things to each other that they would never say in real life and these are adults trying to wind was other up. Imagine the same sort of goading starts amongst kids who not only lack adult supervision (in some cases they don’t even have an adult who cares) but emotional intelligence and who actually know the person who’s winding them up and where they live?

I see a lot of dead eyed youngsters wandering the streets. They are constantly told if they don’t achieve everything immediately they are losers. They can’t get away from the messages either - it’s on the phone, at school, on the tv on the iPad etc. This has become a very winner and loser society with winning only having a very narrow definition. The ones who know they will never have a chance of winning within those margins are not going to be happy kids. The pressure and stakes are too high now.

OP posts:
Foxyloxy1plus1 · 06/04/2018 09:23

I don’t think it’s to do with getting a mortgage or owning a home. Saving for a deposit is very very difficult, it’s true, but there are different reasons for young people feeling unhappy and the rise in mental health issues.

If you spend much of your time comparing yourself (unfavourably) to reality TV people, bloggers, vloggers, anyone on social media, you are going to feel that you don’t measure up. The level of vitriol exhibited on social media is enough to seriously affect even the most robust of people. It’s instant too.and people think that they can be rude and unpleasant in a way that they probably wouldn’t face to face.

CakeOfThePan · 06/04/2018 09:27

Yes the pp poster saying the goalposts moving and tests tests tests. The constant assessments.
They don’t take into account the fact in that year you’ve had friendship issues
You’ve moved
Your parents have split
Your gran died
You’ve just had a bit of a teenage wobble.

They are never good enough. If you feel you have nothing to lose in life you’ll have no regard for it