The youth of today are the unhappiest ever

[Unfinishedkitchen]

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.

I don’t know if my kids are unusual, I think DD16 is in some ways. She isn’t unpopular, has a small group of friends but no one seems to like going out much. They don’t have anything to DO. She very often drops out of social gatherings and I have to push her to go. Today she went to town with friends but both my DC seem happiest at home (and this is what they tell me). They like school and I do try to limit what social media and content they see. DD16 doesn’t seem particularly happy or enthused about anything very much and it does worry me this general malaise and no goals. I don’t really know how to motivate her. She comes from a big loving family although I am separated from her dad it’s mostly all fine and

I think one of the big issues, as some pps have referred to, is exactly what has happened on this thread. The finger of blame is pointed everywhere. It's school, it's social media, it's inability to get a mortgage, it's the baby boomers... It is normal not to be happy all the time - myriad threads on here about childhood and school days support that. But instead of teaching the kids the resilience to manage that, either as parents or society, we teach them to point the finger too and blame other people and circumstances. Sometimes, life is a bit shit. And not having the latest (insert covetable item) is grounds for normal envy, not abject misery. And I do not refer to the children with significant mental health difficulties, or those with significant difficulties in other areas. But we shouldn't be stroking their arm and fuelling their indignance. It shouldn't occur to a child they will never have a job, a life, £20 In their back pocket, just as it shouldn't occur to them to blame someone else if they don't.

Could not agree more and I don’t indulge this blame culture in my own children. I will never forget DD’s mortified face when I took the schools side over something she had done wrong instead of her. She was expecting me to blame everyone else but her for her own actions. I’ve stuck to that ever since

Yes, the idea that schooldays are the happiest of your life needs to go. We all need schooling but it is work with no choices.

We also need to lose the emphasis on looks. Any dead female is described as 'beautiful' which is her only achievement. That is disgusting, what an insult.

Have to agree with the OP. Various factors all have contributed to this, and I would add Brexit as another.

As for things that will help to reduce this unhappiness, I'd include a restriction on the number of exams that can be taken (why you need even 8 GSCEs or more than four A levels is beyond me), and there has to be more resources devoted to mental health at all ages.

I agree with posters who have said there are two contrasting sides to the problem, BOTH modern issues such as social media meaning constant bullying and stoking up of a sense of injustice and failure because you don’t live up to the perfect fake projection AND a sense of entitlement and laziness. I work in education and the spoon feeding has taken on ridiculous proportions since I’ve been teaching. It started off as support for pupils (good) and a way to improve league tables (bad) and now with SATS predictions and performance related pay it has become insane. The passivity of even very intelligent pupils is shocking.

But I always think the main reason everyone is so unhappy in Britain is the weather. Not entirely kidding...

I actually do agree that blame culture has got out of control and that some kids aren’t taught resilience. For some a relatively minor knock back is a massive setback that they can’t bounce back from without massive anger. If they can’t get that job or that house or that coat or those trainers, the world will end.

There’s a thread going at the moment involving 20 year olds who claim that £60k a year is low paid. This is a ridiculous level of entitlement. Many younger people also expect to get their forever home off the bat without trading up to it. It a very ‘now’ culture and if they don’t get it now, then someone’s to blame as they are entitled to it.

ScipioAfricanus you may have a point about weather, and the level of darkness in the winter.

I do think constantly seeing people who don’t do anything much to earn money, like YouTube stars, must be really weird to grow up with. And then those people spend all their time having artisan coffee or posing in front of doors in nice clothes or going on holiday to a tropical island. The actual idea of working and doing things which are interesting is lost. It’s like ‘doing’ hasn’t got any value, whereas ‘being’ (or just existing) is the point.

There’s a lot to be said for the enjoyment of learning something new or becoming expert in something and it takes time - whereas so many of the social media experiences are just immediate gratification of pretty clothes or tasty food. Perhaps the visual element of the media emphasises that. I find kids today struggle a lot with learning vocabulary because they can’t believe they are supposed to invest time in learning it. They say they are struggling and when I ask them how long they spend on it they say 20 minutes. Then I say that’s the problem; nine times out of ten there’s no learning difficulty just a complete lack of understanding that it requires time (and reluctance to invest it). When I was their age it was harder to procrastinate as so much less distraction. Now their phones are constantly beeping at them and people out there having fun literally right in front of them on snap chat etc. It must genuinely be very hard to fight against that, especially when you’re a teenager and you want immediate gratification and belonging now and your brain doesn’t do consequences as well as it later will.

ForAll I have dual nationality and that nation thinks they are just temperamentally superior as they’re so jolly. I think it’s just easier to be happy with the sun shining most of the time. I do actually have a light box for SAD and find it effective (though could well be placebo).

When I was young there was less time to procrastinate ??????

• when I was young I was running around the woods, laying my zx spectrum and doing a paper round.

When I was young I was so bored I used scrap paper to make magazines, I made mud pies,spent days swimming in the sea.

When I was young I went on fantastic holidays my poor (poor) parents saved for - and we went in term time.

When I was young I did Sats and never gave a fuck because nobody else did!

When I was young I got the bus into town and the bus driver turned a blind eye because I was 20p short.

Managed to do ok.

My poor (not poor) kids get revision and they're 10 years old! They want to eat Easter eggs and play in the much needed sunshine!

Absolutely true. As parents we can do two things to help our kids. 1. Limit access to TV and 2. Absolutely no social media under any circumstances. That includes watching Youtube.

Atomisation can only be combated with real life engagement. If your kids are part of a community, a real one not a virtual one, it is very hard for nihilism to set in.

I haven’t read the whole thread so apologies if I repeat what’s already been said.

I have 3 teenagers and I can’t believe how much it has changed even in 5 years. I’m not blaming any particular thing but I’m shocked at how hard it is for them. There is an immense amount of pressure on them in regards to school with exams, revision, sats and so on. My ds doesn’t know what he wants to do but is worried if he doesn’t get a degree he won’t get a job above minimum wage. The school is pushing university visits already and he hasn’t even sat his GCSEs.

Social media/phones - not one moment of their lives go undocumented they were sat with me last night and he was showing me the snapchats that were coming through - he turned his phone off in the end because it’s just too much.

I have boys so I don’t see this but a friend was telling me about her daughter - the constant need to be perfect, hair, eyebrows, make up and so on.

I do feel though that they are emotionally a lot more mature than what I was when I was there age. They are more interested in what’s going on with the world, politics and so on than what I ever was.

A family we saw in a restaurant the other day typifies the modern British family. They were all glued to their phones gaming texting and surfing the web instead of interacting with each other - even when their food arrived!. It was depressing.

When those youngsters have to get a job they won't have a clue how to engage with the interviewer. And then they'll wonder why they can't get a job.

When those youngsters have to get a job they won't have a clue how to engage with the interviewer.

Assuming that the interviewer isn't glued to their phone...

I think the country lost its soul when we left our Christian roots behind.
Without god there is nothing higher than oneself. We have a culture where everything is permissible, there are no morals or respect anymore. Personal happiness is the only thing worthwhile. The Hedonism and seeking pleasure constantly is destructive in the end. You can drink, take drugs, change your appearance, buy endless things.... but it's empty, and ultimately meaningless.
Youth have an attitude of do "what thou will".
The saying "have you no shame" used to be a bad thing, now people seek the opposite- doing what you want and not being held accountable, blaming everyone else.
Society is becoming more materialistic and selfish., it's broken and will get worse.
The answer is god.

Actually this generation takes far fewer drugs, drinks less and engages in less risky sex than our generation did.

Get high and get laid may be the solution.

I think that takes it a bit far Missy. You can of course have good values, a sense of ethical behaviour and kindness etc without god or religion. But you do need a philosophy or a framework of some kind and sometimes I think without the easy peg of Christianity (love thy neighbour etc) to hang it on, those ideals can get lost. For me it’s the consumption and materialism which i don’t like seeing idolised bit you could equally say the answer was communism rather than god. I don’t think it’s either but I do think there’s a need for proper ethical and moral teaching and discussion in schools and home. I think when society was less secular there was mainly just more hypocrisy. It would be interesting to kniw if there’s actual evidence for lower moral standards of behaviour.

No because one generation influences the next. It's a steady decline. People getting high and laid is the problem.

Scipio-
Yes I agree in part, I am Christian though and I think that's the way to go.
But on a secular level, it was a common belief that united community. Shared values are important for social cohesion. it teaches that happiness is in service to others- that it is not all about "me", that hedonism leads to self destruction, it calls for introspection- to realise that no one is perfect and realise our own capability for wrong doing- because everyone of us is at some fault even though most of us deceive ourselves that we are good, not to seek false idols- money and materialistic things, not to be jealous of what other have, not to think you are entitled to things you haven't worked for, the sanctity and preciousness of life, and all the others as you mentioned loving your neighbour, turning the other cheek etc.
I think there is no other way to enforce a moral framework outside of religion.

I don't mean that all non believers are bad. For me when I started looking at my faith it mad me realise what kind of person I am. I always thought myself good - but have tendency to be bad- I'm materialistic, somewhat selfish, I'd rather spend money on myself than charity, I have spoken badly of people and caused hurt. This is where the Christian idea of repentance comes from, having that moment of realisation. It's not that we think religious people are good- it's that we recognise our own capacity to be awful. It's liberating to be honest. That's another key concept to always be truthful, even when we don't want to really want to acknowledge the truth.

I was brought up Christian Missy and did return to the faith for another ten years or so. I’m currently agnostic. I think a lot of philosophies and other religions which emphasise less criticism of the self (e.g. Buddism) teach the same good values as Christianity and other major monotheistic religions, and do so well. I’m finding them a useful moral framework personally. I’m bringing my DS up with a mixture of those and it will be interesting to see what he comes out like!

But to bring it back to the thread point it’s intrreating what you say about social cohesion and religion. I think on a practical level, my grandparents for example met as part of their church Sunday school leader roles. A lot of socialising and good for the community was done and life can feel quite disparate and unconnected without such groups. What a previous poster said about youth groups seems to me to be connected to that. It’s about giving people a way to connect that is off the internet and maybe involves active things like learning new skills and maybe helping others - and isn’t to do with spending money. I wish there was more out there like that.

Yeah I definitely think the social connection has been lost and a sense of community. It's so sad what's happening.

. "I think a lot of philosophies and other religions which emphasise less criticism of the self (e.g. Buddhism"

I do think a little self criticism is a good thing. It's like the parable of how can you remove the splint in your brothers eye whilst ignoring the log in your own. I've noticed a lot of people are quick to blame others for their problems without recognising their own faults and contributions to the problem. It's about personal accountability and seeing how your behaviour impacts on the lives of others.