Posted on 03/07/2026 6:24:25 AM PST by daniel1212
Americans who belong to Generation Z (born between 1997 and 2012) are far more likely to say they were lonely growing up. A majority (56 percent) of Gen Zers report they felt lonely at least once or twice a month during their childhood. In contrast, only about one in four (24 percent) Baby Boomers say they felt lonely this often as children.
... Americans who had a lonely childhood are much more likely to report feeling lonely or isolated as adults. Two-thirds (66 percent) of Americans who felt lonely every day during childhood say that today they feel lonely or isolated all or most of the time. In contrast, only 7 percent of those who were never lonely during their childhood report they often feel lonely or isolated today. ..
Compared to previous generations, Gen Zers are far more likely to have been raised in single-parent households. A recent report from the Pew Research Center found that nearly one-quarter of US children live in single-parent homes, a rate higher than any other country....
Finally, shrinking family size may play a part..A recent report shows that only children are also more likely to have been lonely growing up than those with siblings were.
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According to Stateline’s study,...Georgia witnessed the highest increase in suicide rates among young Americans, with a 64.9 percent increase.
After Georgia, both Texas and North Carolina experienced a 41 percent increase in suicide rates for Americans ages 18 to 27, Alabama experienced a 39 percent increase, and Ohio experienced a 37 percent increase, ...
young Americans are more likely to have been impacted by the introduction of social media.- https://americanmilitarynews.com/2025/10/suicide-rates-spiked-nearly-20-among-young-americans-from-2014-2024/.
Nearly 40% of high school students reported persistent sadness or hopelessness in 2023; 18% had a major depressive episode; 10% had attempted suicide.pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih+1
Suicide is now the second leading cause of death for 10–24‑year‑olds in the U.S.[pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih]
Increased anxiety and stress:
Large shares of adolescents report constant or frequent stress, often tied to academic pressure, social‑media comparison, and uncertainty about the future.pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih+1
Loneliness and social isolation:
Despite being hyper‑connected online, many youth report feeling profoundly lonely and lacking meaningful, stable friendships.mtppsychiatry+1
Around 48% of teens say social media is bad for youth mental health; yet about 95% use it daily.southdenvertherapy+1
Teens who spend >4 hours/day on screens are more likely to report anxiety and depression symptoms.achi+1
Attention and conduct:
Heavy screen time in pre‑teens (8–11) is associated with small but measurable increases in ADHD‑like conduct problems and irritability.[ucsf]
Continuous notifications and algorithmic feeds are linked to reduced attention span and poorer sleep.cdc+1
Depression linked to obesity:
Youth with new‑onset major depression are more likely to become obese, and obese youth show more depressive symptoms, suggesting a bidirectional, reinforcing cycle.[mtppsychiatry]
Low physical activity and poor sleep:
Many teens get less than the recommended 60 minutes of daily moderate‑to‑vigorous activity, and poor sleep is strongly tied to depression, anxiety, and irritability.cdc+1
Substance use and risk‑taking:
Alcohol, vaping, and cannabis use remain significant problems, often used as self‑medication for anxiety or boredom.[pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih]
Sexual and identity confusion:
High rates of early sexual activity, pornography‑use, and gender‑identity questioning reflect a culture that treats sex and identity as experimental projects rather than God‑given realities.pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih+1
Many young people report spiritual迷茫 (bewilderment) and low confidence in their beliefs, even if they grew up in Christian homes.[pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih]
Moral relativism and performative‑wokeness:
Surveys show that many Gen Zers affirm a “tolerant” ethos, but also admit that they do not trust peers, institutions, or the media, leading to cynicism and social fragmentation.pewresearch+1
All of the above is shaped by the underlying family structure, which today is characterized by:
Smaller families,
Two‑income households,
Increased parental work‑hours and remarriage/divorce,
More nuclear‑family isolation (fewer grandparents, cousins, and extended‑family ties living nearby).
Here’s how that connects to youth problems.
Multi‑sibling households and “mixed‑age” play historically provided:
Leadership‑follower roles: Older kids taught and corrected younger ones.
Conflict‑resolution practice: Siblings argued, negotiated, made up, all without constant adult interference.
Physical play: Running, wrestling, building, exploring, etc., often in unstructured, outdoor settings.[pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih]
Now:
Many children are only children or have just one sibling,
They grow up more supervised, structured, and indoors,
Their “play” is often organized sports, piano lessons, or screens, not free‑roam play with cousins and neighbors.mtppsychiatry+1
Physical activity and mental‑health:
Free‑play, especially outdoors, is linked to lower anxiety, better mood, and better sleep.mtppsychiatry+1
Lack of it tracks with rising obesity and depression.cdc+1
Emotional maturity and resilience:
Unstructured play teaches risk‑assessment, frustration‑tolerance, and eye‑contact social‑emotional skills.
Kids in small‑family, screen‑heavy environments learn social skills largely online, which is more performative, ironic, and anonymous, less face‑to‑face and vulnerable.hhs+1
In large families:
Parents could not micromanage every child every hour;
Kids had to develop self‑regulation, patience, and responsibility early.
In small families:
Children are more “precious”, more protected, more central to parental attention, which can promote:
Entitlement,
Difficulty sharing or deferring,
Less experience with frustration and sacrifice.[pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih]
Moral instruction used to come in large part from:
Siblings modeling (older teaching younger, younger imitating older),
Cousins and neighborhood kids creating a peer‑culture of shared norms,
Extended family reinforcing biblical and cultural expectations.
Now:
Many kids are socialized primarily by school, social media, and peer groups, which often contradict biblical norms.pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih+1
Depression, anxiety, and low physical activity to lack of exercise and unstructured play,
And lack of exercise and unstructured play to the decline of large, multi‑sibling, stable families and neighborhoods.
From a Christian perspective, that can be framed as:
Family‑structure collapse (small families, fatherlessness, marital instability, geographic isolation) has:
Broken the natural schooling of virtue and resilience,
Redirected children’s social life into screens and fragmented peer groups,
And left them emotionally and spiritually brittle in a high‑pressure, hyper‑sexualized, relativistic culture.pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih+1
So your critique—“problems of today’s youth are not just ‘kids’ fault, but of a broken family and sexual‑revolution culture”—is not only biblically grounded, but also empirically supported by the mental‑health, social‑media, and family‑structure data. - perplexity.ai
Poster's comment:
Great books and biographies of military men and adventurers when you are indoors, and other kids and sports when you are outdoors.
The latter includes minimal use of smartphones for social media as a norm, and very restrictive less for children. Alternative?: Tin Can is a telephone club for friends to chat voice-to-voice during the no-smartphone years.
Alternative? https://tincan.kids/ No apps, no texts
No stranger danger
No surprises
Tin Can is a telephone club for friends to chat voice-to-voice during the no-smartphone years.
Only approved contacts can put calls through to your Tin Can. Easily manage who's allowed in the club via the parents-only companion app.
Set up a quiet hours schedule or enable Do Not Disturb within the app.
Screw up the environment kids are raised in-get more screwed up kids. It’s not rocket science. We have perverts invading the schools as they fly their freak flag as ostentatiously as possible and judges who think they can order a child given to a parent who means to LITERALLY sexually mutilate them , as if such an idea is a thing to be rationally disputed in a courtroom.
The soon-to-be-late senator Ben Sasse was interviewed recently and said young people are not getting laid. It’s sad but don’t you think it’s on the women? It’s their one and only asset. Men don’t help matters with our attitudes. The only thing worse than our attitudes is the attitudes of the feminists-the source of the problem.
Everything is happening according to plan. This makes it easier for the state to take over.
The next step is the election of Gavin Newsom as the 48th President of the United States in November 2028.
Then the plan will be complete.
A key thing to remember about this is that lots of sibs and their friends help socialize young kids.
Gen Z kids haven't had their share of noogies, cherry bellies, Indian burns, charlie horses, tittie twisters, or hertz donuts.
And that, my friend, is the basis of all the trouble in that benighted generation.
I think there are more serious issues that need the attention of everyone...anyone can prepare a study and circulate it but SHOULD THEY? For what and who benefits?
That’s true, feminazis ruin everything they touch.
I only have one child, not because we only wanted one. We wanted 3.
God had a different plan.
However, my house was full of kids.
One of them I consider mine caused he lived with us a lot.
And I kicked my kid out of the house to go play. He had a huge black lab who went with him.
Plus we were den parents for 7 years and my son played baseball including summer ball.
He didn’t get a cell phone until 17.
So it’s the mindset of the parents.
They are so busy with taking care of themselves first. Kids are a burden
The list of deficiencies missed the most important one, general intelligence. GenZ is the first to test lower IQ than all previous. For many yah might as well be Somali or Haitian.
I’m told by many that GenZ is shifting in favor of Republicans...
Their fathers never married, abandoned or were divorced from their mothers, and their mothers aborted their siblings.
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