So does “crashing out” speak to a cultural current impacting New Zealand’s young people? Or is it just a linguistic trend? Susanna Trnka, a professor of anthropology at the University of Auckland, said it’s both.
Susanna Trnka is a researcher and professor of anthropology at the University of Auckland.
“The phrase alerts us to the kinds of issues that are key for young people today, mainly how structural issues like unemployment, racism, and homophobia… are negatively impacting on young people’s life experiences and therefore on their mental wellbeing.”
Supported by the Royal Society, Trnka interviewed 235 New Zealanders aged 14–24 about health and recorded her findings in her newly released book, Healthization: Turning Life into Health. What it revealed was “generationally distinctive”.
She said the young people she interviewed spoke of the societal need to be open about mental health, and viewed themselves as “the generation that’s attempting to break down taboos about openly talking about mental health challenges”.
Trnka said it was worth noting that “crashing out” is occurring within the context of the “attention economy”.
“Attention is an increasingly scarce resource,” said Trnka. “Given the dynamics of social media, which provides so many competing avenues to capture our attention, our attention is increasingly valuable. Simply put, attention is money.”
Trnka said that helps understand why a crash-out looks intense, and why others think it is performative and attention-seeking.
Trnka said this is a Catch-22: “Young people promote speaking out about mental health challenges, but they are also very critical of anyone they think might be using them to seek attention.”
Crashing out is also used linguistically with validation, as was the case with the most-liked comment on Jeacoma’s viral TikTok. One person declares they are going to crash out, while the other may disapprove, saying, “No, that’s not a valid crash out,” Trnka explained.
Through talking to young people about health, Trnka said she never imagined things like looking good, putting on makeup and using a self-tracker to make sure you meet a friend for coffee at least once a week were all part of what could be considered “health”.
But being healthy isn’t what it used to be, she noted. “I’m not saying they were unimportant, but whether I had a boyfriend or whether I had a peer group wasn’t part of health a generation ago”.
In the first chapter of Healthization, Trnka wrote: “The sheer number of activities that youth describe as elements of their health is immense, covering a wide range of human experiences – from videogaming to ‘numb’ their emotions, or scheduling a set number of hours weekly to spend with their friends, to running until they feel intense pain, or wearing lipstick to spread a good vibe – all examples that arose in our interviews.”
What surprised Trnka was how much young people cared that other people, like their peers or family, also put in the effort to take care of their health.
For instance, Trnka recalled one woman she interviewed who lived in a dormitory: “She said, ‘whenever I go for a run, I try and get people to come with me because they’re the people I care about and it’s important for them too. Some people just need a bit of a push, and I’m the one who’ll give them a push’.”
The research also found young people attached a sense of morality to health. “For many of them, health isn’t about being a patient in the medical system; it is a moral approach to how one lives their life,” Trnka wrote in the book.
But can that also be detrimental to their mental health? Trnka thinks so. Some young people she interviewed talked about “a real sense of moral failure” if they couldn’t fit their intended health routines in a day.
So what will health mean to New Zealand’s youth 10 years from now?
“I’d be surprised if 10 years from now, people still weren’t talking about health as … the primary thing that they’re aiming for, but I’ll see,” said Trnka. “I’m more than happy to be surprised.”
Varsha Anjali is a journalist in the lifestyle team at the Herald. Based in Auckland, she covers culture, travel and more.