And they also question their government and the kind of political leadership in this country that has allowed this existential threat to occur.Īnd then there is the issue of gun violence. They are deeply concerned about climate change – and whether the planet that they and their children will be living on will be healthy or habitable. Two other issues have also kept emerging in my discussions with young people. Clearly, the mental health damage they do to millions of young people is much less important to them than the huge profits they are reaping. When it comes to social media, we are up against some of the most creative minds in the world, who keep coming up with new ways to get teenagers addicted to their sites in order to sell them more products and make more money. The same can be said for Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok and other social media platforms.Īnd let’s be clear. More than 40% of Instagram users who reported feeling “unattractive” said the feeling began on Instagram.Ībout 25% of teenagers who reported feeling “not good enough” said it started on Instagram.īut it’s not just Instagram. Well, according to a recent study, 32% of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse. What is the impact of all that screen time? Thirty-two per cent of teens surveyed said they were online for five to six hours, 17% reported being online for seven to eight hours and 13% said they were online nine or more hours a day. According to a recent survey, most kids are spending more than five hours a day on social media or playing video games. How are they going to afford to go to college or pay off their student debts? Will they ever be able to buy their own home or afford healthcare? Young people are worrying about these things on a daily basis.Īnd then there is the radical impact that screen time and social media have had on the younger generation, something that previous generations have never experienced. Unless we bring about long-needed reforms, their generation will have a lower standard of living than their parents’. ‘For the first time in modern history our young people, by the millions, stopped attending school.’ Photograph: Christopher Millette/APĪnd young people know something else. When parents lose their jobs, when they struggle to pay the rent, when they worry about putting food on the table and how to get the healthcare they need, their children are often struggling quietly beside them. We can all remember the long lines of Americans lining up for emergency food boxes to feed their families. It was only a few years ago that, as a result of Covid, millions of workers lost their jobs, lost their health insurance and were worried about being evicted from their homes and apartments. The pandemic also brought forth an unprecedented level of economic anxiety. ![]() No more doing the normal things that their parents and older brothers and sisters did.īut it was not just the pandemic’s impact on health that affected our young people. No more getting together with friends after school or on weekends. Not only was their education severely impacted, but so were their social lives. ![]() For the first time in modern history our young people, by the millions, stopped attending school. The pandemic also brought about a massive disruption in the normal, day-to-day lives of our youth. That grief and fear remains long after any national emergency is declared over. And let us not forget: over 200,000 children did lose one or both of their parents to Covid and millions more saw relatives and acquaintances become sick or hospitalized. That’s an anxiety not easily dealt with by young, developing minds. The pandemic, the worst public health crisis in over 100 years, created fears in children about whether they or their loved ones would get sick or die. ![]() What I have learned is that our young people today face challenges that no generation in modern history has ever been forced to deal with.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |