Is it just me, or what is happening with the youth?
Okay, so I’ve been a contributor and commenter on this sub for a little while now. I’m in my 40s, so elder millennial and just passed the threshold to be able to answer questions for folks in this sub (yes, I checked the sub’s description to make sure.) I’m also childfree by choice, so this is 3rd party looking in view. This is also a long discussion point.
I’m seeing a lot more 20-somethings who seem really lost on here. Or rather, they seem to think their life is over by age 25 after not achieving what can take an entire lifetime [if ever] (eg career with six-figures, marriage, kids, house, etc.) Like it seems far more of them really feel they are behind the 8-ball for some reason.
Is this just me being older and having experience to know this isn’t true? Was my generation like this when we were in our 20s? Is it because of the rise of social media that they have so much more comparison (and more specifically comparison to influencers who share the same age as them who have lucked out on easy living)? We had heavy celebrity culture in my 20s and it was understood those people were celebs so it made sense, and wasn’t the same for the regular non-celeb to achieve the same monetary successes.
I thought it was because Gen Z are inheriting an admittedly fucked up world with climate change, overseas wars, civil unrest, poor jobs market, high inflation, etc so I understood where the existential dread comes from. But it seems to be that those are the asides that exist, and the advice they ask comes with personal dread about where they are in life. Every misstep and every mishap seems to mark the end for them personally. Their youth and development were definitively messed up with lockdowns, so is this a byproduct of their social development being interrupted and changed irrecoverably? Are they just saying “my life is over” sarcastically and it’s become slang?
Has this been happening and I just didn’t notice it in my 20s? Or does it seem to be happening more frequently with the current 20-something generation? What seems to be fueling it? Is it simply skewed because we’re on Reddit?
I’m happy to still help and give them advice. I just wonder where it’s all coming from.
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ETA: Thanks to everyone who is contributing to this discussion! I wanted to clarify that I do think the younger generation (even my younger millennial counterparts) do have it harder. They are indeed facing a lot more threats to existence. Even though elder millennials went through three significant recessions (that has resulted in us to be much older before first time home ownership and less wealth building ability), it was still a relatively peaceful period of time in our 20s comparatively. I’m looking at all this from a sociological perspective and trying to see what might be the drive for the influx beyond everything is worse.
Something that came up in discussion below that I wanted to add to the original post. I’ll repost my comment to a discussion point below:
I think where I wonder is why it sits so much heavier and more life-shattering for them. The problems are worse, definitively. But is it because it’s worse they feel the need to achieve more sooner? Because their future is not guaranteed to exist at this rate, so you have to hit those milestones faster? Sort of like when lifespans were shorter in the Middle Ages so marriage, children, etc all happened at way younger ages. But instead it’s converse, average lifespans are longer but earth’s lifespan is shorter and creates the same “have to hurry and meet these life goals quicker” like we saw when lifespans were more limited. 🤔🤷🏽♀️