20 Responses to “Why are today’s students so depressed?”

1. Kurt Warren Says:
   January 20th, 2010 at 1:59 pm

   The reason you are seeing these changes is the lack of survival activity. 100 years ago a human being realized that at 5 in the morning activity was required or the day would pass on some very hungry people. Today youth is caressed and endured and nurtured giving us a nation of misdirected overweight keyboard pecking bisexuals who have been told that its OK and have no sense of urgency.
   Take an overweight adult and as long as his belt is loose he will continue to eat.

2. Avis Ransom Says:
   January 20th, 2010 at 2:39 pm

   Students are stressed because their parents are stressed over financial issues which stresses them in other areas of their lives. Students are stressed bacause the job out looks are worse than they have seen in their lives. Students are stressed bacause traditional sources of financial support for tuitition, room and board etc. have dried up like corporate sponsorships, part time jobs and of course hand outs from relatives who are also stressed. Students are stressed because their faculty are stressed and because they fear not being able to live up to their own expectations, the don’t get the right nutrition and they don’t get enough exercise Students are stressed bacause they don’t have the coping skills needed to get through tough times. And, oh yea, some are over weight and pampered and some are even bisexual but they are not alone.

3. Flora Says:
   January 20th, 2010 at 3:03 pm

   College kids today are being taught by many teachers who have tremendous problems themselves and the overall atmosphere often isn’t conducive to productive teaching and/or learning. Huge salaries and benefits have far too long attracted too many self-centered, aloof, lazy, money grubbing, actually unqualified individuals into higher ed teaching. Those individuals have been reared the same as the youth they are paid to teach and who have no real life experiences themselves. They do not recognize nor do they accept their own responsibility and cannot possibly teach what they do not know. Higher ed has for far too long held many unqualified, unprofessional(s) upon a too high pedestal. Students have been reared in environments where parents are extremely busy trying to survive; therefore, they oftentimes have not provided proper nurturing and/or guidance for the children. We are into perhaps a third generation of parents who were not adequately parented; they are parenting as they were parented. Those teaching college students consider themselves entitled rather than of service and benefit to anyone other than self. Students are feeling the “emotional disconnect and/or abuses” from early in life and further exacerbated in higher ed, in large part, because of student’s rights laws, parents can no longer be involved or informed of any problems the youth face in higher ed. Feeling rejection are compounded and the cycle continues. Students feel an urgency to succeed without adequate backgrounds and are thrust into an environment where the average higher ed teacher often does more harm than good even sometimes unintentional.

4. Leslie Says:
   January 20th, 2010 at 4:06 pm

   One reason for the change in statistics may be the result of more students actually seeking help for their problems because it is less of a taboo to do so than in earlier generations. And while there generally seems to be more stress in these children’s lives for a variety of reasons as mentioned above, I also believe that the bombardment of technology (Facebook, texting, Googling, etc.) that takes up a lot of time, exposes too much information about what others are doing/feeling (about themselves and others), and raises the level of competition socially, academically and professionally, is very psychologically damaging.

5. Shirley Roddy Says:
   January 21st, 2010 at 11:54 am

   I believe students are stressed because they have been taught an unhealthy value system. Though we may say the right things, I don’t think it is really modeled in our current society that what is really important in life and what really constitutes success is, not what you have or the status you achieve, but who you are how much you truly care about your fellow man. Whatever happens after a person achieves these basic values is an added bonus. That relieves a lot of stress.

6. Bruce Says:
   January 21st, 2010 at 3:12 pm

   For a journal called “Higer Ed” I was a bit surprised by some of the seemingly less than scholarly ruminations. That probably fits with the social changes we see all around us. Like nightly TV news channels providing the viewer information on last night’s American Idol results or what the latest MTV video is…hmmmm…lowest common denominator.

   But, concerning the apparant increase in “serious psychological problems” in our population of collegiate students. There are too many variables to pinpoint an actual causation. I would look at a variety of variables. 1.) Class…does the Pittsburg study break down the numbers by class as well as gender and ethnicity? The wealthier classes, of course, have greater access to resources and therefore can mediate the effects of environmental pressures that can lead to psychological harm.

   2.) As stated in another reply, our society is changing it’s “view” and “philosophy” concerning the admission of mental health issues. In the past, a student presnting with symptomology of major depression or schizophrenia would most likely be let go from the academic program he/she was enrolled in. Probably due to such policy enforcements of the Americans with Disability Act, many institutions of Higher Ed, find it difficult to win a court case, in which “reasonable acommodation” was not demonstrated. Ergo folks…the door is open to students with mental health concerns. So, is the increase in students with presenting mental health symptoms due to “more crazy kids” or is it due to a door being opened by civil rights enforcement? Or is it both or other variables?

   3.) Those who are 45 y.o. and older have been privileged to witness our society radically change relative to how we percieve the marketing of medical and pharmaceutical products. We have experienced the relentless bombardment of each and every citizen of this country with media designed, mass propaganda aka sales promotion of pharmaceutical supplies. Is it any wonder, that a 10 year old or a 14 year old, watching the tele, concludes in their preconscious mind that they may be in need of said products? Has there been an intentional use of media to exploit the American population to create a consumer need, in order to sell product?

   I would agree that too much of modern life for childer and adults is in the white walled cubicles of homes and apartments and classrooms. What does the lack of physical exercise have on the psyche as well as the body. Add to that the relentless daily use of minimalist foodstuffs that lack in nutritional efficacy but look nice in a can or box. We are rats caught and the children are the recipients of this “model” of life that is packaged and sold to us as if it is nirvana.

   Some of the rats are breaking down. When one considers the effect of persistent stress on an organism, e.g. human induced stress aka modern urban and institutional life, it should not be a surprise at the consequent outcome of human “depression” etc. See the following reference to the early understanding of “stress” on animal subjects. Tomes have been written since.
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulcers_in_Executive_Monkeys

   If we are honest with ourselves, we too have “issues” with the hectic and demanding pace of the glorious “modern” life.

7. Becky Says:
   January 25th, 2010 at 10:22 am

   I am saddened by so many responses in which blame was quickly placed on the students, their parents, and/or the teachers. Why are we always so quick to point a finger at these individuals rather than to take a good hard look at what needs to change and what can realistically be done to improve the situation? While I understand the frustration voiced through such comments, it is not productive to play the blame game. Thank you, Bruce, for providing a more balanced response that moves the conversation forward.

8. DC Says:
   January 25th, 2010 at 10:28 am

   As a professor, administrator, and father of college-aged daughters and son, I have some first-hand experience of the environment and its pressures on our children. But, my contribution to this discussion is to suggest a more considered view written by John F. Schumaker entitled “The Age of Insanity”. In response to some previous posts, I wanted to share just two of his points. First, studies chronicle a 50-fold increase in depression in the US over the last 60 years or so, even after adjusting for change in the definition. Second, there is no evidence of depression in non-modern, non-western cultures. When presented with the descriptions of depression in our diagnostic manuals, the people of those cultures have no idea what we are talking about. We are creating a world hostile to the mental health of humans. As Bruce pointed out, the marketing industry (which is larger than the industry of higher education) has a single, ubiquitous message, “There is something wrong with you!” You don’t have a new car, your lips are too thin, you are unfashionable, you aren’t “happy” enough, … , you don’t have enough stuff.

9. itsalljustaride Says:
   January 25th, 2010 at 10:43 am

   I’m convinced that 80% of the people who comment on this site and its articles have absolutely no, or very little, experience in higher education, either as a student or an educator/administrator.

10. EducatorandDad Says:
    January 25th, 2010 at 11:03 am

    No wonder kids are stressed if these disdainful comments represent the views of the people who are supposed to be helping them! Despite the fact that many of my students are working full time jobs, most of them will graduate owing more than their annual salary IF they can get a job. They were ill-prepared for college courses by unqualified teachers or teachers who were focused on getting them graduated, no matter what. If they are underprepared, overweight and pampered when they arrive at school, whose fault is that? Did they bring themselves up? Their parents are worried about job security or being foreclosed, the social/political rhetoric they hear daily is vicious and often violent, religious leaders are calling the victims of natural disasters ‘cursed’ — it is enough to stress anyone. Let’s spend more time thinking about how to create good role models of fit, rational adults who deal with stress in constructive ways…

11. Doc Dek Says:
    January 25th, 2010 at 12:40 pm

    Good observations Bruce and DC. Maybe part of the mix is the popular attraction to the emotive self. Like our reality tv, young people are naval gazing with incredible and extreme passion, pushing individual self reflection into what I consider unhealthy levels. There is little direction toward health or change but rather the novelty of living in energized angst. The endorphin rush is probably quite fun but in the end, it crashes.

12. Thom Says:
    January 25th, 2010 at 1:11 pm

    The introductory information is far too brief and incomplete to draw any reasonable conclusions. I’m not sure that there’s even been significant change over time in Western societies. Anyone out there recall Durkeim’s ennui? Mostly, I’m very disappointed (maybe even depressed!) that Higher Ed Morning produced such sketchy work, and led its readers to believe there was some meat on these bones, when plainly this is all just fluff.

13. jjcnpa Says:
    January 25th, 2010 at 1:31 pm

    This generation has been pampered and coddled. So when small things don’t go right they treat it as a “crisis.” America is a country in rapid decline like the Roman Empire.

14. Christina Stoss Says:
    January 25th, 2010 at 3:33 pm

    Being a mother of 3 teenage daughters and a college counselor I can see this question from more than one perspective. With my kids, I see that the 24/7 constant communication that they are exposed to seems to effect their emotional state. People are constantly talking about everyone else, causing high levels of stress in their life. Then you add to that the fact that the communication that is taking place lacks the direct human interaction where thing are not alway accurate or properly understood. People also tend to say things they otherwise might not in person or on the phone and this generation chooses to commuicate this way. I really feel this is at the core of what is going wrong for this generation. I think that kids are addicted to this communication mode and they are also losing sleep over it, also affecting their mood and ability to cope. It has a trickle down effect that because they are on the computer or texting so much, it is at the expense of everything else in their life, causing an unhealthy balance.

15. M. Tabatcher Says:
    January 25th, 2010 at 4:37 pm

    How about such a simple thing as poor (in fact awful) nutrition — not only do they eat prepared foods with no nutritional value but also foods grown in toxic soil (and now genetically engineered with things like mouse genes and Roundup resistance). We all now know that hormones in factory grown animals are known to interfere with human hormone levels as well as general body chemistry (hence why one out of three people get cancer). Most act as neurotoxins and once brain chemistry is disturbed, depression and other mental illness is sure to follow. We are always looking for some esoteric reason why things are what they are, but any supposed cause other than nutrition is purely a red herring.

16. Ned Says:
    January 26th, 2010 at 1:50 pm

    I think there are probably several various reasons for the depression. The lack of proper nutrition and exercise are big ones. But I believe a big part of it was the way our society changed about 20 -25 years ago. I have done a fair amount of coaching youth and officiating games and at some point things went soft. I refer to this generation that are about 25 yrs old or so and younger as the “Everyone gets a Trophy generation”. They’ve never been taught to compete and how to deal with defeat. That’s fine Johnny, your team was in last place, but you all get trophies as big as the championship team. When they get into the real world and to some degree college, they can’t cope. I finished my paper, where’s my trophy? I made a sales presentation, where’s my bonus.
    My sister was in elementary ed for over 25 years and she has real concerns about the mental state of our youth, college age and younger working age folks. Rarely did she ever meet parents that would accept their child had a problem or was creating a problem. It was always someone else’s fault or the teacher wasn’t doing there job. Little Johnny was a genius and just misunderstood.

    My sister’s belief is that the suicide rate for this age group could explode. I think this explosion is being held at bay by the anti-depressants and other treatments (which is a good thing), but until our society starts to take a long look in the mirror, this isn’t going to change.

17. Jalisa Zona Libre Says:
    February 23rd, 2010 at 9:23 am

    Thank you for the entertaining read! Alright playtime is over and back to school work.

18. M. Tabatcher Says:
    February 23rd, 2010 at 10:28 am

    How about simple things such as watching their country go down the tubes in more ways than one! What do they have to look forward to — a lifetime of school debt, work until you’re 66 and half dead and seeing their parents who worked hard lose their jobs and homes. Get real people — what is there to look forward to?

    I work at a large mid-western university — what I see day in and day out are students working multiple jobs, borrowing huge amounts of money to get the “required” college eduction and constantly reading in the daily papers about the lack of jobs.

19. anun omus Says:
    November 19th, 2011 at 10:52 am

    There are two factors: economic and institutional. Why is this so difficult to discern? It is obvious. Disparity and economic imbalance has drastically increased since the 70′s and now we have the Great Recession. It is pretty tough to feel hopeful that the hard work required to achieve a degree will lead to anything at all after graduation.

    College tuition is rising due to budget cuts (I live in Wisconsin!), aid is limited and grants for research and tuition are scarce. Most students work part or full time due to these issues.

    Competition for very limited grad school spots is absolutely fierce and requires much schmoozing and behind-kissing. This leads one to think that academic performance is not as important as ability to successfully schmooze, rather than a hard-earned near perfect GPA. Getting a professor to like you, involves their personal biases and prejudices as to what makes an “acceptable grad student.” This can have little to do with academic achievement at this level of competition, since all the applicants are pulling extremely high GPA’s.

    Professors are underpaid and overwhelmed for economic reasons. Their bitterness with the situation is often projected onto their students. Class requirements are never balanced against the demands of other courses. One professor may require exams every other week, weekly quizzes and multiple papers, with absolutely no consideration of the fact that students are forced to work and have (gasp!) other courses.

    Not everyone is privileged, white, healthy and/or middle to upper-class. Their attitude toward the students who question the reasonableness of their absurd demands? Stop your whining and suck it up. Generally, that seems to be the mindset of many professors in general.

    As a student with a serious illness and subsequent disability, I can attest to the lack of sensitivity–sometimes outright cruelty, the failure of “accessibility”, the discrimination for anyone that doesn’t fit into the just out of high school, privileged, healthy set. There’s liberal “talk” of diversity — but there is no liberal “walk”.

    Therefore, students have no voice and no power to control their own lives. Universities are more than ever geared to punish the working class — who have to juggle work, school and possibly parenting, because they could not afford to go to college right after high school, even though they wanted to. Because many fall on the line of not being rich enough, yet not being poor enough to get decent aid, or like I was — was homeless at 18. But so many assumptions are made about students and why they’re such “whiners.” I’d love to see them take a walk in my life shoes. They’d crumble.

    Research has shown that the loss over control over your own life–that consistently being “damned if you do — damned if you don’t” leads to depression. Give students a reason to NOT be depressed. This isn’t rocket science, folks!

20. anun omus Says:
    November 19th, 2011 at 11:16 am

    I just read through some of the other comments above and I simply find it an outrage what some of you are suggesting. For those of you commenting about the “trophy” generation — I am not from that generation.

    For those of you implying that students are “coddled” — I have never been coddled. Actually, I grew up at the hands of a cruel alcoholic. But you find it acceptable to stereotype me, as a student, as coddled? How many others, that you stereotype daily had similar life situations, growing up? You don’t know. But you still are willing to lump everyone in, together. THAT is depressing. Frankly, it is rather presumptuous to assume you know anything at anyone, unless you ask.

    I started my young-adult life homeless. My original higher-education was provided by the school of hard knocks. I was promoted to management in the first position I found –but due to the glass ceiling — never got beyond that. So here I am trying to break through with a degree. Do you think I seriously believe it will work? In this economy?

    It is people who make automatic assumptions that they know all about every student’s life situation that make the situation far, far worse. You have no clue of what I have endured. I now have an autoimmune condition that is exacerbated by stress, yet I’m afraid to ask for accommodation when the disease becomes active for fear that it will be viewed negatively — like I want “coddling” or that I’m slacking. Because that is the attitude professors have. They have automatic disdain for us and make assumptions automatically. They have stereotyped us to be something that they cannot possibly know.

    So I suffer in silence and in pain and struggle everyday precisely because of attitudes of professorial staff like this. Oh yes… accommodation is available — but then we will be seen as wanting “coddling” and lazy.

    It is this absolutely blatant bitterness and prejudice directed at all students — the stereotyped caricature they have of us, and prejudices that these “liberal” professors and I use the word VERY lightly inflict upon us daily that is depressing.

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