Anxiety, Stress and Social Norms

Numerous articles and studies have demonstrated an increase in stress, anxiety and depression among teens and young adults throughout the past 25 years. There is little consensus, however, regarding the cause of this increased stress. One article, for instance, argues that the increase stress may be due to the Great Recession. Unfortunately this makes little sense because the increase in stress and anxiety has been steady for the past few decades. This isn't to say that economic pressures and changing job markets are a cause of the increase in stress as 76% of young adults report their stress is due to their work. So while the state of the economy might not specifically be the issue, it may be the kinds of jobs young adults can get that is the source of stress. Today, more young adults are forced to work full time while working on their bachelors or masters degree. Many degrees (including the M Div I am working on) require some kind internship which are more often unpaid. On top of this, once young adults get into their chosen career field, the kinds of jobs they find are incredibly demanding. However, it is also true that we are working 12 hours less each week than we did 50 years ago.

So what is happening? Why are we as young adults in the 21st century so much more stressed and depressed than our parents and grandparents when they were our age? I think one major factor may be our insistence on the deconstruction of various kinds of social norms, particularly when it comes to what a successful person looks like. We have reached a major point of transition in our culture when it comes to perspectives on success, so much so that no one seems to agree on what success is. This is especially true of those who are teens and young adults. Certain social groups will tell you it is going out and partying every other night. Others will tell you it is simply making money. Still others say it is raising a family. Nearly all agree it is being as busy as humanly possible. On top of all of this social media is shoving all of these perspectives and many more into our faces. Youtube has also made massive changes in how we view success as average people are becoming as popular as Hollywood superstars from their own living rooms. This is a big problem; collectively we are losing the standards by which we measure social status.

For young adults, this is an even bigger problem. It is between the years of 18-35 that the average person shapes their career and life-long social circles. But if people in this age group are being given a different set of expectations regarding where they are supposed to be in their work and social life, these same people aren't going to be able to assess where they are at in life, let alone where they should be going. To make matters more complicated, our hyper-individualistic culture promotes the idea that the best way to cope with these expectations is to ignore all of them and create our own. "You don't need others approval," "you be you and I'll be me," all of these cultural slogans are geared at the idea that we define what success is for us. This is all well and good but sociologically speaking such a task is impossible. Our society, like all societies before it, operates on a complex system of social norms. We organize, rationalize and measure ourselves according to these social norms. These norms are embedded in our closest relationships and who we are as human beings. Social norms inform us of what others expect from us, but if we are told to ignore such expectations, the only possible result is angst and extreme anxiety.

Part of the solution to this problem is encouraging more social cohesion through social activism, more day to day community engagement with neighbors and co-workers and an emphasis on the importance of family and friends over and above individual importance and achievements. An interesting source of discussion on this and numerous other topics is Robert Putnam's classic work; "Bowling Alone: The Decline and Revival of American Community."