> Situation wrt to teen mental health is similar in Europe, but there's a much smaller graduation debt.

We have other issues here, though (speaking for the situation in Germany). I’m quite some time out of my teens at 36, but for many years now I’ve been told that all that tax (technically not a tax) I pay for my pension will not result in me getting any meaningful pension.

For people who are currently teenagers it probably sounds like this: "Once you get a job, which won’t afford you a house, you’ll pay a decent chunk of your salary so the people who managed to destroy the environment and don’t care about you have a better end of life. You’ll not see anything of this money ever again."

And that is without including all the messaging during the pandemic that young people (more towards people in their early 20ies, but still) are at fault for nearly everything.

edit: I should mention that I’m still not discounting social media, I couldn’t, as I know next to nothing about it.

Also, it's really easy to see how social media is directly affecting kids' mental health. Instagram, TikTok, SnapChat, YouTube, Twitch, on these sites are an endless stream of people their who are better looking, smarter, more successful, funnier, more interesting than them. If you have insecurities, these sites will amplify them. And if you admire someone on one of these platforms, that person literally has no idea who you are and that admiration will not be reciprocated. But unlike the celebrities of yore, a kid can leave comments in a livestream or on a picture or a video and get a response, and they might end up developing a parasocial relationship.

It was bad enough when I was in high school when all we had was Facebook, because we were comparing the whole of ourselves to our peers in their best light. It is so much worse now.

> Situation wrt to teen mental health is similar in Europe, but there's a much smaller graduation debt.

But Europe has far lower professional salaries than the US.

Also economic conditions definitely have a big impact, I could finally buy a small flat after years of renting and it's such a great change to be able to make changes in your own home and buy your own things.

My father did that at 23, not 30.

> The 80s weren't a happy time, and there are no signs that that had such an impact on teen mental health

Are we sure about that? The fun thing with a lot of childhood trauma can take years to surface, let alone figure out. I personally wonder whether it has contributed to our race towards a kleptocratic society.

I can say that personally, while I was born in the early 80s, the recession had an impact on my family. Essentially, my parents chose to focus their efforts on making sure we could get as many college grants/scholarships as possible. An insanely intense focus on education and being able to sustain oneself. Didn't quite work out how they hoped.

'Don't try to downplay the role of internet, mobile devices and social media'

Exhibit A people: we have impeding total collapse of the ecosystem, and they blame 'too many phones'. Have you spoken to a teenager lately? All my younger colleagues are convinced they are the ones that will have to deal with the mess, and they are probably right

>Perhaps it's social media that makes that they are either too aware of it or simply mention it more often.

Here's a question for me to understand where you're coming from and you to examine your assumptions. How does "too aware" get defined? Who defines it? I am an 80s kid(though grew up in India) and seen some issues myself, but can't claim I am worse off for knowing what I did. And to be clear, I didn't have internet till the start of the millenium and relied on books, radio and newspapers and I still was more about the state of the world i was to inherit than my parents.

> Perhaps it's social media that makes that they are either too aware of it or simply mention it more often.

Or rather, they see how historically threats were dealt with: lead was banned, CFCs were banned, sulphur in fuel was banned - in short, environmental threats were met with decisive action.

And then they see how scientists have warned for decades now about climate change and they can clearly see that nothing happens except a lot of useless bla-bla.

Children, even as young as ten, are not dumb. They can see and understand what is going on, and to recognize inaction and corruption in politics is not rocket science.

I absolutely believe that much of social media is a cess pit at the behest of the advertising industry.

For some it will be liberation and an incredible tool to leverage but for many it will be just a waste of their life and even, for some, the end of their lives. I left Facebook years ago and recently left Twitter for higher quality sources.

But ... your "One." is distasteful ...

The GFC caused a decade of austerity and quiet unseen cuts in support and public service. If we agree there should, in fact, be some form of safety net, they had had many holes cut in that net in the last 15 years.

Where I am, I was one of the last who had their Uni tuition paid for, I had a relatively fun time growing up, my wife and I bought a property when they had gone through multiple incredible price increases, we have just paid off a mortgage, no matter what happens next short of a world war, we'll be ok. I cannot imagine how we would have done that in today's enviroment ... look beyond this forum and your own experience.

I feel absolutely gutted for the continuous squeeze the generation that followed me have endured. And, considering the outlook, the next recession seems on its way just to compound things at a time when exogenous inflation is all the rage.

It's a mess.

So, please hold both factors in mind. Social media is the cesspit that has amplified just an incredible economics and political mess of the last 15 years.

> Don't try to downplay the role of internet, mobile devices and social media.

The first thing that was said is that Social media definitely amplifies it. I don’t think that’s a dismissal.. you don’t have to be on social media, you just have to hear or read or watch the news.

Their parents experienced multiple, poverty is the actual trickle down economics. Middle class is the new living paycheck to paycheck having to do without insurance and requiring two individuals to do anything. Yet government thinks it's too much money and won't cover education costs and even if they did universities are ever more irrelevant and filled with money and politics just the same as Congress.

> One. They lived through one major recession

If seems like one continuous recession since 2008 - at least here in the UK, and I suspect also in many places. Nearly a decade and a half of austerity and failure: what does that do to their hopes for the future? My children (both teenagers) ask me "has it always been like this?" I was a child/teen in the seventies and I remember thinking the same thing.

Add to that the perma-war, the climate crisis, massive and pervasive social inequality, housing and employment precarity, Trump/Putin, Brexit...

> Perhaps it's social media that makes that they are either too aware of it or simply mention it more often.

Teenagers know what's coming down the road. They just, broadly, haven't developed the adult habits of denial and avoidance yet. We need to listen to them, not tell them that they are "too aware".

> Perhaps it's social media that makes that they are either too aware of it or simply mention it more often.

Then I wouldn't really say it's social media failure.

Are you claiming that the event referred to as the "Great Recession" and described by the IMF as "the most severe economic and financial meltdown since the Great Depression" wasn't really major?

+1 kids from previous generations lived under much worse conditions. Not only economical ones, but also social (wars, technology, etc.)