Cost of living or Generation Snowflake? Boomers and Gen Z disagree on causes of youth mental health crisis

Are young people phone-addicted snowflakes? Or the long-suffering victims of a declining economy?

According to a new survey on youth mental health, it depends on which generation you ask.

People of all ages agree that young people are struggling with their mental health, research by Kings College London has found – but they disagree on what’s driving the trend.

Most Brits think various aspects of life are worse for young people today– including the level of worry (67%), future prospects (53%) and the ability to find a full-time job (56%).

The agreement is particularly striking on mental health. Over two-thirds of baby boomers (65%), Gen X (70%), millennials (73%) and Gen Z (74%) think that mental health is worse among today’s youth than it was in previous generations of young people.

But there are “differences in perceptions” over why this is, says professor Bobby Duffy, director of The Policy Institute at King’s College London.

“For example, older generations are more likely to blame social media,” he said. “And while young people themselves do see these platforms as a potential cause, they cite a much wider range of factors, particularly economic ones like the cost of living and difficulties in getting jobs or housing.”

Why is there a mental health crisis among youth?

Youth mental health has been in the headlines this week after a Resolution Foundation report exposed a mental health epidemic among young British workers.

Around 12% of people in their 20s and 30s say that they are disabled due to their mental health – a massive increase from the 2% who said so in 1998.

The foundation found that more than a third of young people aged between 18 and 24 have symptoms of anxiety, depression or bipolar disorder, even if they do not identify as disabled.

The release of the report generated a flurry of scandalised news reports. “Get a grip, generation snowflake!” one Daily Mail columnist opined, urging young people to stop blaming mental illness for “joblessness.”

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However, the research released today suggests that this sort of opinion is relatively uncommon – around 17% of baby boomers think that “young people today are less resilient than young people were in the past.” However, this is still markedly higher than the 9% of Gen Z who think so.

Older people are also less likely to blame systemic causes for youth mental health issues; baby boomers (25%) are half as likely as Gen Z (49%) and millennials (50%) to attribute the health decline to an increased cost of living.

And while a quarter of baby boomers (24%) and Gen X (25%) blame worse economic or employment prospects, this rises to a third of Gen Z (36%) and millennials (36%).

Notably, a number of older people buy into a “cliched” narrative about alcohol and drugs, professor Duffy said.

Baby boomers (50%) stand out as around twice as likely as Gen X (27%), millennials (21%) and Gen Z (20%) to attribute worsening mental health to increased use of drugs and alcohol among young people.

This is not borne out by the data, Duffy says.

“Alcohol consumption has declined substantially among younger generations, and while drug use does move around over time, there is no trend of significant increases over the long term,” he said.

“This reflects a general tendency to generalise from eye-catching but relatively rare instances of risky behaviour among young people, and to forget the risks we ourselves took when we were young.”

Interestingly, younger people are far less likely to blame social media for their mental health struggles.

Some 51% of Gen Z say increased use of social media has had a negative impact on mental health – far lower than the two-thirds or more of older generations hold this view.

And 27% blame of Gen Z blame the emergence of new tech, compared with around four in 10 who belong to other generations.

Overall, the UK public is nearly seven times as likely to say social media and smartphones have a negative (67%) rather than positive (10%) impact on young people’s mental health. 

Though mental health can be politicised as a culture war battleground, it’s important to avoid “pitting one generation against one another,” Duffy said.

“Whenever there is a big shift in challenges facing society, it is tempting to look for and blame one thing, like social media, but it is often more complex than that, and we should listen to young people themselves when we decide on what actions to take,” he urged.