- Young people across Europe reveal how the pandemic has made them impatient for systemic change after bearing brunt of fallout.
- Covid shock has radicalised Generation Z.
According to an article published in The Guardian, Covid-19 policies risk leaving psychological and socioeconomic scars on millions of young people across Europe, with far-reaching consequences for them and society, a wide-ranging Guardian project has revealed.
Major Affect to Young Adults
Teenagers and young adults expressed profound anxiety about their future and accused governments of failing them as 15 months of lockdowns destabilised their mental wellbeing, education and job prospects.
“Our whole generation has just been pushed aside as a problem to deal with later,” a 17-year-old in the north of England responded. From Germany, a 21-year-old wrote: “We are the lowest priority.” And in France, a 21-year-old said he counted himself part of “a sacrificed generation”.
Serious Disappointment
Although the least likely group to become ill from coronavirus, Generation Z has been hit disproportionately by the biggest educational disruption in modern history, a surge in unemployment and the psychological effects of lockdown isolation. Young workers are also the least likely group to have received financial support for lost jobs.
The depth of despondency and anger the responses reflect is likely to ring political alarm bells, just as European governments are taming the health crisis with vaccination programmes and cautiously reopening battered economies.
Mental Crisis
They reflect research that shows 64% of young Europeans are at risk of depression, up from 15% before the Covid crisis. An unpublished estimate from the EU’s foundation for living and working reveals that for 18- to 29-year-olds the situation is even worse. Women aged 18 to 24 registered the lowest levels of mental wellbeing.
Social Party Head’s Concern
Massimiliano Mascherini, the head of social policy at the foundation, told the Guardian: “The risk for the future is that we have a group who have spent almost a year and a half of their early life in a total blackout, gaining no experience or human capital. They may represent a part of the workforce that will suffer throughout their lives.”
Jointly Coordinated Program
Hundreds of 16- to 25-year-olds from 30 countries took part in the Europe-wide Guardian callout, conducted jointly with news organisations in Germany, France, Italy and Spain, to find out from Generation Z how the Covid crisis had affected them. The first exercise of its kind since the start of the pandemic offers a snapshot of how negatively the handling of the crisis is being felt by the continent’s teenagers and young adults.
All Lives Matters
Klaus Hurrelmann, a professor of public health at the Hertie School in Berlin, said “forgetting” about the young was a political error that could drive a “war of the generations” in the post-pandemic decade. “This hurts everyone, this decision to give young people the message, ‘You are not a priority, first we have to take care of older people.’”
Generation Consultation
The shock will energise the most resilient members of this age cohort to take the climate and other battles into their own hands, the answers suggest. “We have so many issues to face, so many revolutions to lead,” a 16-year-old in France said. Covid may even be politicising Generation Z in unforeseen ways, just as seismic global events have historically shaped the generations who came of age at their height.
Respondents from countries across Europe said the crisis had made them impatient for systemic change and determined that their generation would create more caring societies in the future.
Young Minds’ Thoughts Discussion
“We need a total restructuring. How can we justify living in an economy where people I know celebrated being put on furlough because of how much they disliked their jobs?,” said a 17-year-old from the West Midlands in England. “A pandemic cannot defeat us. We are stronger than this,” said another.
Others revealed long spells of isolation had made them understand the need for “genuine” human interactions. “Life cannot be lived in social networks or video calls. We need people around us to make sense of ourselves,” a Dutch student said.
But for now the impact of anxiety, loneliness, academic stress and chronic insecurity is conveyed in crushing terms: “a rollercoaster”, an “ordeal”, “overwhelming”, “terrifying” and “burnout” are used to describe how life feels for many young adults.
“So much has been taken from us. The lack of support we are given, just [being] expected to bounce back is just not realistic,” said a sixth-form pupil in England. “My mental health deteriorated so badly. I had to start antidepressants,” a UK undergraduate said.
Barcelonian Teen’s Story
An 18-year-old in Barcelona said being “locked” for months in a small flat with her large family, and sharing one computer, had left her in a “dreadful” mental state.
“I feel constantly anxious,” said a 23-year-old student in Estonia. “It’s the uncertainty about the future that hurts the most.”
Collapse of Problems
Many of the responses, 50 of which we publish today, reflect the fear that although they are facing the most precarious job market in decades, young people will have to pick up the pieces left by the twin challenges of Covid and the climate emergency. A Spanish teenager summed up that view: “The previous generations have left a dreadful world and they tell us, ‘You must solve this’. That simply isn’t fair.”
Mascherini said: “This is a very bleak mix of mental health, economic and social impacts. In previous recessions, those who suffered most, in terms of the labour market, bore the scars in later employability. They never caught up.”
The risk, he stressed, was that a groundswell of youth discontent, combined with a collapse of trust, “could be captured by political forces that have an interest in undermining young people’s faith in democracy”.
Longing for Normalcy
Governments should be offering free university tuition, job guarantees and other support, Hurrelmann said. “They have to give the signal: we want you to be able to enter society and start your life.”
Fatigue with apps and social media is a recurring theme. “Although we are used to social media, the internet, our mobile phones and computers, now we cannot stand them any more,” was the view of an 18-year-old school leaver in Athens.
“We should return to doing things like spontaneous socialising and physical contact,” a student at a British university said.
A student in Freiburg, Germany, added: “An 18th birthday on a Zoom conference call is hardly an experience that you will still be laughing about with your friends in five to 10 years’ time.”
Educational Disruption
Online learning is almost universally unpopular: “I now know how bad online class is even with great teachers,” said a 20-year-old maths undergraduate in France.
“It has completely ruined my university experience and quality of degree,” a final-year student at a London university said. “I hate learning online, and I hate it more knowing I’m paying full prices for a couple of Zoom classes a week.”
Depression Dwindle
Most respondents said they had struggled to get help for the psychological effects of the pandemic.
“I don’t know a single friend that isn’t either depressed and/or anxious. My mental health deteriorated so badly this year I had to start antidepressants,” a student in Wales said.
But the shared sense that young people mattered less than any other group in society could be fostering a new solidarity within Generation Z, Hurrelmann said.
“A whole generation, not only those who feel disadvantaged and depressed, now believe, ‘Our interests as a group, our wishes and needs, did not count.’ In this respect the pandemic has created a unity among Generation Z; it has given a push to solidarity among this generation.”
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Source : The Guardian
