Mental Health - A Generational Issue?
The Shock
I grabbed a hot pizza slice and sat down on the couch next to my friend, with our eyes staring at the TV screen. It was a pleasant evening with some buddies. Ordering Dominos, watching preseason football, joking around - just a few millennials having a good time.
But as soon as I went to grab my glass of soda, my friend jumped out of his seat...our eyes were glued to our phones as soon as we read our Bleacher Report Breaking News alerts. Andrew Luck, star quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts, was retiring. Wait, what? I know I am not a die hard football fan, but I was still shocked.
It was only his eighth season. He was supposed to be the next big thing. His athletic IQ, quarterback arm strength, and on-and-off-field leadership were tremendous. The Colts were predicted to be one of the Super Bowl favorites. The team finally gave him a proper offensive line for protection, an above average defense, and offensive weapons like Hilton. Then why? Why did he choose to do this?
Confusion traced itself around our faces as we searched for answers. My college friend, a die-hard Colts fan, was in denial.
Finally, Luck gave us his answer. Two words: mental health. And for some reason, it all made complete sense.
The Research Shows Us
Recent research shows that not only are millennials more likely to speak about mental health, anxiety, and depression, they are also more likely to face it.
Even Generation Z members, especially those between ages 12 to 17, depressive episodes spiked by nearly 52%.
What does this say? Were depression and such illnesses not faced by predecessors or generations earlier?
The fact of the matter is that we have not entered into an era of insecurities but an era where we indulge in insecurities. We put ourselves in situations where those insecurities, fears, and desires creep in - in bulk.
It is as if we are walking into beehive, looking for the honey, but knowing that the bees will sting us as well. We aren’t asking for it blatantly, but it we do put ourselves in such positions.
How so?
Social Media’s Influence
Social media plays a major role in this. It’s true - we can’t blame social media for everything. But, we cannot deny the fact that it is part of the problem, or at least increases self doubt and lowers self esteem.
“It’s important to remember that just posting edited pictures online or pretending your life is a little more glamorous than it is is not in itself a problem,” says Jill Emanuele, PhD, a clinical psychologist at the Child Mind Institute. “Social media alone is unlikely to be at the heart of the issue, but it can make a difficult situation even harder.”
Not only do we create a mirage or a facade of who we are on social media, but many of us are also constantly thinking about the world’s perception of us. And when this facade shatters in front of our eyes, not only is that social media account affected, we are too. Our self esteem, self perception, ego, and confidence are all affected simultaneously. This is not a theory.
A Huffington Post contributor, Clarissa Silva, conducted a study where she found that 60% of the people using social media found social media impacting their self-esteem in a negative way. 50% of those responders also reported social media having negative effects on their relationships.
Our world has shifted to the external more than the internal - it has gone farther away from us, who we truly are, a conscious being. The being has been replaced by the persona, and the human by technology. With our eyes glaring at the phone screens constantly (stats), we cannot leave that world. Nielson and Pew reports found the average American spending at least 4 hours per day on their phones.
The Glaring Root of the Problem
The root of all of this clearer to us. The technological innovations and the digital era’s immediate attachment to the entertainment and industrial markets both are possible because of commercialism. And this commercialism clearly allows the freedom for such addiction.
For example, video games, a product that once was used merely as a form of entertainment has become an industry of its own and more importantly - a sporting event.
What was once a natural pastime has become an international phenomena. Played by 90% of adolescents and having become a $13 billion industry, it is natural for a member of the audience to applaud the gaming world for its economic growth in a capitalistic landscape and its success in the world of marketing and commerce.
But the fact of the matter is - the increased usage of video games by gamers, has certainly led to an increase in promotion, an increase in capital, an increase in the motivation to continue the consumption of games, an increase in demand, and thus a constant cycle of supplying more.
The more, more, more cycle is a key ideology of capitalism.
And thus, we see its side effects. Recently, South Korea has ignited a debate on the mental effects of gaming amongst youngsters especially. A South Korean supposedly played video games for 72 straight hours.
According to Roh Sung-won, an addiction specialist and professor of psychiatry at Hanyang University Hospital in Seoul, said the child was hospitalized afterwards because he was in-need of psychiatric care.
The World Health Organization had also added “international gaming disorder” to the 2022 edition of the International Classification of Diseases, and research shows that about 1% of the world population suffers from this disorder.
This is just one of many examples, for the South Korean government, noticing a national issue, plans to add Korean standards by 2025 to cases like the child previously.
Now - it is very easy to blame the gamers who get addicted. But it would be illogical not to accept the fact that these gamers and thus their potential mental health issues are just an example of what consumerism-fed addiction can bring to the table.
What’s the Point?
We see a worldwide issue amongst youth when it comes to different industries, entertainment, or in the digital landscape.
But the fact of the matter is - mental health disorder always existed. We have just recently given it a name.
We indulge in a desire - we can’t handle it at a point, for whatever reason it may be - and we crash!
The crash is what Alvin Toffler in his bestselling 1970 classic, “Future Shock,” calls (well you guessed it) a future shock.
The issue is we are actually realizing this issue now. And we don’t know how to handle it. We certainly gave it a name - but how do we handle this.
There are multiple choices to how we end up handling it, which include:
We simply panic - need psychiatric, physical, or mental health but don’t know it
We look for external means to satisfy the missing link - lust, greed, drugs, people, tools, etc
Do something dangerous to ourselves
But what may be the smartest choice at this point is - instead of looking for something external to satisfy us - we look for something internal.
The solution is within. The happiness that was lacking elsewhere - in a product, a drug, a game, a career, a video game - can be fulfilled when we look deeper.
This happiness doesn’t require an external force to satisfy it. It requires only us and our individual presence. It means being satisfied and content with who we are, and what we truly desire. It is not a fidgety need or instinctual pleasure. It is not a cycle of more and more of the same thing like different versions of an IPhone.
It’s an internal satisfaction - that we all need, but ignore.
And maybe - that’s what Andrew Luck was seeking when he said he wasn’t happy playing anymore, and wanted to see his family happy. Maybe that’s what really made him happy. And maybe that was the braver thing to do - to be away from any external, mental strain - to be simply happy.
And so I sat back down on my friend’s couch, grabbed my iced-cold soda, and smiled.