Andrew Extejt

Mrs. Scarola

GSW 1120

13 March 2018

Mental Disorders in Millennials Due to the Rise of Technology

Technology has been on the verge of growth in the current days in comparison to the past where people had access to limited technology. In the past, the available technology was used in the manufacture and the construction industries to make products, and therefore there were minimum technological effects in the past. Currently, the technological know-how has almost doubled with the use of internet and smartphones to the disposal of every individual. The rising technology has been accompanied by both positive and negative effects to the users, especially for the active users. Today, it is easy to communicate with anyone around the globe and get information easily with the help of the internet connection, televisions smartphones and so forth. However, the rise of technology has affected many people around the globe negatively especially the young people. Millennials are the main users of technology, and they connect to each other and anything around them through the help of platforms brought about by technology. Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are among the most used platforms by the youths to connect with one another and the world. Due to the increased use of technology for data storage and communication, there has been an increase in the levels of mental disorders affecting the moods, thinking as well as the behaviors of the youths such as schizophrenia and depression. Addiction is the primary cause of the corresponding psychological disorders and in the paper focuses on discussing how the teens today are negatively affected mentally by the technology.

Millennials also referred to as Generation Y, are experiencing quite high depression, suicidal idealism, and anxiety levels when compared to the previous generations. Majority of the youths spend most of their time on various social media platforms and therefore do not find time to engage in activities that could lead to the development of the community as well as improve their social aspect of being. According to Berger, 2017, it is evident that most of the information found on social media is not regulated and the content is not filtered according to age, and therefore, the youths can be in touch with information that is harmful to them. Due to this unrestricted behaviors, the majority of the young people watch content such as pornography leading to loss of moral values. Addiction to watch such content leads to the development of youths who are evil-minded and those that cannot engage positive development of the community. The continued use of the social media leads to addiction that eventually turns the person to be less human; this makes the individuals lack the social values that can make them fit into the community leading to withdrawal and eventually may encourage suicide as they are not able to handle things appropriately.

Anxiety is another problem that has been brought up by the continued technological development in the world today. Anxiety was officially documented as a medical condition in the year 1980 by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder (DSM) (Wakefield, 2016). Many young people are always curious to know what is new on the internet and different social media platforms. The concentration of the young people has therefore shifted from things such as school to none educative content found online, and this has made most youths to become lazy and are never ready to be involved in physical activities (McCloughen et al. 2016). Due to the shift to online content, the millennials, therefore, want to ensure that they can access various technological devices which they use to stay connected and they will sacrifice a lot to ensure that they get in touch with at least an online device such as a smartphone. In the cases to which they are not able to access the technological devices, they become stressed up, and this can lead to serious cases such as depression and committing suicides. The reason behind is the view that they are not able to accomplish the demands of technology that are present.

Majority of the millennials yearn to look like the famous people in the community such as musicians, politicians and models. In the process of trying to look like another person, the millennials always find themselves stressed up. The reason behind this is because most are jobless and cannot afford such lifestyles which they see with the celebrities as adorable. Also, we cannot have the same lives while we are different from the other (Sternheimer, 2014) and as a result, most of the millennials will search for ways that they can use to be in possession of the things they see with the famous people (Jagodzinski, 2017). These activities could include stealing from others, selling of hard drugs among others. Engaging in such activities will result in more stressing life for the young person who chooses this way. They are usually at risk of being jailed due to engagement with activities that are not legal. Results from the previous studies indicate that there is no connection between the real and online worlds of the millennials. But according to recent findings of a new study conducted by the UK (Jagodzinski, 2017), the millennials are affected by high levels of perfectionism which lead to elevated expectations and the outcomes are anxiety and depression disorders.

Hugh Mackay, an author, and social researcher states that “We are a society in the grip of epidemics of anxiety, obesity, and depression – 20 per cent of Australians experience some form of mental illness. It’s already clear that many of us are severely stressed by the struggle to keep up with the rate of change in our lives, and one of the consequences of that stress is anxiety” (Mackay 2018). He goes ahead and points out that it is even more difficult for millennials compared to their predecessors and that most of the victims are offspring of the parental generation which experienced high levels of divorce. As a result, there have been high rates of stressed adolescents who are dealing with consequences of family breakdown. Besides, if both parents are present, they are continually working implying that they are always too busy and tired of having time for their children hence leading to the development of emotional challenges for the millennials.

Through technology, video games have been developed and to add to the social media; they have continued to attract many young people to play, spending most of their time in video games (Greenfield, 2014). The video games have been found to be very addictive, and they affect the social behaviors of the children. Children who play the video games more often develop habits of addiction such that they cannot go for a long time without playing and act as if they have withdrawal syndromes. Their minds are set in such a manner that they think about playing the video games at any one given time. The academic performance of such students is affected since they concentrate very little on reading.

Data that is sourced from the National Institute of Mental Health in 2015 shows that approximately 20% of boys and 30% of girls of age 12-17, a total of 6.3 million teens, have experienced a severe anxiety disorder which has impaired their normal functioning (Hill and Curran 2015). In today’s world, being a teenager can be classified as a full-time job which is continuously draining the teens with loads of activities. Some of such activities include managing social-media identity, fretting about sexism and careers, and as well doing schoolwork requiring the millennials to document every slight or fight on the social media platforms for days or hours after the incident which becomes quite exhausting.

According to Faith-Ann, a victim of the anxiety disorder as well as suicidal idealism, we are a generation to which we cannot escape our own problems as we are like volcanoes abstaining the pressure from the social media and current relationships. Ann is backed up by Steve Schneider, who is a counselor at Sheboygan South High School who says that the situation that the millennials currently find themselves in can be likened to a scab which is being picked continuously yet there is no possible way to detach oneself from it (Mackay, 2018). The situation makes it more difficult for parents to understand the intensity of emotional damage caused by the life revolving around the small screens on the millennials’ phones.

Thomas Curran asserts that the results of individual improvement over the years are being exhibited with the millennials. Perfectionism refers to a blend of critical self-evaluations and abnormally high personal standards. The young adults find themselves in a pressurized society which requires them to measure up to a continually growing list of criteria. The millennials strive to attain impossible standards raises the risk of depression, suicidal ideation, eating disorders, and anxiety (Hill and Curran 173).

The study classified perfectionism into self-perfectionism, socially prescribed, and other-oriented perfectionism. The rates of perfectionism increased with the millennials generation due to anxious and overbearing parents, increased competitiveness, and continued attention on individualism. More so, the demands of high education, as well as the need to find a well-paying job, have also shot up, both of which require perfection. The social media platform has contributed significantly to the perfectionism ideology as well (Jagodzinski 240). Millennial peers are portrayed to have perfect bodies while others are described as heroes by achieving noteworthy goals. As a result, insecurity rises which leads to increased competitiveness. As a result, the millennials are faced with mental disorders and social isolation issues. Curran and Hill 2015, have resolved that “American, Canadian, and British cultures have become more individualistic, materialistic, and socially antagonistic over this period, with young people now facing more competitive environments, more unrealistic expectations, and more anxious and controlling parents than generations before”.

It is evident from the above context that the millennials are greatly affected mentally by their engagement in technological activities to which they learn and see online through the social media. The mental effects can range from a variety of disorders from depression, suicide and illusions regarding the content to which they get exposed. Addictive materials such as pornography significantly affect the brain of the young adults which can make them indulge in irresponsible sexual behaviors as well as indulging in substance abuse as they get influenced by the media. From the above context of this paper, various causes of mental disorders have been explored that include anxiety and depression, to which have continued to affect the youths mentally. It is evident that the society has focused on personal entitlement instead of civic responsibility hence rising competition rather than cooperation with every person trying to outdo the other one in the media and this also has resulted to cyberbullying that eventually may lead to suicide.

Works Cited

Berger, A. A. “Postmodernism and Millennials.” Cultural Perspectives on Millennials, 2017, pp. 85-100, doi:10.1007/978-3-319-69685-0_8.

Greenfield, Patricia M. Mind and media: The effects of television, video games, and computers. Psychology Press, 2014.

Hill, J., and P. Curran. “Millennials Report Higher Rates of Depression, Need Support.” Applied Sociology, vol. 21, no. 2, 2015, pp. 157-174, doi:10.1016/s0143-6228(01)00002-9.

Jagodzinski, J. “Teen Depression and Anxiety: Why the Kids Are Not Alright.” Youth Fantasies, 2017, pp. 233-240, doi:10.1057/9781403980823_15.

Mackay, H. “Why millennials are the most anxious generation in history.” The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, 2018, doi:10.1002/9781405165518.wbeosi043.

McCloughen, Andrea, et al. “Physical health and well‐being: Experiences and perspectives of young adult mental health consumers.” International journal of mental health nursing25.4 (2016): 299-307.

Mortich, A. A. “Millennials and the Media.” Cultural Perspectives on Millennials, 2017, pp. 47-62, doi:10.1007/978-3-319-69685-0_5.

Sternheimer, Karen. Celebrity culture and the American dream: Stardom and social mobility. Routledge, 2014.

Wakefield, Jerome C. “Diagnostic issues and controversies in DSM-5: return of the false positives problem.” Annual review of clinical psychology 12 (2016): 105-132.