Young Adults Are in Crisis — The Atlantic

...loneliness levels have reached an all-time peak, 13% of Americans are on antidepressants, the U.S. suicide rate is at its highest since World War II, and polarization appears to be rising...

In record numbers, young people are worried about their mental well-being: The mental health crisis has many root causes: the pandemic, student loan debt, gun violence, climate change, a recent reversal of social progress made over the last half-century. And, of course, the ever-growing presence of technology in our lives.

Putnam believed that the single biggest risk factor was the growing amount of time people spent alone.

Even back when he wrote Bowling Alone —before smartphones and apps—teens were solitary for three-and-a-half hours per day. Adolescents spent more time alone than with their family.

For the first time in history, people were growing up disconnected... See more

• “The younger you are, the more likely you are now to feel lonely.” “Loneliness is now one of the most important problems our generation has to solve, alongside climate change and obesity.”


• If we’re becoming less religious, we are gradually substituting religion with other forms of cults like astrology, wellness clubs, or group therapies (e.g., Alcoh

... See more

We often associate loneliness with seniority, an image of elderly people cooped up inside. However, young adults are twice as likely to be lonely than seniors—a whopping 79 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds report feelings of loneliness.

although mental illness is global, the experience of mental illness cannot be separated from culture. If there is a surge of Anglospheric gloom among teenagers, we have to study the culture that young people are consuming with their technology. In the past generation, the English-speaking world, led by the U.S., has experimented with a novel approa

... See more

We are currently in a global mental health crisis that is ruthlessly affecting teens and young adults at a rate unlike anything the world has ever seen. In the dozens and dozens of talks and presentations I’ve given at colleges and universities, this fact seems to be abundantly well-known by those under fifty and almost completely, cluelessly unkno

... See more