5/15/2019 Generation Z is stressed, depressed and exam-obsessed - Daily chart

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Generation Z is stressed, depressed and exam-

obsessed
For most youngsters getting good grades is a bigger worry than drinking or unplanned
pregnancies

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Feb 27th 2019

MOVE OVER, millennials. Young people now belong to “Generation Z”: a cohort which
demographers usually de ne as people born since 1997. Researchers have devoted lots of
e ort to understanding the attitudes and experiences of people born in the 1980s and early
1990s (that is, millennials or generation Y), who are more educated and poorer than their
elders are. But they have collected far fewer data about people who can barely remember a
world without social media or smartphones. In America, that generation now makes up
about a quarter of the population.

Most of the research so far about generation Z suggests that youngsters today are less
hedonistic, better behaved and more lonely than ever before. A recent report by Pew
Research Centre, a think-tank, reinforces that nding and sheds more light on this new
cohort’s hopes and fears. In late 2018 Pew polled 920 Americans aged 13-17 about the
problems that they have seen among their peers.now
Subscribe The data show that they are far less

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5/15/2019 Generation Z is stressed, depressed and exam-obsessed - Daily chart

concerned about age-old teenage problems like unplanned pregnancy and binge-drinking
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than they are about mental health. Fully 70% of respondents thought anxiety and
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depression were a major issue among their peers. Teenagers from poorer households
tended to report a wider range of behavioural problems
Subscribe now than those from rich households,
but concerns about mental health seemed to a ect both groups equally.

What is causing such widespread stress and dejection among the young? One answer might
be that social media have made teenagers feel more isolated from their friends and
tormented by their peers. More than half of those surveyed by Pew cited bullying as a major
problem. Another reason might be academic worries. Members of generation Z, even more
so than the millennials before them, seem to have less desire to get wasted and more to get
top grades. Two-thirds of respondents to Pew’s survey said that they feel no pressure at all
to get drunk, whereas nine-tenths feel under the cosh when it comes to doing well at school.

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A nal explanation might be that people of all ages have become more anxious and
depressed (or at least more willing to talk about it). Surveys of American college students
show that the proportion who report depressive tendencies has been rising since at least
the 1950s. Today nearly a fth of the country’s adults live with a mental-health condition,
according to the National Institute of Mental Health.

The WHO estimates that depression and anxiety disorders cost the global economy about
$1trn each year. It reckons that investing more in psychiatric treatment would help alleviate
some of that burden, since it has calculated that every dollar a government spends on
treatment leads to a return of $4 by improving health and productivity. America could
certainly devote more than the 0.05% of its health budget that it currently does to such care.
That might soothe depressed teenagers. But it is unlikely to help them much with their
homework.

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Feb 27th 2019

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