Calling out 1 Bullshit on Gen Z: We Got This (Said by Adults on Gen Zers’ Mental Health)

No, we ain’t got this, but there’s a lot of room to grow

Did you know that May is a good month to talk about mental health? And no, not only this year, and not only because of a global pandemic that is taking our nerves to the limit.

The US has declared May as the Mental Health Awareness Month in 1949, and have observed it through sensibilization activities and projects ever since. In the UK, the Mental Health Foundation has instituted the Mental Health Awareness Week, inviting people to come together and spread awareness on mental health starting from a specific keyword (this year’s was kindness).

Last month, the social media platforms/online ecosystems that are dear to Gen Z didn’t sleep on the topic of mental health either (or, well, some of them didn’t). Popular social networks took the chance to implement initiatives to inform, involve, teach, and help their audiences to deal with such a complex, pervasive, yet often obscure (and obscured) matter.

Instagram, for example, launched its new Guides feature. A Guide will collect contents specifically made by a creator to provide useful tips and advice, all shearable both in DMs and Stories. The focus of the first wave of Guides will be wellness, and initial partners will include international organizations like the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (US), Heads Together (UK), Vita Alere Institute (Brazil), Klicksafe (EU), Headspace (Australia), Sudah Dong (Indonesia), and e-Enfance (France).

Another Gen Z favourite, TikTok, encouraged creators with a big following to open up about mental health. The result was an interesting collection of reflections on the multifaceted nature of mental health awareness. TikTokers such as @dreaknowsbest, @glitterandlazers, @lauvsongs and @katimorton addressed the fact that mental health issues are a universal problem, yet they are often overlooked because of the stigma that comes with them: being abnormal, weak, mentally ill, diverse. These creators strongly advocate for the empowerment that comes through transparency about mental health, for the importance of being connected to a supportive community and of having a safe, non-judgemental space to talk.

All of this is very positive and very bright, especially because it comes from a source, social media, whose intrinsic structures and strategies can often go pretty hard on one’s psyche.

Yet there’s still so much stuff underneath when it comes to mental health, especially when you’re dealing with Gen Z in the context of social media, that we feel like a one-month awareness spree isn’t just enough to say “hey, we got this”.

We recently conducted a research that made us go head-to-toe into the matter of young audiences and mental health — and man, that iceberg drops a looong way down under the surface.

A distorted (involuntarily, we bet) message that may pass from mental health awareness campaigns is that Gen Z wouldn’t otherwise talk about mental health online. Let us tell you, that’s completely untrue.

Talking about mental health issues online is not a taboo: teens and young adults feel like they are in safe spaces to express their concerns about themselves and others, and often find support and empathy there. After all, their age brings them face to face with a large number of developmental duties (developing new skills, socializing, dealing with school, confronting the future, being more self-conscious and aware of others’ feelings and situations), and this could be a possible explanation for mental health becoming a more and more widespread topic among their conversations.

Also, Gen Z doesn’t need anyone to tell them that social media itself may have an impact on their mental health. They know. In fact, they could be the most aware generation so far that life portrayed on social media can be radically different from reality, and that the addictive nature of websites and apps such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat or Reddit — full of captivating and seemingly endless content — may have unhealthy repercussions on mental health (they even joke about the whole social media-mental health rhetoric through memes).

Young audiences are able to distinguish the pitfalls of social media use, such as being peer pressured into demonstrating happiness and social adjustment, posting unrealistically perfect pics and feeling low when they don’t reach the community approval they wanted, or adhering to the culture of flexing, showing off at all costs, whether it is gadgets, lifestyle or appearance.

Moreover, they are aware that their openness about mental health issues may retort against them. Some influencers appear to have used displays of deeper emotions and struggle to gain followers (yes, sadfishing is a thing), and now some people seem to think that you should act “depressed” to be cool. This sort of exploitation of sadness and confusion over real VS fake emotions has led to the fear of being branded as an attention whore, someone who fakes depression just to be at the centre of attention — thus being not only unrecognized for a potential mental issue but also attacked and bullied.

Yet, something that really seems to bother Gen Zers is the way their reference figures are addressing their mental health conditions. Parents often tell them they “can’t be depressed” because they are too young/they are going through a phase, thus invalidating their feelings and creating even more confusion and misunderstandings. Also, schools are felt like lacking the correct programs and initiatives to support people with mental health issues, which often creates a patronizing or clueless environment.

That was just a quick bite of what we uncovered, and the bad news is that there’s is still a lot to do before looking at Gen Z and mental health and saying “yeah, we got this”.

On the other hand, the good news is, Gen Z probably doesn’t need anyone to say anything like that. They’re addressing their own issues with mental health, talking about it, making great content on it, and showing the other generations new points of view to help build a different and variegated conversation around it. So, are we going to listen?

How about your take on Gen Z and mental health? Is it something you are already dealing with/need a hand with? We’re happy to share what we can and help out. And if you’re interested in the research and the findings, just hit reply to this email.

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This is part of YAD — Understanding Young Audiences Digest: a free monthly digest on young audiences for VOD and TV professionals. We’ve analysed millions of data points and we don’t mind sharing some of them — if this could help channels and commissioners to reach Gen Z, by understanding their needs, behavioural traits and intrinsic cultural values.

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