Why Are so Many Young People Unhappy? | 5 Minute Video

Why are young people so unhappy and so anxious about their future? Healthcare professionals and social scientists round up the usual suspects: drug addiction, social media, cyberbullying, fear of impending demise of the planet. See anything important missing from that list? Dennis Prager does.

This video was made possible by a generous grant from Colorado Christian University. CCU is offering PragerU subscribers a $1,000 scholarship for online courses through CCU Online. Learn more at PragerU.com/CCU

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Script:

Why are so many young people unhappy?

To cite just one example, Reuters reported in 2019 that “Suicidal thinking, severe depression and rates of self-injury among U.S. college students more than doubled over less than a decade.”

And unhappiness is hardly confined to Americans. As the social commentator Kay Hymowitz recently wrote, “Germans are lonely, the bon vivant French are lonely, and even the Scandinavians . . . are lonely. The British prime minister . . . recently appointed a ‘Minister of Loneliness.’”

People have more money, better health, better housing, more education, and live longer than at any time in history, but people—especially the young—are unhappier than at any time since data began to be collected.

Why?

There are any number of reasons: increased drug and opioid addiction, less human interaction because of constant cellphone use, and young people’s fears for their future are the most widely offered explanations. But the biggest reason is the loss of values and meaning.

Let’s begin with values, and I'll focus on America.

The United States was founded on two sets of values: Judeo-Christian and American. This combination created the freest, most opportunity-giving, most affluent country in world history. This is not chauvinism. It is fact. That’s why people from every country on Earth have wanted to emigrate to America—and still do.

Chief among the American values was keeping government as small as possible. This enabled non-governmental institutions—Kiwanis, Rotary and Lions Clubs; book clubs; the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts; bowling leagues; music societies; and, of course, churches—to provide Americans with friends and to provide the neediest Americans with help. But as government has gotten ever larger, many of these non-governmental groups have dwindled in number or simply disappeared.

Another set of values is referred to as middle class or bourgeois values. These include getting married before having a child, making a family, getting a job, self-discipline, delayed gratification, and patriotism.

All of these have been under attack by America’s elites, with the following results: The majority of births to millennials are to unmarried women. Yet, according to a 2018 Cigna study, single parents are generally the loneliest of Americans. The percentage of American adults who have never been married and who have no children is at an historic high.

Then there is patriotism. Until the 1960s, Americans grew up loving their country, admiring the Founders, and believing in America’s values—most especially, liberty. Americans did not ignore the bad parts of their history, but they were wise enough to recognize that what made America exceptional was not its flaws, which were all universal, but its virtues, which were not. This strong American identity provided generations of Americans with roots, community, optimism, and meaning.

Which brings me to the most important reason for all this unhappiness: a lack of meaning. As Victor Frankl, the renowned Austrian-American psychoanalyst, wrote in his masterpiece, Man’s Search for Meaning, aside from food, the greatest human need is meaning. And nothing has given Americans―or any other people, for that matter―as much meaning as religion. But in the West since World War II, God and religion have been relegated to the dustbin of history. The result is that more than a third of Americans born after 1980 affiliate with no religion. This is unprecedented in American history. And it’s even worse in Europe.

[PragerU]

This video was made possible by a generous grant from Colorado Christian University. CCU is offering PragerU subscribers a $1, 000 scholarship for online courses through CCU Online. Learn more at PragerU.com/CCU

[lildragon]

Before I watch, here are my reasons:

Nihilism - People believe there is no purpose in life

Social Media - People compare the highlights of other people's lives with the worst of theirs

Societal Problems - People believe problems are societal rather than individual and feel helpless in fixing them

Hedonism/Utilitarianism - People live just for happiness and pleasure, but as soon as happiness and pleasure go away, they are left with emptiness

[Mansini]

To quote a little known clinical psychologist, “Pursue what is meaningful, not what is expedient”

[empirestate]

Don't forget divorce. It's one of the most traumatizing and destructive things in the US.

[agustinorduno]

Less human interaction. Meaning that we are spending more time working and using technology.

[welkinator]

Mark Twain said: "The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why."

[sword]

High schools put enormous pressure on students and still don’t prepare them for college

[bechemayuk]

“Pursue what is meaningful, not what is expedient.” - Pordan Jeterson

[Section.]

Kids don’t truly know how to develop meaningful relationships anymore.

[xallthatremains]

Social media, loss of moral values, helicopter parenting, single parent households, the dumbing down of the public school curriculum, the rise of instant gratification, the expectation that life should be easy (it's not and never has been) just to name a few

[mehdin]

Social media ruins people's self-esteem and abilities to connect. I recently went to a birthday dinner and everyone was taking insta-stories of their food and clips of the moment. It looked fun when watching those stories online but in reality the dinner party was boring. Hardly engaging and some of us went home earlier than expected.
It's also so hard to find a good friend these days, there is no sense of community and some of us barely know our neighbours.

[AndreyUrman]

The biggest reason is the bombardment of instant gratification through video games, social media and app UI&UX designed just for that.
This is a world of addicts and nobody seems to notice. It's become so ingrained, that 30 minutes without checking your phone makes you
feel sad, disconnected, lonely, depressed and in a constant feeling of craving all the time without being able to find fulfillment.
Social media is the beginning of the end.

[buddhikathambugala]

I'm an Atheist.. Yet I can't help agreeing wholeheartedly..

When Hector of Troy was confronted by the vast Spartan army, he declared the three values he had always lived by..

Honor your Gods
Love your woman
Defend your country!!

Let me be clear.. You don't have to have a religion to have Gods.. An enthusiastic humanist believes in upliftment of human condition through generosity and altruism, empathy and equity, love and justice.. Above all, through liberty.. Your Gods don't necessarily have to be Yahweh or Allah, Buddha or Krishna!! Let them be these values you hold so dearly, and hold onto them dearly!!

I don't even have to describe the promiscuous world we live today.. Love, commitment and responsibility are barely more than the words of dictionary.. Too many young lives have their futures cut short due to unwise relationship and parenthood choices..

Instead of having genuine and strong political convictions, people have become pawns of globalist ideologies.. People no longer honor the great predesessors who bled in the battlefields to deliver us from tyranny, took on big empires to win us independence, and died in prisons so that we can vote, go to school, and get a job.. You don't have to love one single country if you don't want to.. But honor the great men and women who won us what we have.. First of all, learn some history!!

[mlittlitt]

We were taught to hate ourselves, our country, heritage, and religion

[derpster]

People don't have a clear purpose or point in their life that keeps them going. They need some sort of responsibility and control over their lives.

[alyssachantaychampagne]

It has been 5 months since this video came out. 5 months since I first watched this video. I cannot put into words how much I have been affected by this. In the past 5 months the world has gone to shambles, but I've been the happiest I've ever been. It can all be traced back to this very video. Thank you Dennis Prager, thank you.

[Bella]

"BuT there is always Instagram " 😂

[elmagnificodep]

I’m an older Millennial. I’m 38 and sometimes known as a Xennial. I’ll say that life was much simpler without social media. I do realize that YouTube is social media, but this is the only platform I use. I haven’t been on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. since 2018. I haven’t had one “friend” make an attempt to reach out to me to see what happened to me. People are too consumed swiping on their phone to care about others.

[duchi]

*"Why are so Many Young People Unhappy?"*

Why do I feel called out

[zarmindrow]

The decline really stared when disco died out. We just need to return to our disco roots.