BY ERIN GLOVER Copyright 2019
Chances are, if you are 24 or younger and reading this, you suffer from some form of anxiety. It may manifest as insomnia, unexplained outbursts, migraines, or full-fledged panic attacks. If you have the money, two out of five of you are in therapy. You may take drugs to ease your symptoms. A whopping 80% of you have sought mental health services.
Z Gens is a relatively new phrase. It refers to the generation of kids born between 1995 and 2014. As of this writing, Z Gens are five to 24 years old. Z Gens are also called iGens. That’s because they were the first generation born when the internet was widely available in the US. (By 1995, the NSFNet was decommissioned, removing the last restrictions on use of the Internet to carry commercial traffic.) Basically, Z Gens were born with smartphones in their hands, metaphorically speaking.
Contrast this with the previous generation, Generation Y, also known as the Millennials, the generation everyone loves to hate on. Millennials were born between 1980 and 1994. The oldest Millennial is 39. They remember dial-up internet. Millennials were dubbed the most anxious generation–until Gen Z came of age.
Generation Z fascinates me for many reasons. So I’m going to do a whole series of blog posts about them. This first post is about Gen Z anxiety and depression. I became curious about anxiety after dozens of kids from ages 14 to 22 told me about their anxiety and depression in the course of conversations.
To give you some background, I have two Millennial sons and one Generation Z son. I get to talk to them and their friends. My 14-year-old is a basketball player which provides lots of opportunities to talk to other players and their Z Gen siblings in the bleachers.
When I travel, go the grocery store, the hardware store, the library, the veterinarian, I often strike up conversations with people I find out are Z Gens. I tell them I’m working on a book about a 17-year-old track star from Denver with anxiety who enters into a suicide pact. They often tell me how they, too, suffer from anxiety. Usually, the discussion about anxiety leads to a confession that they also have depression. After all, the two go hand-in-hand.
So what about this anxiety? Where does it come from? I read every study I could find.
Z Gens suffer from anxiety and depression more than any other generation in history. Many are medicated. And that’s totally cool. I believe in pharmaceuticals (though I don’t love pharmaceutical companies—their ads make me crazy). Pharmaceuticals have helped me with my own anxiety. Maybe that’s why I relate to Gen Z kids. From what I can gather, Generation Z is totally stressed out.
Are they really more stressed out than previous generations? Yeah. They are. By a lot.
Back to my research. I read every scientific journal available. There’s not that much. The oldest Z Gen is only 24-years-old, so there haven’t been a ton of studies. People like to cite a psychologist named Twenge. I think it’s because she’s the only one out there. She blames the anxiety and depression on social media. Doesn’t everyone. In my opinion, that’s a cop out answer. It ignores many other factors affecting teens.
The real answer about why Generation Z suffers from so much anxiety and depression is no one knows for sure. I’d like to know what the kids themselves think.
Here’s what the specialists studying Z Gens think is making them anxious:
• 81% stress about money compared to 64% of adults
• 72% worry about school shootings
• 62% worry about rising suicide rates compared to 44% of adults
• 45% said social media makes them feel judged
• 39% said social media makes them feel bad about themselves
The Generation Z suicide statistic really caught my attention. So I took a look at Gen Z suicide rates for 2018. Suicide is the number one cause of death of Z Gens between the ages of 15-24 in Colorado. Colorado’s Z Gen suicide rate is the second highest in the nation, behind Michigan.
The really scary part of reviewing the statistics is Generation Z suicides are buried in a state’s overall standings. For example, more Z Gens commit suicide in Michigan than any other state. Yet, Michigan’s overall suicide ranking places it at 33. That is, all together, people in 32 other states commit suicide more often than in Michigan. It makes Michigan look like a pretty happy place. Yet it’s pretty gloomy for 15 to 24-year-olds.
And the same thing is going on in Minnesota and even Hawaii. Minnesota is ranked 35th in the nation for suicides overall, but fifth for Z Gens. What’s happening there? And what about the gorgeous vacation destination, Hawaii? As one might guess, it’s ranked 41st in suicides overall, meaning it has one of the country’s lowest suicide rates. But it has the 10th highest rate for 15 to 24-year-olds. In fact, the states with the highest overall suicide rates are not at all correlated to the states that have the highest Generation Z suicide rates. Counselors, teachers, psychologists, parents, government agencies, and groups that care about teens’ well-being like NAMI need to pay attention to this phenomenon.
In case you’re interested, after Michigan and Colorado, the following states round out the top ten for Generation Z suicides in 2018:
- Virginia: (#35)
- Washington (#26)
- Wisconsin (#28)
- Minnesota (#35)
- Oregon: (#16)
- Kansas: (#15)
- Nebraska: (#37)
- Hawaii: (#41)
The state’s overall suicide ranking is in parentheses.
Consider this. Between 2006 and 2016, suicide rates for white children and teens between 10 and 17 shot up 70%. Think about that. In 2006, the oldest Z Gen was 11. Before age 11, there’s probably not a whole lot of suicide ideation going on. So Z Gens are responsible for that 70% increase. That’s frightening. Z Gens are killing themselves more than any other generation, ever.
As the most advanced society in the world, how have we created a culture where the youngest generation feels their only way out of feeling like crap is to off themselves? This is messed up. I get why Z Gens are worried about rising suicide rates. Why isn’t everyone worried about rising suicide rates in this age group?
I think most grownups don’t know about it. I only became aware of the depth of the suicide problem when five of my son’s friends committed suicide last year, including his girlfriend. She was 13. In fact, three of them were only 13. Z Gens must know about it. These victims are their friends. And they seemed to relate to Thirteen Reasons Why. It’s a little bizarre to worry about rising suicide rates if you delve into it. Z Gens are anxious about suicide which makes them anxious and depressed which makes them think about suicide. What a crazy merry-go-round.
Then there’s social media. Generation Z truly is the social media generation. Gen Z and social media use are legend. They love snapchat, instagram, and YouTube.
Adults love to blame social media for whatever ails teens. And some of it is well-deserved, especially for girls. Appearance is everything. The thing is, the photos girls post to snapchat and Instagram don’t portray real images. First, we put on tons of makeup, then pose, then, on top of looking our best and staging the shot, we use filters to hide our imperfections. Smartphones are so sophisticated now, we basically photoshop every Instagram picture. The troubling part is we rely on likes and follows for self-esteem, for our very identities in the world.
The emphasis on appearance is only part of it. How about snapchat maps? How are you supposed to feel when all your friends are at Phoenix’s house and you weren’t invited? Pretty bad.
Worse, there is Generation Z cyberbullying. Some call it an epidemic. About half of Z Gens have been victims but only one in three tell their parents. There are even apps that let teens bully anonymously like sarahah. Teens link sarahah to snapchat hoping for anonymous compliments. Instead, what they get are things like this: Some jerk telling a 14-year-old girl to cut or kill herself because no one likes her. Yes, social media devastates. But it’s not the only cause of Generation Z anxiety and depression as some argue. So why is Generation Z so stressed out?
Here’s what I think is causing Generation Z’s anxiety and depression. I haven’t seen any scholarly articles about my theory. It occurred to me from my the YouTube videos my son watched for a class assignment. Here’s my theory: Global exposure to things no generation has ever seen before is making Generation Z anxious and depressed.
Here’s what I mean. As part of a classroom assignment, my son chose to watch the Columbine killers shoot up kids in the school cafeteria. Real killers murdering real students. We didn’t see those videos when Columbine happened. The news stations sanitized what we saw. I had no idea one could watch the video of what was happening inside the school. Z Gens know how to access anything. (I’ve since learned the videos were made available under the open records act. It still took me quite a while to find them.)
I decided to take a look at what else is available on line. Here’s what I saw. These things happened recently. An ISIS leader beheads a Russian with a knife–a small knife. An off-duty NYPD sergeant shoots a black man in the face from five feet away. On the front lines in Syria, a father teaches his four-year-old daughter how to shoot a rifle bigger than she is and tells her to hate the Islamic State and Assad’s Regime.
No wonder Z Gens are anxious. Thanks to the internet, it’s impossible for this generation to shrug off a news story as something happening far away, as we did. No, they’re too connected. A terrorist attack at an Ariana Grande concert in London is close to home. A school shooting in Florida is even closer, no matter where in the US you live. The whole world is connected. There’s a lot to be anxious about. For us, ignorance was bliss.
Taking away teens’ phones isn’t going to solve anything. Instead, everyone involved in their upbringing needs to catch up to their technology. We need to know what they know. Learn their language metaphorically. Be there when the weight of the world is crushing. They know more than we ever did by virtue of being more connected to the world than we ever were.
Z Gens have more challenges. They have concerns that we didn’t have such as what pronoun to use when meeting someone for the first time. They worry about making mistakes. The world is infinitely more complicated if you can’t automatically call a new friend “he” or “she” without that person’s permission. Not to mention what constitutes consent. But I’ll save that for another blog post.
I strongly believe Generation Z will fix a lot of things that have gone wrong with this country. They’ll change the way corporations operate and throw out the politicians that do things the old way. They care about the environment. They’re better than anyone else at using technology to organize and actually change things. Look how they got REI and Walmart and others to stop selling guns to kids under 21 in the face of the most powerful lobby in the US—the NRA. Z Gens won where no one else could.
It would be easier for them if we could help them with their anxiety. Maybe a few teens will open up and tell their parents or psychologists why they are afraid. Because I’m afraid for them. Without them, who will save us?
Erin Glover copyright 2019
If you’re a Z Gen, and even if you’re not, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave a comment. I’ll reply.