In an interview with the Polish Press Agency (PAP), Professor Robert Pudlo, professor of clinical psychiatry at the Medical University of Silesia in Poland, said that we are accustomed to expecting mental problems in children and in the elderly, but recent times have witnessed a growth in problems for young adults.
Professor Pudlo suggested that the growing numbers of young people suffering from mental health problems are due to several factors including the war in Ukraine, Covid and inflation. He emphasized that the under-40s do not recall the stress of inflation under communism - so the current economic situation is new for them.
He also said that Covid has been contributing to mental health issues: "The SARS-Cov-2 virus has neurotropic features, meaning it attacks the nervous system as well as affecting the body's circulation - which also impacts the brain's functioning."
Professor Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at New York University, has been analysing negative changes in mental health in younger generations for some years. His 2018 book, "The Coddling of the American Mind" points to two main causes of "fragility" in "Generation Z" - overprotective parenting and overuse of social media and mobile phones.
His research particularly emphasizes the impact of social media on girls' mental health, with suicide rates among female teenagers and young women rocketing in the USA.
Haidt has also suggested that excessive mobile phone use - increasing under COVID online regimes - may lie behind a growing sense of loneliness among young people:
Sources: PAP, Twitter, NYU Stern School of Business
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