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

Real life teen here.

First of all, thanks for the generalizations by everybody. As you all know hundreds of millions of people through the world (or tens of millions in the US) all act and think in the same way.

I can’t compare my stress levels to that of others very well, but I can tell you about my junior year.

As a straight and white male from a middle class family (two professors for parents) with divorced and remarried parents I think I probably experienced very little social stress in comparison with many of my peers.

I took 5 AP classes my Junior year and maintained an unweighted 4.0 (94 or higher in every class). I was able to manage this load by doing most of my homework before and during school, and studying through easy classes, so I could have some free time after practice.

I ran xc, indoor, and outdoor my junior year, posting outdoor PRs of 1:59 and 4:24 (800,1600), so I was able to reach both of the goals I set at the beginning of the season. Reaching 60 mpw was manageable with only a few runs before school and a long run on Sunday.

I also did academic team at my school (for fun) and we reached the semifinal in the state tournament.

I was able to find time for reading, watching TV and playing with my dog, but I was only able to hang out with friends a couple of times during the school year (not counting breaks).

I don’t have an Instagram or Facebook. I do snapchat, but just to a few friends.

I didn’t feel too much stressI just didn’t feel like I had very much free time. I did get sick more than usual for me last year.

They should have been teenagers during WWII,Korea and Vietnam. That was stressful.

Which generation I assume you are skipping ones when world wars happened or over a hundred years ago when disease and poverty was rife?

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Philosophizer wrote:

I believe social media has a lot to do with stress today. This feeds into a whole egocentrism of today's culture (mostly in developed countries). Social media has manifested into a whole "look at me, I'm successful because of X" or a whole "no look over here because I accomplished Y" today's generation is over exposed to so much "hey look at me" that they have a hard time at truly identifying themselves and how to express themselves due to so much pressure of being judged not by just their inner circle of peers but by everyone who is 'following' them from around the world. Teenagers already have an "imaginary audience" (that feeling as a child when it felt like everyone was looking or judging you based on your hair style that day or perhaps you have a minor blemish on your face and everyone is talking about or exclusively focusing on that hair style). This imaginary audience is amplified by engaging into social media. The stuff kids do to one up each other or create new inventive ways to get "likes" or "views" is far different now. I could on and on about it, but to people who think that social media has nothing to do with anything has to be kidding themselves.

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Comrade of War - I see your point. If the demographics I see are accurate, there are more teens in the situation I was in than ever before.

I think the culture and economy today is vastly different today, however. I worked a summer job as a teamster in a warehouse. The guys there were like fathers to me, and I certainly didn't have any reason to think I was a victim or less fortunate. How many union jobs are available today to high school and college kids for the summer, i.e., tough, but well paid jobs that connect to people with real middle class values? I am talking 14 dollars an hour in 1977. Not as many as there were. I had that job before wide scale de-industrialization hit America. That job paid my travel and living expenses for an entire school year (travel was the expensive item, even on scholarship). It was a different time in another way, too. The guys at the warehouse really pushed me to do well at school - it was a matter of pride to them, because it was what they wanted for their kids, too. And it made sense - one could get a college degree in the late 70's - especially at the school I went to - and have it be an entryway into a good career, without much regard to a major or even grade point. This can't happen today - the value of a college degree has diminished, and in this sense things are indeed tougher for this generation. Add to the mix that young people often have ridiculous amounts of student loan debt, and yes, little wonder the environment is less conducive to avoiding pressure.

I don't think it critical at all of today's young people to suggest that freedom is a great thing for them, and to give them the space and accountability to handle it. It is just harder to do today, that's all - and for some very good reasons.

(My two daughters were spoiled, with cars, vacations, Ivy League educations, and so on. I don't think I necessarily did them any favors with all of this, but it was my own selfish way of demonstrating achievement by making them happy and avoiding suffering in any way - we all live and learn. They are completely self-sufficient however, and all is well).

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Real life specimen wrote:

Real life teen here.

First of all, thanks for the generalizations by everybody. As you all know hundreds of millions of people through the world (or tens of millions in the US) all act and think in the same way.

I can’t compare my stress levels to that of others very well, but I can tell you about my junior year.

As a straight and white male from a middle class family (two professors for parents) with divorced and remarried parents I think I probably experienced very little social stress in comparison with many of my peers.

I took 5 AP classes my Junior year and maintained an unweighted 4.0 (94 or higher in every class). I was able to manage this load by doing most of my homework before and during school, and studying through easy classes, so I could have some free time after practice.

I ran xc, indoor, and outdoor my junior year, posting outdoor PRs of 1:59 and 4:24 (800,1600), so I was able to reach both of the goals I set at the beginning of the season. Reaching 60 mpw was manageable with only a few runs before school and a long run on Sunday.

I also did academic team at my school (for fun) and we reached the semifinal in the state tournament.

I was able to find time for reading, watching TV and playing with my dog, but I was only able to hang out with friends a couple of times during the school year (not counting breaks).

I don’t have an Instagram or Facebook. I do snapchat, but just to a few friends.

I didn’t feel too much stressI just didn’t feel like I had very much free time. I did get sick more than usual for me last year.

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Real life specimen wrote:

Real life teen here.

First of all, thanks for the generalizations by everybody. As you all know hundreds of millions of people through the world (or tens of millions in the US) all act and think in the same way.

I can’t compare my stress levels to that of others very well, but I can tell you about my junior year.

As a straight and white male from a middle class family (two professors for parents) with divorced and remarried parents I think I probably experienced very little social stress in comparison with many of my peers.

I took 5 AP classes my Junior year and maintained an unweighted 4.0 (94 or higher in every class). I was able to manage this load by doing most of my homework before and during school, and studying through easy classes, so I could have some free time after practice.

I ran xc, indoor, and outdoor my junior year, posting outdoor PRs of 1:59 and 4:24 (800,1600), so I was able to reach both of the goals I set at the beginning of the season. Reaching 60 mpw was manageable with only a few runs before school and a long run on Sunday.

I also did academic team at my school (for fun) and we reached the semifinal in the state tournament.

I was able to find time for reading, watching TV and playing with my dog, but I was only able to hang out with friends a couple of times during the school year (not counting breaks).

I don’t have an Instagram or Facebook. I do snapchat, but just to a few friends.

I didn’t feel too much stressI just didn’t feel like I had very much free time. I did get sick more than usual for me last year.

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John Utah wrote:

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Real life specimen wrote:

Real life teen here.

First of all, thanks for the generalizations by everybody. As you all know hundreds of millions of people through the world (or tens of millions in the US) all act and think in the same way.

I can’t compare my stress levels to that of others very well, but I can tell you about my junior year.

As a straight and white male from a middle class family (two professors for parents) with divorced and remarried parents I think I probably experienced very little social stress in comparison with many of my peers.

I took 5 AP classes my Junior year and maintained an unweighted 4.0 (94 or higher in every class). I was able to manage this load by doing most of my homework before and during school, and studying through easy classes, so I could have some free time after practice.

I ran xc, indoor, and outdoor my junior year, posting outdoor PRs of 1:59 and 4:24 (800,1600), so I was able to reach both of the goals I set at the beginning of the season. Reaching 60 mpw was manageable with only a few runs before school and a long run on Sunday.

I also did academic team at my school (for fun) and we reached the semifinal in the state tournament.

I was able to find time for reading, watching TV and playing with my dog, but I was only able to hang out with friends a couple of times during the school year (not counting breaks).

I don’t have an Instagram or Facebook. I do snapchat, but just to a few friends.

I didn’t feel too much stressI just didn’t feel like I had very much free time. I did get sick more than usual for me last year.

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1. Why would you feel the need to say that you are straight? I typically don’t include facts like oxygen-breathing mammal. Or clothes-wearing and regular teeth-brusher.

2. The point is the relative difference between now and then. Your “not too much stress” could be 10x of historical stress levels.

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Stressed about what? Having the latest iPhone?

In the 50s and 60s boys were subject to the draft, and everyone was concerned about the threat of nuclear annihilation. A president had been assassinated and there were riots all over the country. Today's problems don't compare.

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John Utah wrote:

Why would you feel the need to say that you are straight? I typically don’t include facts like oxygen-breathing mammal. Or clothes-wearing and regular teeth-brusher.

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I have been following this thread for a while, and I have some thoughts to share.

1. You guys think it's mostly about social media. But that's not all of it. I'm a high school senior and I can tell you that people just want to impress their peers in general. Even if there was not social media, students still feel pressure to impress their friends. They want to be at the top of their class. They want to take the most AP classes. They want to be the most involved. They want to show everybody that they are better than everyone else. We are a generation of perfectionists.

2. Are you all not aware that most high school students have a job, many of them even during the school year? Yes, kids should learn to work hard, but there comes a points where there should at least be some time to exercise your own passions. Kids who are in sports might have school and practice during the week, plus homework. Then they often work on the weekends. No breaks. And then you add in the additional stress from college applications, scholarships, high tuition, ACT/SAT, GPA, AP classes, clubs, etc., and it just gets to be too much sometimes.

Definitely. The Information Age has made our lives more complex, inneficient, and competitive.

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Runsmith wrote:

I have been following this thread for a while, and I have some thoughts to share.

1. You guys think it's mostly about social media. [i]But that's not all of it.[/u] I'm a high school senior and I can tell you that people just want to impress their peers in general. Even if there was not social media, students still feel pressure to impress their friends. They want to be at the top of their class. They want to take the most AP classes. They want to be the most involved. They want to show everybody that they are better than everyone else. We are a generation of perfectionists.

2. Are you all not aware that most high school students have a job, many of them even during the school year? Yes, kids should learn to work hard, but there comes a points where there should at least be some time to exercise your own passions. Kids who are in sports might have school and practice during the week, plus homework. Then they often work on the weekends. No breaks. And then you add in the additional stress from college applications, scholarships, high tuition, ACT/SAT, GPA, AP classes, clubs, etc., and it just gets to be too much sometimes.

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A LDS Mom of 4 wrote:

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Sasha Pachev wrote:

I feel that teenagers today are doing a lot of academic work with rather poor results. 7 hours of class time + however many hours of home work for years to score only 20 on the ACT on average by the age of 18. Using other measures, try talking to a random high school student about something he learned 6 months ago in any of his classes - in most cases you will discover glaring ignorance of the subject matter.

There has to be a better way to do this. My wife and I are not professional educators, we have ten kids, I work full-time (though from home), she chases the little ones all day long, our kids being home-schooled and studying maybe 3 hours a day total are able to go above 30 on the ACT by the time they are 16. We do not cram a whole lot of material into them, but we make sure they remember what we have taught them. We also make sure to focus on the skills that are critical for future growth rather than spending a lot of time memorizing tangential facts that without the foundational context will be quickly forgotten. We try to give them a strong reason why with the vision of becoming a provider not only for yourself but also for a potentially large family as early as possible, as well as a contributing member of society that makes a positive difference. With that vision they learn to see daunting math equations, physics formulas, and lines of programming code as something that will put food on the table, give them independence, and allow them to help others when they are grown.

I think what needs to happen is that the schools should have a clear vision of what they are trying to make out of the teenagers they are teaching - help them become independent productive members of society with the ability to comfortably support themselves and a small family by their early 20s rather than find themselves in a lot of debt by the time they are 30 with not a lot of practical skills that would pull them out of it. With that vision somebody better trained in educational methods and with the ability to focus 100% on the task of educating will attain the results that are at least similar to ours, and likely better.

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Hey Sasha. I’ve seen your name in the news a lot. I do agree that teenagers could be much more productive, but I also want you to realize what “average “ means. The average teen doesn’t necessarily do all the hours of homework and school you seem to think they are doing. Kids who are raised in a 2-parent home to college-educated LDS adults have a better shot at succeeding in life than the average kid from those studies. Your kids are pretty amazing, but not necessarily because of homeschooling. They probably would have succeeded in a traditional setting as well.

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Teenagers have always had the stress of figuring out their path and in actually succeeding in it. Todays teens are no different than past teens as far as stress.

Two things are different.

(1) In the 70's teens and young adults expected to be poor starting out. Today's teens and young adults spend more and expect to have more quicker.

(2) Today's teens and young adults are weaker. Those who were teenagers in the 60's and 70's never had their parents in the high school to help them. Made decisions regarding schooling. career, living and big purchases without relying on mom and dad. If we got in trouble we handled it ourselves. Todays young adults are just weak.

It varies depending on the kid and the environment. In general, I think kids today are more superficial and materialistic vs. previous generations. They tend to be more disconnected from the world at large given the use of social media. But, overall, I think they tend to be a bit more kind and tolerant of people's differences. It's a mixed bag.

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Real life specimen wrote:

Real life teen here.

First of all, thanks for the generalizations by everybody. As you all know hundreds of millions of people through the world (or tens of millions in the US) all act and think in the same way.

I can’t compare my stress levels to that of others very well, but I can tell you about my junior year.

As a straight and white male from a middle class family (two professors for parents) with divorced and remarried parents I think I probably experienced very little social stress in comparison with many of my peers.

I took 5 AP classes my Junior year and maintained an unweighted 4.0 (94 or higher in every class). I was able to manage this load by doing most of my homework before and during school, and studying through easy classes, so I could have some free time after practice.

I ran xc, indoor, and outdoor my junior year, posting outdoor PRs of 1:59 and 4:24 (800,1600), so I was able to reach both of the goals I set at the beginning of the season. Reaching 60 mpw was manageable with only a few runs before school and a long run on Sunday.

I also did academic team at my school (for fun) and we reached the semifinal in the state tournament.

I was able to find time for reading, watching TV and playing with my dog, but I was only able to hang out with friends a couple of times during the school year (not counting breaks).

I don’t have an Instagram or Facebook. I do snapchat, but just to a few friends.

I didn’t feel too much stressI just didn’t feel like I had very much free time. I did get sick more than usual for me last year.

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CoachB wrote:

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Real life specimen wrote:

Real life teen here.

First of all, thanks for the generalizations by everybody. As you all know hundreds of millions of people through the world (or tens of millions in the US) all act and think in the same way.

I can’t compare my stress levels to that of others very well, but I can tell you about my junior year.

As a straight and white male from a middle class family (two professors for parents) with divorced and remarried parents I think I probably experienced very little social stress in comparison with many of my peers.

I took 5 AP classes my Junior year and maintained an unweighted 4.0 (94 or higher in every class). I was able to manage this load by doing most of my homework before and during school, and studying through easy classes, so I could have some free time after practice.

I ran xc, indoor, and outdoor my junior year, posting outdoor PRs of 1:59 and 4:24 (800,1600), so I was able to reach both of the goals I set at the beginning of the season. Reaching 60 mpw was manageable with only a few runs before school and a long run on Sunday.

I also did academic team at my school (for fun) and we reached the semifinal in the state tournament.

I was able to find time for reading, watching TV and playing with my dog, but I was only able to hang out with friends a couple of times during the school year (not counting breaks).

I don’t have an Instagram or Facebook. I do snapchat, but just to a few friends.

I didn’t feel too much stressI just didn’t feel like I had very much free time. I did get sick more than usual for me last year.

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Nobody was suggesting that EVERY kid had the exact same experiences with technology and stress. My son is also an example of a kid that seems to be handling the load.

10th grade
4 honors/AP classes (got his first B ever this year)
Captain of JV water polo team
Worked a summer job and played club polo last summer
Maintains a social life
A little too much screen time (video games, snap book, etc...) for our tastes.

Like you, he does a good job of getting homework done during his down time throughout the day. We'd prefer if he spent a little more time on the things he struggles with (Math II honors right now). And we'd prefer he unplug from the interwebs more often and go hang out with friends.

The only restriction we place on him is that his phone has to be downstairs after dinner. He still plays video games after dinner but is in bed before 10. Usually more like 9:30.

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it'stimetogrowup wrote:

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Runsmith wrote:

I have been following this thread for a while, and I have some thoughts to share.

1. You guys think it's mostly about social media. [i]But that's not all of it.[/u] I'm a high school senior and I can tell you that people just want to impress their peers in general. Even if there was not social media, students still feel pressure to impress their friends. They want to be at the top of their class. They want to take the most AP classes. They want to be the most involved. They want to show everybody that they are better than everyone else. We are a generation of perfectionists.

2. Are you all not aware that most high school students have a job, many of them even during the school year? Yes, kids should learn to work hard, but there comes a points where there should at least be some time to exercise your own passions. Kids who are in sports might have school and practice during the week, plus homework. Then they often work on the weekends. No breaks. And then you add in the additional stress from college applications, scholarships, high tuition, ACT/SAT, GPA, AP classes, clubs, etc., and it just gets to be too much sometimes.

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I'm 46 and I went to a college prep school when I was your age and faced all of the same academic challenges as you. Now that I'm a parent of a child in college and one still in high school as well as a high school coach I can see the differences.

1. It's not mostly about social media, it is ALL about social media! We were trying to impress our peers as well (constantly) but our peers were the people we interacted with on a daily basis. We talked to people and looked them in the eyes when we did. It was considered cowardly to give someone a telephone call to let them know something important or difficult to say. It's WAY different now even for my facebook / twitter obsessed generation. I wish that the kids of today were able to experience a childhood that we had. There is way too much noise now. Really, it's more our fault than yours. We know what is was like but most of us feel that somehow our ADHD society is better now. This is the largest problem we are facing in society right now. Here's what people don't really understand. Nobody really cares about what you post on social media about yourself except for you. They only pretend to care to get attention from everyone else but they don't care either. It's a colossal waste of time and your ENTIRE generation is disassociated with each other and reality.

2. Sorry kid, we went through all of the same stuff. Where I came from there was a lot of pressure to get into a great school especially where I grew up in Fairfield County, Connecticut. We didn't have a common application for college. All of our applications had to be done individually and typed. If you made an error you either had to use white out which looked bad or start all over again. Imagine that? Can you? The same is true for our research papers which were numerous once you reached the college level. How many of you have scoured through old books, scientific journals, and microfiche in the library for every single paper you submitted and then have to put it together with an archaic typewriter?

Bottom line is neither you or I have the right to complain.

My father at your age got married, had a child that did not survive a week past birth before being drafted to serve in Vietnam during the Tet-Offensive only to come home to a scary bunch of hippie protesters that threatened our family all because he didn't want to dodge the draft. That being said this was all harder on my mom than it was for him. His dad was in World War 2. 90% of the guys he went through the Naval Academy were dead within two years of service.

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