Damn, How Depressed Are Young Women?
This chart above has made some rounds on the media of socials recently, usually accompanied by some right-wing guy saying: “Thanks, universities!” In reality, this little survey/poll/results thing is a good example of the decline of critical thinking. Most people just reshared this, above, where it seems like young women are defining themselves by mental health decline. That’s not really the picture. Rather, women are saying mental health is important to them — that could mean their own mental health, or it could mean the mental health of their friends. It’s an acknowledgement of empathy and caring as much as a rabbit hole of personal decline. People want to use it as a “gotcha” for whatever cause they celebrate, but that’s not really what is happening here.
That said, young women are depressed, although I don’t know if we can realistically say they are more depressed than previous generations of young women. Obviously the first thing that comes to mind is social media, Instagram, TikTok, and how female social comparison — which has always been a tough thing for young girls, even the so-called beautiful ones — starts earlier than ever nowadays. That’s mirrored in some actual study results, as seen here.
