American members of Generation Z face overlapping crises of identity, faith, and general happiness, if recent reports are to be believed. According to several high-profile surveys, young adults in America may be the most faithless and perverse generation yet. And they’re suffering the mental and spiritual health consequences.
Young people are becoming less happy than older generations as they suffer “the equivalent of a midlife crisis”, global research has revealed as America’s top doctor warned that “young people are really struggling”.
Murthy spoke to the Guardian as new data revealed that young people across North America were now less happy than their elders, with the same “historic” shift expected to follow in western Europe.
Declining wellbeing among under-30s has driven the US out of the top 20 list of happiest nations, the 2024 World Happiness Report revealed.
Related: Millennials–Depressed and Disordered
After 12 years in which people aged 15 to 24 were measured as being happier than older generations in the US, the trend appears to have flipped in 2017. The gap has also narrowed in western Europe and the same change could happen in the coming year or two, it is thought.
Other shocking trends are manifesting among America’s young adults. One bombshell study recently reported members of Generation Z as identifying with disordered sexuality in record numbers.
Increases in LGBTQ+ identification in recent years have occurred as members of Generation Z and the millennial generation have entered adulthood. Adults in these younger generations are far more likely than those in older generations to identify as LGBTQ+.
Overall, each younger generation is about twice as likely as the generation that preceded it to identify as LGBTQ+. More than one in five Gen Z adults, ranging in age from 18 to 26 in 2023, identify as LGBTQ+, as do nearly one in 10 millennials (aged 27 to 42). The percentage drops to less than 5% of Generation X, 2% of baby boomers and 1% of the Silent Generation.
Related: Lost Generations
The past several years have also seen an increase in Leftists political affiliation among members of Generation Z
In fact, Zoomers reversed the trend away from Democrat Party membership that started with the Baby Boomers and accelerated under Generation X.
And according to the Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, people with a woke outlook are more likely to suffer increased rates of anxiety, depression, and overall unhappiness.
Psychological researchers in Finland have created an assessment to help measure an individual’s commitment to principles of social justice and made some surprising findings across the Finnish population — including a negative correlation between progressive ideals and levels of happiness.
Related: Millennials’ Spiritual Affliction
“The gender divide was probably most surprising to me,” Lahtinen told PsyPost of Finnish attitudes. “Three out of five women view ‘woke’ ideas positively, but only one out of seven men.”
This was especially true of women in fields such as social sciences, education, and humanities. By contrast, participants who worked in STEM were more likely to critique social justice efforts associated with being woke.
However, the most concerning finding was the relationship between mental health and agreement with the scale. Specifically, researchers found a high prevalence of anxiety and depression in people who believe the statement “If white people have on average a higher income than black people, it is because of racism.” More broadly, they found that those who identified as left-wing were most likely to report lower mental well-being.
Lahtinen warned against extrapolating their findings to international audiences just yet, particularly across Western nations.
Related: Millennials’ Generational Poverty
Another finding across Western nations that should be taken with due diligence is the rise in the religiously unaffiliated–or “Nones”–among younger generations.
By some metrics, members of Generation Z edge out Millennials as the least religious generation.
As has been pointed out before, polls now exist more to shape behavior than quantify it.
Positive portrayals of sexual degeneracy on television in the 1990s drove public polling, helping to create a vicious cycle that entrenched deviant behaviors as socially acceptable. There’s reason to believe the media are using similar bandwagon propaganda to exert the opposite effect on perceptions of Christianity.
Related: Exploding the ‘Religion Is Dying’ Psyop
But even steel manning all of these studies, their face-value results suggest strong correlations between abandoning Christ, submitting to the Death Cult, and profound unhappiness.
The reason is easy to see. Liberal ideology makes the unrestricted license to indulge personal whims the only metric of the good. That moral subjectivism requires denying any objective good, which makes the personal choices Liberalism champions ultimately meaningless. It’s a greased funnel into nihilism.
Pray that this faithless and perverse generation rediscovers Truth and resolves their crisis of meaning.
Get get FREE books and first looks at my exciting new projects monthly! Join my elite neopatrons to read my new dark fantasy novel The Burned Book as I write it!
Join on Patreon or SubscribeStar now.
What did we do to the Zoomers? The commenters on Vox Popoli were talking about how based and redpilled the Zoomers were during the Trump years, and now, Zoomers hate themselves worse than the Millennials.
This does, however, correlate with trends that my mutuals notice on Christian Twitter. Young Protestant/Messianic guys wash out of discipling Christ—out of despair when they don’t become atheist.
Can you unpack that second paragraph?
I will unpack it on Twitter.
“Young Protestant/Messianic guys wash out of discipling Christ—out of despair when they don’t become atheist.”
Protestantism is proto-modernism. Modernism can be seen as the next logical step of Protestantism. Subtract God from the Protestant framework and we get modern society, corporations, and government for the most part. We are now finishing out the modern age by taking it all to it’s extremes.
The spiritual and emotional solution to modernism is not to attempt to dial back the clock to 1750, when it was possible to be a full hearted Calvinist. Nor is 1950 a good choice, which was unfortunately far more of hollow shell spiritually than most imagine today.
The sustainable solution is to seek out the institution that gave them the Bible that they are trying to reinvent the Church of Christ from. The yoke is indeed easy and there is food for the journey.
I was blessed to be born into a half Catholic family. I sometimes think of my self as crash landed into the faith. I have no works to boast of here. I see Protestants of my online acquaintance essentially repudiate most of Protestantism correctly as well, a little loopy and/or degenerative in nature. “Christ is King!” “I want a monarchy!” I have even had Reform not believe me that Martin Luther colorfully suggest humanity as irredeemable or that “totally depravity” theologically means exactly what it sounds like when it comes to humanity.
But then it’s hard to see the pride is holding them back from the one place they could have the freedom they were promised. No idea how to help them, because to me the most serious Christians in my acquaintance were always Catholic. Not perfect, but sane and even the shallowest seeming faith had some peace.
I forget who said it recently, but their quote rings true: “Protestants like the feeling of being protestant”.
This is why most protestants are the way they are. It’s one big emotional cult with the use of scripture to gaslight people into thinking they’re valid.
” It’s one big emotional cult with the use of scripture to gaslight people into thinking they’re valid.”
Yep. Intellectually, maybe some of them are agreeing with Catholics. So much so that when prompted to agree with seemingly basic Reform theology, they will redefine terms to make them match Catholic theology.
But Catholics aren’t “cool”. Catholics are kinda weird, actually Meanwhile, they have buddies! They’re saved! They have coffee during church! So what if their thoughts about God are a wee bit scatter shot? That Catholic who seems adamant about those Martin Luther quotes was probably just having a bad day, what with kissing beads or something or whatever it is my buddies think that they do. 🙂
Part of the problem lies within the Church itself. Young and old Catholics alike will dip from Catholicism after they realize that Pope Francis isn’t based and trad.
The Twitter X algorithm, in fact, used to recommend a “Sedevacantism” list because of all of the Internet Catholics I interacted with. Internet Catholicism puts the faithful on the highway to Protestantism.
Catholic Twitter – or [Fill in the Blank] Twitter can be awful. But don’t you think that has more to do with the American tendency to conflate the sacred and the profane?
“Young and old Catholics alike will dip from Catholicism after they realize that Pope Francis isn’t based and trad.”
From my POV, this idea comes from the Protestant mindset about leadership. It’s all well and good to want a theoretical monarchy. The Church structure is a monarchy. This is what monarchies look like on a fallen planet under the absolute best of conditions. Only Jesus is the perfect leader.
Based and trad Catholics hardly worry about the Pope. Popes come and they go. Some are saints and some end up in Hell. While they are here, popes keep the Church running, the deposit of the faith protected, and sometimes offer helpful political advice. The later is optional even for Catholics and almost universally ignored in the modern era.
The rejection of Protestantism is partially in dropping the concept that leadership must have a particular set of virtues before they have legitimate authority that needs to be obeyed.
Have you considered that protestants have sincere biblical issue with the catholic church; and that even as our churches are corrupted and degraded, demanding of us that we join your equally corrupted and degraded church under threat of damnation is not particularly convincing?
It isn’t pride. It is correct rejection of idolatrous false authority. Blame the popes for treating the Lord’s places as brothels for centuries, not us. We have our problems, but you guys have enough planks in your own eyes to worry about. It would be cool if you stop sponsoring the invasion of my land and genocide of my people though.
Attention, Catholic readers of Kairos!
Each of you must offer a Rosary for our brother, James. That is all.
Will do.
I’m not going to manage a rosary today, but James was in my evening prayers.
St. Catherine of Alexandria, please pray for James to find the peace of Christ through His Church founded on the rock of Peter. Amen
“Have you considered that protestants have sincere biblical issue with the catholic church; and that even as our churches are corrupted and degraded, demanding of us that we join your equally corrupted and degraded church under threat of damnation is not particularly convincing?”
Not really, because most of the online discussions I have with Protestants involve
a)A wishful reading of Scripture,
b)Relativism/redefinition of words,
c)Sometimes a and b along with
d)Not really knowing what the Catholic faith teaches and
e)Having no idea how Catholics practice their faith in the real world
I have had a lot of discussions where I was helpful informed I worshipped statues. Who knew?
That is a large part of why I remain unchurched in these times. Saint John the Baptist did the same, and recognized Christ while the priests rejected Him.
I don’t know what it’d take for you guys to get Vigano as pope, but I’d be a lot more open to catholicism if it happened. At present I don’t understand how you can morally justify following an institution whose hierarchy is openly pagan and call it Christian. If Peter’s chair is of such high importance then why is it so often occupied by the world?
Vigano is what is known as “antipope”. I’ve just discovered this term because most radical Catholics are using it incorrectly. They are men, usually bishops who capture a following somehow and set themselves up against the current canonically elected papacy. Vigano currently has zero responsibilities as bishop inside the Church, which technically makes him outside the teaching body of the Catholic Church. Our current Pope is all about the mercy, so he has not yet been defrocked or ex-communicated. He deserves it, unfortunately.
Catholics don’t choose a Pope. It’s a monarchy. The Holy Spirit chooses a Pope. That Pope may or may not be a saint, but that man will protect the deposit of faith and the Church for as long as God wishes for him to be Pope. Almost none of the OT leaders, except maybe Moses would measure up by current Protestant standards. That’s there in Scripture almost as “No, really God will be choosing the leaders you deserve as a group” ad nauseum. Our job is not to upend that leadership because reasons.
Christ insisted on authority. He knew the Pharisees (not all of them priests, by the way) and that “stiff-necked” was the least of a charge that could be thrown at them. His advice was to do what the Pharisees told people to do and not what they did.
I would encourage sitting down/reading with the Gospels as whole works. Most Protestants think in sound bites because of how Protestant pastors preach. Read about this strange carpenter from Nazareth from beginning to end. Pay to what He really said about any number of issues. God bless.
Thank you for your honesty here.
Christ said to do as the pharisees say, because they at least still taught righteous behavior.
That you prefer Francis to Vigano tells me we will never be in communion with one another until Christ comes and sets things right. May the Lord have mercy upon you.
Pope Francis has had 10 year smear campaign against him, particularly in right leaning circles. Vigano is every Protestant’s favorite Catholic bishop because he is a protestant at heart. There’s a chance he might break off with his own sect as well. Honoring Peter is not an optional part of Catholic dogma.
Anyway, yes, Pope Francis does teach righteous behavior. Take away the spin, and there’s nothing more there than love your neighbor as yourself. I don’t have to agree with his politics, including open borders/global warming to recognize what my responsibilities are as an individual Christian. Even the encouragement to vaccinate included other options with the clear goal of not spreading disease. Doing what Pope Francis asks of the flock is just simply Christian behavior, if civil disagreement over issues where we can disagree is possible.
As one Protestant to another, leaving the Church behind is a very, very bad idea. If you’ve grown theologically, or the congregation or tradition you called home before no longer seems like a place where the Word is faithfully preached and the Sacraments are duly administered, broaden your horizons. For example, I grew up a Baptist and have landed in Methodism because I realized the sacramental theology of my childhood was incomplete. Lo and behold, I rediscovered Church at the age of 39. It felt like being converted all over again, really.
If you want to walk faithfully with God, you need a church home. We are supposed to be reading the bible together, living it together, and worshiping together because only then can we grow together in Christ as God intended. We can’t live together from the comfort of or living rooms.
Seriously, go (back) to church.
I don’t know for my generation, but I wonder what the life crisis stats are for my generation. Lord knows, my late teens and early 20’s were riddled with those moments. To my memory, I had one at ages 18, 21, and 23. Not fun. Aside from being inconsistent with my faith, I was in a living situation that always emotionally beat me down, making me feel worthless, and always punished me for it.
I can imagine on a macro scale, this is being played out. You have two solid generations who are told to hate themselves and that they are irredeemable.
I also take note that women are most likely to identify with one of many mental illnesses (even the sexual ones). This is what happens when you tear down masculinity and let the more impressionable gender have major sway in society. They spread the chaos they adopt from the top down.
Worst of all, our societal problems come down to learned helplessness. No matter you do, it’s always going to be racist, sexist, bigoted, phobic, etc. It’s easy to say embrace it or ignore the names, but character assassination is a real threat and weapon being used in today’s world which can have irreparable (or at best extremely difficult) damage. This only feeds into the low/no trust society because anything you say or do is ammunition for some whack job with ill intentions.
The weenies who are causing this mess are no more than big bullies. I only endorse violence in certain situations and this is one I’d be ok with. Bullies only respond to one type of language – a good punch in the face. Their use of psychological warfare has brought whole generations to its knees.
Final note, the irony that the 90’s and 00’s saw a major anti bullying campaign pushed on the youth, now we have more bullies than ever made up of legions of those children the campaign targeted. They created brown shirts of people who “hated on the haters”, becoming far worse monsters they perceived the monsters to be.
Hate to say it, but Mills will eventually reach where Y ended up. That means suicides will taper off because the ones that are left will have fought hard to not end up like their unlucky brothers who didn’t make it. Most every Y I know or know vicariously through others has been through at least some sort of dark night of the soul and are either religious and dedicated, which means taking these matters seriously, or they are are on pills and barely getting by with their mind intact. Everyone else is, well, you know what the suicide rates were like.
I loathe that younger generations are now starting from this state instead of aging into it like the older generations had to due to decline. Unless they have a strong support system and a family that isn’t awash in Death Cult propaganda (increasingly rare these days), they are at the mercy of a society that hates them. Those near three straight years of Corona hysteria and mask fever in tandem with grievance riot world didn’t help, either.
And despite all that, the generation under them is going to have it even worse.
It’s going to take a long time to correct course at the rate things are going, and it’s going to take longer the more this is allowed to go on.
Demographics explain the shift to the Democrat political pinnies. I believe Gen Z is minority white in the United States. The GOP, like it or not, is becoming the party of heritage Americans and closely aligned immigrant interests. The South is not naturally GOP territory, but there’s no one else even remotely speaking to them anymore.
The coveted POC demographic all goes in Democrat. It remains to be seen in the US if a 2nd generation Muslim or 3rd generation Mexican is all in for atoning for the supposed sins of the evil White Man through outsized welfare support to African minorities. All that appears to be keeping them together is a sincere desire to have Americans to pay for stuff.
California is a prime example of political party demographics. I have take my hat off to the absolute sincerity of any GOP still left in the state. Poor souls. Texas will not be long in following her lead. She just has a bigger population of Boomers keeping her afloat at the moment. Most currently purplish states will go blue in the next 2-3 decades for the same reason.
There’s every reason to believe that a GOP President beyond the next term or two will never happen again. There’s also reason to believe that we’re not far from the collapse of the republic at the Federal level, but that’s a whole different essay. 🙂
The divide is getting sharper and sharper with the younger generations. You’re either death cult or you’re being attacked from all angles, and both weigh on the mind and spirit to a tremendous degree.
I hope Gen Z handles it better than Y did, because our suicide rates are nothing to be proud of.
I just finished a game that was packaged as pure black tar Gen Y nostalgia. It’s replete with everything from Star Wars references to Twin Peaks inside jokes. And at the end, it’s revealed that free will is an illusion. From there the game immediately jumps to the conclusion that existence is pointless suffering, since of course the unrestricted license to do whatever you want is the only good. The solution it comes up with is indistinguishable from every character putting a gun to his head right after the opening credits and pulling the trigger.
In a way, I’m thankful somebody illustrated the Pop Cult-to-Death Cult pipeline in such unambiguous terms.
Name and shame the game!
Not gonna give attention to people who hate me.
Thank God for enemies. Had the cults eased off the clown-world gas pedal just a little, I would probably still be a pop junkie.
Anyone who’s familiar with the Psalms knows that Voltaire’s prayer is one of the most frequently granted.