How Gen Z Turned Mental Illness Into a Trend

Welcome to the generation that inherited anxiety, debt, and a dying planet. In this new video, we dig into why Gen Z is now the most depressed generation in history.

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[TheInfographicsShow]

🤔Gen Z spends over $2, 600 a year on therapy and meds. Is it helping, or just keeping them afloat? Is mental health care becoming another monthly bill they can’t afford to skip?

[piobmhor]

I’m a boomer, but I suppose I’m not the stereotypical boomer as I realize the struggle subsequent generations have. I look at it this way, my Great Depression/WW2 dad never finished high school, and never had much of a continuing education throughout his life. He worked in a factory where in 1961 a new probationary employee made $2.85/hour. With a 2, 000 man/hour year (before overtime) would earn $5, 700/year. On this single income, he could raise a family. He bought a house in 1961 for $5, 000 which was the equivalent of just under one year’s salary for a newly hired factory worker. Although he had a 25 year mortgage, they paid it out early at around 15 years. Once the house was paid for, my parents bought a cottage and a boat for summer recreation. They enjoyed a comfortable retirement, not an extravagant one, with a company pension augmented with CPP (Canadian version of Social Security). They’re both gone now.

Next generation, my wife and I are university educated. I graduated with no student debt having gained my education through the military, and my wife graduated with a couple thousand in student debt which we paid off in three years after graduation. We both worked at decent white collar jobs and bought our house which was valued at three years of our combined salaries, or what would have been six years on a single income. Like my parents, we paid our 25 year mortgage in 15. We have no cottage, no boat and a self-contributed RRSP (Canadian version of a 401K) because of a very meagre company pension plan.

Although we never had children, of my nephews and nieces there are only two who are homeowners. They will never be free from their mortgages until they sell, so they will never live long enough to be truly mortgage or rent-free. The subsequent generations (millennials and Gen z) have it even worse. They will never be able to save up enough for a down payment, let alone afford a mortgage. The best they could hope for is to some day be able to afford an apartment on their own without roommates instead of living in their parents’ basement. Post-secondary education is a luxury for the rich, or a financial millstone around your neck for decades; this severely limits your ability to save and plan for any kind of future. Basically they are living paycheque to paycheque which is surviving not thriving. I can definitely see why they are depressed. Hope is a beautiful motivator, but without it, devastating.

When I was a kid in the 1960s and 70s, we would read the sci-fi stories about what a wonderful future was ahead. We knew that by 2025 we wouldn’t necessarily be driving around in flying cars or living in colonies on the moon, but what we did believe in was that each generation SHOULD have it better than the previous one; after all they would be standing on the shoulders of the previous one. Something went very, very wrong.

[boysponge]

Everything is too expensive and wages are too low.

[mv]

Greed. Greed & the rich abusing everything with no punishment. It's very simple.

[moorebobbijo]

They also complain we are not having enough kids, yet we dont have the resources. You need daycare to get a job, but need a job to pay for daycare. Yet the job usually doesn't pay enough to make working and daycare possible. Yet you need a double income household just to survive. Then they ask, why dont you get family to help? You mean the same family that dropped their kid off at the grandparents' house every weekend and long holiday. God forbid you ask them for help. They are out living their lives and barely see the grandkids they claim to love so much. It takes a village to raise a child, yet those villages burned down a long time ago. Family doesnt mean what it used to.

[Finalboss]

With the way things are going in this country, every single generation is going to be depressed.

[DoctorKnockersMD]

Gen Z: “We’re heading into a recession, the world is on fire, and everything is unaffordable.”

Boomers: “It’s those pesky iPhones.”

[ToasterWaffles]

It’s because we have no future. Most of us work low paying jobs and the world just throws rocks at us. I work two jobs that pay around $20 and it’s not enough to get ahead. And the world is rude as FCK. I would never be rude to someone just doing their job yet people do it everyday.

[aparks]

“you will own nothing, and you will be happy”

[Neopolitan_Illusion]

I'm Gen Z, from the Philippines. Saw past the education scam more prominent post-pandemic. I had zero idea on how to build wealth and so I just focused at my health for several months after graduation.

Even so I'm having troubles as the elders demand I generate income and all that while I'm just stabilizing my mental health without much direct help. I'm not much of a complainer, but I just lost the idea of a good future apart from just being healthy and mobile.

[MajorSvenGaming]

Inequality is why they are depressed. These poor kids will likely never own homes or assets. I don't blame them for the depression.

[toupeiragamer]

I think it's mostly human connection.

You can get through some terrible stuff in life if you have people by your side who will slowly walk the path of life with you and support you all the way through, but that's something that's becoming rare nowadays, specially when it comes to dating.

I really think it's not the lack of money or opportunity that kills, but the lack of genuine connections.

[jink]

I'm at the tail end of Millennial and life just became progressively worse as I grew up and all I hear by my family is that I'm being lazy and don't work hard enough too.

GL to you Gen Z and Gen Alpha. I've already given up. Lost my career as a LEO during covid and dropped out of school. I have 0 faith in my ability to survive.

[lolmao]

If you aint depressed, youre in deep denial about the state of the world and the future.

[xRiPwlFx]

Money is the root of depression in America, because money is the mobility to do anything in the US. Without money, there is no education, extremely limited opportunity, worse health, worse relationships, and a numb population. A population that eats away the pain, binges away the pain, medicates the way the pain, and distracts away the pain with social media and other unproductive things. Especially in the dynamic of relationships, I am seeing young women more and more with older men for economic viability - so I would expect most of the depression is on young men. This system has emasculated young men, and they are feeling like they have no options.

[giuseppers]

" But don't worry, it gets worse!". Sums it all up.

[twistednipz]

The ingredients (poison) in our food, everything being labeled a condition with medication to accompany it, a trip to the grocery store will easily cost $100 for a handful of items, the fact that it’s difficult to afford a home even with two incomes, constant financial worries and social media are just a few reasons why people nowadays are more depressed than say 20-30 years ago.

[poeterritory]

What amuses me is that people insist that it's a great thing that health care costs so much. After all, why should poor people get medical treatment?

[Epodmusic]

My sister is a mental health counselor with a master's degree. She's s year Older than me and we're both millennials. She works with families, married couples, and children. She has three jobs. She lives in a one bedroom one bathroom apartment and has a paraplegic dog. She is still struggling to save. I dont even see a way for us to be able to save up for a home or for children. We did "everything right." Graduated from college debt free, kept our credit up, got masters degrees, got good careers, saved money, saved for retirement, and yet I dont see myself being able to afford retirement with the money I do have saved up for it. It is HARD out here. I can't even imagine how it is for others. It doesn't at sll surprise me that Gen Z is depressed.

[JKM]

Boomers: you would be able to afford a house if you were willing to stop your Netflix subscription