Why Are So Many Young People Unhappy?

-- In America between 1946 and 2006, the suicide rate quadrupled for males ages 15 to 24 and doubled for females the same age.

-- In 1950, the suicide rate per 100,000 Americans was 11.4. In 2017, it was 14.

-- According to Grant Duwe, director of research and evaluation at the Minnesota Department of Corrections, in the 1980s, there were 32 mass public shootings (which he defines as incidents in which four or more people are killed publicly with guns within 24 hours). In the 1990s, there were 42. In the first decade of this century, there were 28. In all the 1950s, when there were fewer controls on guns, there was one. Fifty years before that, in the 1900s, there were none.

-- Reuters Health reported in 2019, "Suicidal thinking, severe depression and rates of self-injury among U.S. college students more than doubled over less than a decade, a nationwide study suggests." The study co-author Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University, said, "It suggests that something is seriously wrong in the lives of young people."

This data is not only applicable to Americans. As social commentator Kay Hymowitz wrote in City Journal in 2019: "Loneliness, public-health experts tell us, is killing as many people as obesity and smoking. ... Germans are lonely, the bon vivant French are lonely, and even the Scandinavians -- the happiest people in the world, according to the UN's World Happiness Report -- are lonely, too. British prime minister Theresa May recently appointed a 'Minister of Loneliness.' ... consider Japan, a country now in the throes of an epidemic of kodokushi, roughly translated as 'lonely deaths.' Local Japanese papers regularly publish stories about kinless elderly whose deaths go unnoticed until the telltale smell of maggot-eaten flesh alerts neighbors."

Though people have more money, better health care, better health, better housing and more education, and live longer than at any time in history, they -- especially young people -- are unhappier than at any time since data collection began.

There are any number of reasons. Increased use of illicit drugs and prescription drug abuse, and less human interaction because of constant cellphone use are two widely offered, valid explanations. Less valid explanations include competition, grades anxiety, capitalism and income inequality. And then there are young people's fears that because of global warming, they have a bleak, and perhaps no, future.

But the biggest reason may be the almost-complete loss of values and meaning over the last half-century.

America -- and much of the rest of the West, but I will confine my discussion to America -- 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. And it was regarded as such throughout the world. That is why France gave America -- and only America -- the Statue of Liberty. That's why people from every country on Earth so wanted to immigrate to America -- and still do.

Chief among American values was keeping government as small as possible. This enabled nongovernmental institutions -- Kiwanis International, Rotary International and Lions Clubs International; 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 nongovernmental groups have dwindled in number or simply disappeared.

Another set of values is what is referred to as "middle-class" or "bourgeois" values. These include getting married before one has a child; making a family; getting a job so as to be self-sustaining and sustain one's family; self-discipline; delayed gratification; and patriotism.

All of these have been under attack by America's elites, with the following results:

One in 5 young Americans has no contact with his or her father (not including fathers who have died).

In 2011, 72% of black children were born to unmarried mothers. In 1965, it was 24%. In 2012, 29% of white children were born to unmarried women. In 1965, it was 3.1%.

The majority of births to millennials are to unmarried women. Yet, according to a 2018 Cigna study, single parents are generally the loneliest Americans.

Marriage and family are the single greatest sources of happiness for most people. Yet, the percentage of American adults who have never been married is at a historic high. More Americans than ever will not get married, or they will marry so late they will not have children. In 1960, 9% of blacks ages 25 and older had never been married. In 2012, it was nearly 40%.

And I haven't even mentioned the biggest problem: the loss of meaning in young people's lives. I will discuss that in part two.

the 30 something brother of my dtrs HS friend just committed suicide...by all accounts, successful and well liked.....we've had two football players kill themselves locally in the last two yrs......

maybe its because our society being manipulated by our leftist media pushes the narrative that everybody has got to be HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY all the time which is just plain nonsense... if they're not HAPPY 24/7 they think there's something wrong with them....

and no,not everybody has to have a girlfriend or a boyfriend to be happy or be rich or be super popular...

our young people think life is one big party not that its hard,and difficult...

I think we need to teach the young people that its okay to be sad sometimes or to be quiet or disappointed at other times....they don't have to be "on" all the time..and that its NORMAL ....

If one looks beyond what the media is touting as the next doomsday and it’s nexus we must expand our thinking...

I have been researching the Pharma industry and it’s satellites (FDA, CDC etc.) for some time now. In particular of late the “CoronaVirus” and it’s origins as well as it’s nature, familiarity to the industry and more. Setting the stage is the very low access to the actual Virus across the board as initially reported. Wuhan is indeed a center of development in China for BioTech, or in other words viruses and other things like them. This is no secret and the outbreak in that proximity comes as no surprise to me. As to how it “escaped” the labs and went into the general population theories being floated initially seemed to focus on people eating bats who were “infected” with it. I know the Chinese are noted for eating just about anything but bats is a new one on the scene. It still leaves the basic question unanswered as to the connection between the carrier (bats) and humans that was proposed. Setting that aside we move to the transmission method between Homo Sapiens, one to another. Most viruses of this type are spread by contact either physical (touch) or via dispersal in a sneeze, cough or other when the infection carried by mucus is inhaled by the recipient. Physical contact by the infected party typical of people wiping their nose or sneezing as an example may allow the virus to “travel” in instances like using a shopping cart that an infected individual had contact with.
Note that the first assumptions of air borne infection and the rush on masks followed this construct. One line of thought took it past this infection path and posited that is was contact with the mucus and discharge from the eyes that allowed for the transmission of the infection one to another. Last an most notable was the “unfamiliarity” of all agencies working on a solution around the world. Suddenly many of them had the viral strain ion their possession and inoculations nearly at hand. In my research over a lot of time this shortened path from identification to solution was abnormally short. My antennae tells me that this may be indeed a false flag utilizing a known viral element of most likely Chinese origin that is highly contagious, or so we have been told. Word is the Chinese already are well down the road of an agent to offset the spread by “inoculating” people but the spread, once again as we are told is outstripping the ability to cultivate and supply it.

I turn back to prior doomsday events like Ebola and others where the hype and fears never matched the actual course of things. Note I am not saying that this is not real, far from it. But the response and expedient cycle of development of this as well as seemingly non associated other happenings in the world gives me pause. Trumps recent deal with the Chinese as well as other things in play like taking down the Central Banking System in which China is a major player are moving as well. The attempt to unseat Trump and keep the Deep State on path to reduce the population and feed Pharma are all in play as well.

So I watch all of these things and more as in what I do I look at cause and effect, outcomes really and this seems very strange to this author. Each must choose their own path in all of this, and certainly it can be disruptive but then so were all of the others supposed Pandemics in Progress that came before this one.

More as information allows, for now minimize contact in crowded situations and use defense hygiene practices where you may provide a contact path if that transmission method is proves (hand sanitizers etc)

The Deep State wants us dead, depressed or compliant and the best offense is a good defense

Trust, but Verify

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