At the same time, young people\u2019s mental health has dramatically declined. The prevalence of diagnostic-level mental disorders in Australians aged 16 to 24 jumped 50 per cent between 2007 and 2022<\/a>; nearly 50 per cent of young women have a diagnostic-level condition.<\/p>\n Milly Bannister, the founder of mental health charity ALLKND.<\/p>\n Thirty-two per cent of this group now qualify as having medically diagnosed anxiety, up from 15 per cent in 2007.<\/p>\n Importantly, this is not self-report data, but from a study using an interviewer with a standardised World Health Organisation questionnaire<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe data backs us up. We are not softer. Life is tougher,\u201d said Milly Bannister, the 28-year-old founder of mental health charity ALLKND. \u201cThe conditions are quite chronic, and so is our mental unwellness. We\u2019re completely overstretched.\u201d<\/p>\n The same trend is visible in other wealthy Western countries, such as the US or Denmark. It seems unrelated to the pandemic; data from Western countries suggest it began <\/a>early last decade.<\/p>\n When epidemiologists measure big changes in disease trends, the first question is usually: have we changed how we measure? Some scientists argue efforts to raise awareness of mental health problems actually pushed young people<\/a> to interpret mild distress as mental illness.<\/p>\n A clever study published in The Lancet in 2023<\/a> pushes against this. It compared two waves of young people, almost 20,000 in total, born in the UK 10 years apart, in 1991-92 and then 2000-02. Parents were asked to assess their kids\u2019 emotional and mental health and behaviours via a 25-question survey. Were they often unhappy, downhearted or tearful? Were they nervous, clingy or easily scared?<\/p>\n Jonathan Haidt\u2019s The Anxious Generation.<\/p>\n The two cohorts, separated only by a decade, displayed very different mental health trajectories. At age eight, the latter cohort began to experience a steep rise in emotional problems. By age 11, the difference was substantial and increasing.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery generation, their mental health is worse than the previous one,\u201d said Professor Jennie Hudson, head of child mental health at the Black Dog Institute. \u201cThere are additional pressures that are being placed on young people.\u201d<\/p>\n In his 2024 book The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt coined a term for this deterioration: the \u201cgreat rewiring of childhood\u201d. Haidt notes that youth mental health conditions have worsened at almost exactly the same time social media has emerged.<\/p>\n The Anxious Generation has been enormously influential, and Haidt\u2019s work has been positioned as key scientific support<\/a> for Australia\u2019s social media ban. \u201cThe science is settled<\/a>,\u201d South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas \u2013 a key backer of the ban \u2013 said last year.<\/p>\n But a prescient review<\/a> in prestigious science journal Nature noted: a) Haidt\u2019s hypothesis was \u201cnot supported by science\u201d, and b) the book was going to sell a lot of copies anyway.<\/p>\n Young people are heavy users of social media. They also suffer from mental ill-health. This does not mean the former causes the latter; we lack robust data showing that relationship. Correlation does not mean causation. \u201cIt is,\u201d McGorry said, \u201ca gross oversimplification.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018We have effectively been institutionally gaslighting a whole generation of children and young people by telling them the problem lies between their ears, rather than in our economic and social policies.\u2019<\/p>\n Kerry Hawkins, chief executive Community Mental Health Australia<\/p>\n A study published in Nature in 2022 suggests, confusingly<\/a>, that social media use may slightly improve life satisfaction at some ages and worsen it at others. Other reviews find these associations are typically very small<\/a>, and explain a fraction of mental health symptoms. And a meta-analysis of experimental studies, in which people were asked to give up social media for a time, suggested no difference in mental health outcomes<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re feeling hopeless and seeing news that makes you feel hopeless. It contributes to that feedback loop,\u201d said Sydney-based university student and Headspace national youth advisor Jack Tran. On the other hand, social media is the key to maintaining \u2013 and even starting \u2013 relationships for his generation, he said. \u201cIf you limit your use of social media, the only thing you\u2019re doing is limiting your connection to other people.\u201d<\/p>\n Where mainstream media largely support the government\u2019s ban, 140 Australian and international experts signed an open letter<\/a> to Albanese opposing the ban. So did \u2013 and this is an extraordinary fact \u2013 many of Australia\u2019s leading mental health organisations<\/a>, including the Black Dog Institute and Beyond Blue.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are harmful effects of social media. But it is by no means the main story,\u201d McGorry said. \u201cIt is an easy target.\u201d<\/p>\n If it\u2019s not social media, what is driving the youth mental health crisis? Here, McGorry admits to being on shaky ground. \u201cWe can\u2019t prove it; it\u2019s still a theory,\u201d he said. \u201cBut we think there is something very fundamental going wrong in society.\u201d<\/p>\n McGorry\u2019s hypothesis is at least three huge structural forces are reshaping the world young people are entering into: a housing crisis, a crisis of job insecurity and a crisis of global heating. \u201cEverything in their life is more fragile,\u201d he said. \u201cConditions are stacked against them.\u201d<\/p>\n Lani Finau moved out of home at 21 \u2013 an experience becoming less common among her peers. What happened next shows why. \u201cThat would be one of the most stressful periods of my life,\u201d she said. \u201cFiguring out how I could cover my rent week to week while I was trying to start my business. It got to the point where I couldn\u2019t hack it.\u201d<\/p>\n Safe shelter is among our most important psychological needs. But the way young people access homes has changed dramatically. Since 1947, every birth cohort tracked by demographers<\/a> has been less likely to own a home at every age point. Falling housing affordability affects all age groups, but it affects young people the most: over the past 30 years, young people have, on average, paid more and more of their wage in housing costs<\/a>.<\/p>\n Lani Finau had problems juggling living independently and starting a business.Credit: Edwina Pickles<\/p>\n \u201cMy capacity to buy a house and have children, that looks very far-fetched,\u201d said Ged Moriarty, a 25-year-old community ambassador for Movember. \u201cI don\u2019t think that pipeline \u2013 of finishing school, working for a few years, having a house, and then having a family in that house \u2013 is a bit of a foreign concept for people my age.\u201d<\/p>\n Housing insecurity translates directly into poor mental health. Dr Christiern Rose\u2019s work has shown every time someone misses a rent payment their mental health gets slugged<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s basically chronic activation of a stress response,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Ged Moriarty, 25<\/p>\n But renting itself does not seem inherently bad for us; having no security seems the real villain. Remarkable research co-authored by Dr Emma Baker<\/a> shows people who rent insecurely experience faster genetic ageing<\/a>; those with security of tenure do not. \u201cThere is something about that failure to be able to plan for the future,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n And this is something we can fix \u201cwith the stroke of a pen\u201d, Baker said. To improve mental health, we don\u2019t need to help young people buy houses. We just need to give them secure multi-year rental tenures. \u201cIf you can give security of tenure, that\u2019s equivalent to home ownership, you don\u2019t see a [mental health] difference.\u201d<\/p>\n For generations, young people have been urged to go to university to get a higher-paying job. This is still true. But a huge boom in university qualifications has led to \u201ccredential inflation\u201d: even low-paid jobs often require a degree now<\/a>. The wage-premium for people with a master\u2019s degree or higher dropped 21.5 per cent between 2011 and 2021. Average student debt has risen 145 per cent <\/a>over the past 20 years.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have effectively been institutionally gaslighting a whole generation of children and young people by telling them the problem lies between their ears, rather than in our economic and social policies,\u201d said Community Mental Health Australia chief executive Kerry Hawkins.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s artificial intelligence. AI company Anthropic is predicting 50 per cent of entry-level white-collar jobs<\/a> will be extinct in five years. The US is already seeing increases in long-term unemployed college graduates<\/a>. \u201cWe have a very insecure job market flooded by AI \u2013 that\u2019s enough insecurity to drive anyone of any age into an existential crisis,\u201d Millie Bannister said.<\/p>\n But here, the evidence is less clear-cut about the risks to mental health.<\/p>\n Young people have always experienced insecure work, as they are just starting their careers. There\u2019s no evidence this has changed, said Professor Roger Wilkins, the deputy director of the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, even as youth mental health has worsened.<\/p>\n But employment insecurity tends to be more perceived than actual. If young people are being told their career prospects are worse \u2013 or about to be eaten by AI \u2013 that can cause them to feel their jobs are more insecure, even if \u201cthat gulf hasn\u2019t increased\u201d, Wilkins said.<\/p>\n \u201cBollocks!\u201d That\u2019s the response British psychotherapist and climate researcher Caroline Hickman has when asked on Zoom if social media is to blame for the youth mental health crisis, and whether this crisis is limited to the West.<\/p>\n Loading<\/p>\n She points to qualitative research \u2013 also published in The Lancet \u2013 that shows 76 per cent of young people in Australia think the future is frightening. Half think humanity is doomed. The figures are even worse in the Philippines, India, Portugal and Brazil.<\/p>\n \u201cIt may perpetuate it,\u201d Hickman said of social media. \u201cAs in, young people are numbing themselves. But you have to look at other factors.\u201d<\/p>\n Feeling dismissed or ignored by adults were common themes among those interviewed by Lancet researchers. \u201cIt\u2019s a culture of uncare that\u2019s gotten us into this mess,\u201d Hickman said.<\/p>\n Hickman is one of a growing number of mental health professionals who are convinced growing up with climate change is an \u201cadverse childhood experience\u201d, akin to a direct or indirect experience of war or terrorism.<\/p>\n \u201cWith other global threats, how does humanity stay positive? Everyone imagines rebuilding. But we cannot rebuild from the climate crisis because you cannot reverse the effects. Even if we went to zero carbon emissions tomorrow, heat would continue to rise. The amount of flooding would increase,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Western Sydney medical student Usha Makkena, who is also a Headspace national youth advisor, is clear about her time volunteering at youth workshops. \u201cClimate change and climate anxiety was the No.1 topic,\u201d she said. \u201cThe stress and helplessness people felt was real. We\u2019re being handed a crisis we didn\u2019t create, but we\u2019re expected to solve it.\u201d<\/p>\n For Makkena, who was 17 during the 2019-20 bushfire season \u2013 when smoke clouded the sky for days on end \u2013 the most disheartening thing about climate anxiety was being dismissed by adults.<\/p>\n \u201cToo often, in my experience, I\u2019ve been met with, \u2018You\u2019re overthinking it, don\u2019t worry, everything will work out.\u2019 It\u2019s well-meaning, but invalidating,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Medical student Usha Makkena.<\/p>\n At its core, climate anxiety is a sense of fear and distress about the future effects of climate change. While not a formal medical diagnosis, it is recognised that negative emotions can trigger panic attacks and sleep disturbances, particularly in young people.<\/p>\n Australian environmental philosopher Glenn Albrecht said healthcare professionals and climate researchers need to adopt new language to effectively respond to what\u2019s unfolding.<\/p>\n \u201cTrauma. Dread. I can think of much worse things than anxiety that people are thinking about in relation to the future,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Albrecht has been writing about \u201cpsychoterratic\u201d distress \u2013 powerful emotions triggered by environmental events like floods and fires \u2013 for decades. The term \u201cpsychoterratic\u201d comes from combining the Greek word psyche (mind) with the Latin terra (earth).<\/p>\n More recently, he\u2019s coined a new term: solastalgia. That is, nostalgia for a sense of solace.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the inability to find solace in a world that\u2019s being eroded day by day,\u201d Albrecht said. \u201cIt\u2019s typically chronic, not acute. Your life becomes desolated. We\u2019re not going to get our way out of solastalgia with therapy or medication. None of that\u2019s going to work because solastalgia is caused by negative structural changes to our home, the Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n The solution, Albrecht said, was a radical shift in not just thinking, but the way society is fundamentally organised and operates.<\/p>\n He\u2019s dubbed this new era the Symbiocene \u2013 a new industrial revolution, one based on bioscience. Think of a zero-pollution future where plastic packaging is made from algae, and buildings from mycelium, the fibrous structures belonging to fungi.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Hickman, the British psychotherapist, said it was time to stop ignoring or dismissing children\u2019s fears about a changing climate.<\/p>\n Loading<\/p>\n \u201cYou can bloody well talk to your kids about it. That makes a difference to their mental health,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n So how young is too young? Well, children as young as five or six are already absorbing information from the news and schoolyard, Hickman said. She then reaches past the edge of the Zoom screen to retrieve two puppets, an elephant and a wolf.<\/p>\n \u201cYou give the child the puppet and you say, \u2018What does the elephant know about climate change? How does climate change affect elephants?\u2019 They\u2019ll tell you everything, and they won\u2019t be scared and upset because children love to talk, tell stories.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no way we should avoid talking about it. But of course, you\u2019ve got to make it acceptable and tolerable.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s a powerful message. It\u2019s also, for McGorry, a deeply troubling one. \u201cIt\u2019s an easy target. A simple…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":187680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[49,48,84,393,394],"class_list":{"0":"post-187679","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Milly](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/77b066ded1480c5d03973f9a6f5bcadee314e7bf.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Jonathan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/d2be8578b83f8f78b933d29178d7ff98acb273cc.jpeg\")
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<\/p>\n![\"Ged](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/876bfe3c30ba1d0660bdb7ce935016886a3e5e49.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Medical](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/9540949104667819b0a5226d9f31175c2ad1ec21.jpeg\")
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