The unhappy teenagers of the UK should be of deep concern to the country's leaders. It appears that the UK's teenagers are unhappy. They are experiencing what is described as a "happiness recession". They are more unhappy than their European counterparts. This is according to a charity, the "Children's Society". They say that their results are deeply worrying and indicate a trend of lower life satisfaction in Britain compared to other European countries.
They took their data from research over several years which indicated that the wellbeing of UK's teenagers was lower than neighbouring countries.
The most recent Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) survey for 2022 show that on average just over a quarter (26%) of 15-year-olds in the UK had low life satisfaction. The European average is 17%. This puts the UK at the bottom of 27 ranked countries.
Indeed this is very troubling. And they found that in the UK 30.9% of girls aged 15 reported low life satisfaction. This is more than for boys at 19.8%. It is also higher than the European average for girls which stands at 21%.
The also found that socio-economic inequalities continue to be important factor and worryingly the report also found that those aged between 10 and17 in households under financial strain were more likely than their peers to have low life satisfaction.
"Alarm bells are ringing: UK teenagers are facing a happiness recession, with 15-year-old's recording the lowest life satisfaction on average across 27 European nations. Particularly affected are girls and those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Equally alarming is the high level of food poverty found among these young people. The UK ranks fourth highest for food poverty among 15-year-old's across 21 European countries, underscoring the severe impacts of societal inequalities on their well-being." - Mark Russell, the chief executive of the said charity.
The government said that "We understand the pressures teenagers are facing and that is why we are taking action to deliver our mission to break down barriers to opportunity and improve the life chances of every child."
Source: The Times newspaper - many thanks.
Reasons for their unhappiness?
I feel obliged to make some suggestive reasons as to why British teenagers are unhappy. I don't know the answers but this is what I think.
The world today is far more complicated. Today we have the Internet which speeds everything up. There is social media to which teenagers are often addicted or somewhat obsessed. This creates added pressures and expectations. People present themselves on social media as successful or iconic and a young man or girl wants to emulate what they see but what they are seeing is not real.
There are these unattainable expectations. And young people are a kind of litmus test as to what older people feel. Perhaps they are more sensitive than older people or more vulnerable to life's vicissitudes. I'm sure they observe the world and see Putin's invasion of Ukraine which is very troublesome. It is worrying as is climate change. These are things which are happening now but which affect the future greatly.
I believe that young people look to the future and too many don't have optimism about the future based upon as mentioned the Ukraine war and the possibility of China invading Taiwan. We've just had Covid which is still present and has undermined society. The legacy of Covid is being felt in society in many ways including education.
In addition I think young people see the breakdown of some societal norms in the UK. The breakdown of normal services like the NHS which is failing and education is pressured due to large classes due to increased population.
The justice system is broken pretty well. The prison system is overcrowded which feeds back to the justice system making it impossible for judges to sentence criminals properly.
There is this sense of a broken Britain which also makes it difficult to be optimistic about the future. Universities are in trouble in Britain. Degrees have become somewhat useless in many instances because they been dumbed down. Personally if I was a young person now I would not do a university degree but choose an apprenticeship instead; far more valuable and useful.
Jobs are more competitive. Once again these things feed into a lack of optimism for many youngsters regarding the future. There are other things I'm sure but of all these things I would point towards the damaging effects of social media, unrealistic and impractical expectations which cannot be met, a lack of desire to grind it out and progress through one's life in the long term.
To work hard for one's objectives and rewards. I sense that a lot of young people don't relish the idea of working hard in the conventional sense over many years to attain a reward which is a stable family life with some savings.
------
No comments:
Post a Comment
Your comments are always welcome.