Do teenagers today face more stress than previous gen’s?

If teens really are under more stress, it ain't coming from school.

I went to the local McD's (my first mistake) yesterday, and an obese teen was working the counter. The cash register broke down, and he had no clue how to calculate how much change to give. After some obviously incorrect attempts at basic math, he gave up and called his supervisor, who whipped out a smartphone to do the tough calcs.

I am similar to you (50s and teen kids) and yes I think there is more crap.

With the internet you see friends doing all these fun things on Instagram and you are home doing nothing and start to think that you are missing out (FOMO) and that everyone else is living an amazing life and you are not. (Heck adults have this issue too).

No one is posting about the anxieties they are facing.

While we all had the potential to face a bully at school, now kids get bullied on the internet from people across town and even the country.

I am not sure that the pressure to succeed is any greater now though.

No. They don't. It's just seen more with social media.

Stop following the brainwashing of TV/Radio and the indoctrinating educational system etc. be happier.

Well I don't qualify as a teenager in the real sense of the word, but what I clearly notice is that no one is willing to give a young man a chance.

I graduated but sometimes even wonder if it was worth it because every corporation I've tried to come by either isn't willing to give me a chance to work or flat out sc**w me big time. I pretty much volunteered for 2 days without knowing for a big company because they made me think I've signed the actual contract. Turns out it wasn't and now they refuse to pay for my work.

If they pull this s**t to 1000 guys per month then how can a guy not be angry? The wealth is all on one side!

Of course the adults who are cozy with their well paying job today will disregard any struggles of this generation. And that includes parents as well, they love to see you beg even when it was their generation who made it hard (unwillingly or not) for the next one.

I couldn't even afford to rent an apartment of my own even if they pay me the minimum wage, which clearly seems to be the reference bosses go by these days, even for people who completed college and have actual skills. It's sad really.

Statistically, 75% of people who graduate are still unemployed in the next year. That's how shi**y my country's youth have it. And it's a E.U country.

And no, I'm not on social media everyday, seeking approval and crying for not being tagged, that's a waste of time and it's producing a generation of cowards in my opinion.

Social media causes problems for sure but it has more to do with the pervasiveness of technology and removing the need to actually do a lot of certain things in life.

This isn’t just technology in the sense of your standard phone and computer but the long line of industrialization. Jacques Ellul was onto this in the 60s and it was surely well entrenched prior. It has lots to do with the unquestioning nature that one poster alluded to.

You couple that with parents giving their children a screen at nearly birth and kids don’t know how to be alone, question life, and come out the other side.

I am actually not sure if suicide rate is up; it’s one of those things (also noted by another poster) where we are just more aware. And once you have an inclination about something, you can just google it to death and suffocate in the vacuum.

David Foster Wallace intuits this all too with the concept of the neverending feedback loop in E Unibus Plurum.

So what’s the answer? I don’t know. But less digital interaction and more human-to-human or human-to-nature interaction should be a good start.