Youth is wasted on the young, they say. But if ever there was a time to be a fledgling in this world, now is not it.
The evidence is vast: our young ones are lonelier and less healthy than generations past and too many suffer a failure to launch into independence. They feel lost and alone.
The bombardment of stimuli the young have had their entire lives means they are harder to shock into action.
They have compassion fatigue from all the bad news. They are the instant generation: they wait for nothing – not food, a favourite TV show nor photos being developed.
But they wait in vain for a place to call their own.
Finding love is even fraught, with dating and relationships coach Karina Chapman recently observing that young people are increasingly dipping their toes in the water of old-fashioned face-to-face meet-ups because of “online dating fatigue”.
But they have to skill up to get out in real life because Generation Z also lacks the interpersonal skills needed to build real, textured, human connection.
It is hard to initiate a social conversation when you have spent your life texting and commenting online, it seems.
Social researcher Rebecca Huntley observed in the lead-up to the federal election that Australia had fundamentally changed: we had stopped being a nation that believed overwhelmingly in a fair go and we had stopped being a nation of joiners.
Pessimism was rife, and wanting to feel personally secure at work and home was more important than fairness and equality.
Much of this was led by the young, she contended. How sad.
For the past two generations, a midlife crisis was acceptable, with peak unhappiness striking between the ages of 40 and 50.
Youth and older age were where the joy was to be found.
But a recent paper commissioned by the United Nations that analysed survey responses in six countries, including ours, found young people are increasingly despondent and the U-shape of wellbeing was now gone.
Former Australian of the Year and mental health expert Professor Patrick McGorry warns the rise of mental illness among young people is alarming.
The young need connection. They need belonging. These are joys we mature people know are cherished and we must foster.
What a great era to be fully alive and in the middle generations.
Dr Jane Stephens is a UniSC journalism lecturer, media commentator and writer. The opinions expressed are those of the author. These are not the views of Sunshine Coast News publishers.
