(Apologies became a long rant. Which is ultimately pointless but was cathartic for me.)
If I go back to my youth work it was pretty apparent much of the youth felt disempowered and vilified for existing. That was back then, now I am sure they are even more aware of what a wasteland they are set to inherit shut out from having any meaningful voice in their future. They are also aware of the things I had and got to benefit from which they don't get to have. Somehow this means they are entitled to complain about this? There are some shocking statistics on how economically worse off they are than my generation and the level of debt they will likely fall under as standard.
Throw in entirely unstable work where job security is becoming an imaginary word. That treats the youth like disposable cogs working themselves to collapse in entry-level positions with even fewer employment protections. Along with entirely legal abuse of internship dangling the carrot but never providing it. Stress breaks people frustrated expectation is the slope to cynicism.
Groups of them were often broken up from hanging out together with unpleasant assumptions made, smeared in the newspapers as a source of fear. A lot of the youth services in various forms have closed down meaning an absolute barren climate to occupy even more so in deprived areas. Their problems often trivialised down to it is just a phase, or attention seeking or kids being kids. Mental health care for children has always been dire and that trend has worsened every time an idiot politician has opened their mouth in an attempt to find efficiency savings. Worse than that its first recourse is to drug the child into passivity. Meaning maybe core issues are not even looked at some of which may well involve parenting self identity issues or hidden abuse. Ironically many of these medications have potential side effects of worsening suicidality. Lots of lawsuits in response to that and no long term studies on what these drugs are doing to developing minds. Take this and shut up, stop making a scene.
On another level, I feel like children get less and less time to be children. Rather alarmingly killing themselves over exam stress. That to me is a damning indictment against the stress we as a society inflict on children and this trend seems to have worsened. More testing and more pressure on what it means to fail. In an increasingly competitive melting pot. The construct of this exaggerated to the extent if you do badly on this test you will be flipping burgers. Although another worry is it will be automated machines flipping burgers as more of the service industry shrinks.
I also made a former rant about the internet and its toxicity these days.
I think the internet has become for the most part toxic for a multitude of reasons. In fact I would go so far as to say that since people are growing up living vicariously through screens they are losing out on developing social skills. Which just leaves people isolated and lonely, because an emote hug does not have the same value as a genuine hug. The need for tactile contact is pretty extreme and I mean that on a biological level. A lot of media has also stunted direct interaction. Or made it easier to not take the risks involved in being uncomfortable, or being laughed at or rejected in public. Easier to hide behind a facade and talk about the blueberry muffin you ate. If you are not developing these skills you are pretty much condemning yourself to painful loneliness and awkwardness when forced into social situations. That then just reinforce how you can't handle social situations and why you should avoid them even more. Living a half life that is just satisfactory enough to keep you inside, but painful enough it is a chronic ache of emptiness, that is prodded painfully by looking at the joyful experiences of others on social media.
Loneliness kills. There is so much evidence on the toxic nature of loneliness I am surprised more effort is not made to treat loneliness like an impending heart attack…
I think it is worse than that because the internet is anonymous meaning every atrocity of sadism and cruelty can be inflicted and little happens in legal response. So the worst of humanity is fully on display and at work which can distort your world view of the decency of people. We live in a very switched on society where there is no break from the relentless updates and shifts in status and messages. So that bullying does not just stop at school, or work or, uni it follows you into your online world as well. This has factually driven people to suicide and is a growing problem. Bullying is already not effectively responded to in real life, even less so online.
The internet also feeds anxiety because of how media distorts reality to manipulate you for ad revenue, and fear sells better than positive stories and hope. Instead, force feeding you a terrifying world of countless rapists in the bushes and other bogeyman. I am really not surprised that anxiety is so high.
You are also having wider world views shut down because of various algorithms that quite literally stop you from seeing certain things, instead presenting to you what you like and what you already think. Creating walled gardens which are just entrenching tribalism. So things like hostility towards genders and vegan sausage rolls is higher. It also allows uninformed views to bloom unchallenged and wind up continually reinforced. I hold it responsible for the worsening depth of bigotry in its myriad of forms.
I feel like this is what Aldous Huxley was warning against. Solutions to tyranny and pain not being resolved because of the infinite availability of distraction. A distraction that I feel is making us more isolated and cut off than ever. A Skype call to your gran is not taking your gran to bingo and laughing with her in person as she steals your own card because you won.
My personal observation of clients who lived as shut-ins was they were not helped by mental health services, but by other services that led to finding friends, engaging with hobbies, and building confidence, and with that confidence came direction and purpose. Then they rarely graced my door again. Sadly I have seen the various programs that helped people outside of a hospital setting get closed down and therapies that specifically tackle Anxiety reduced to a skeletal joke.
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