The Crisis of Our Young Generation

Imagine this: A world in which a light-hearted flirt becomes a deadly fight, in which drugs and violence stain the innocence of youth. This is no fantasy setting from a science fiction book but an ugly reality that is being enacted in neighborhoods all over the globe. Our youth, once touted as the future, are now more and more portrayed as unstable and isolated, their behavior driven by drugs and a disturbing absence of compassion. There are tales of a young man attacking five of his loved ones in a fit of rage brought on by drugs, or a child, trapped in the cycle of addiction, selling drugs to his sister. While the public grapples with such incidents, blame is usually placed squarely on movies and social media. The truth, however, is a lot more complicated, and it challenges us to look beyond such easy scapegoats for the underlying drivers of this crisis.

The drug use epidemic among teenagers is impossible to ignore. Illegal drugs like marijuana, prescription drugs, and synthetic drugs infuse their lives and wreak havoc on developing minds. These drugs impair judgment and increase hostility—a teenager on stimulants can vomit out a violent fury, while one on depressants can lose all sense of responsibility, plummeting into reckless or violent acts. The link between violence and drug use cannot be avoided, with research discovering drugs as a precipitating factor in the majority of youth offenses. The gruesome example of a kid sharing drugs with his little sister is not an isolated monstrosity; it is a harbinger of an epidemic eroding the moral and emotional fabric of our children. Meanwhile, violence runs amok at breakneck pace. Headlines scream of stabbings, shootings, and assaults, most of them prompted by something as trivial as a glance or a jeer. The example of one boy beating up five of his closest relatives is a horrific one, so too are stories of teenagers reenacting violent screen scenes in real life. Drugs are at play, certainly, but so are peer pressures—the endless requirement to harden up, the brutishness to be admired in some quarters. Issues with mental illness, often complicated by drug use, steal their capacity for impulse control, leaving naked rage in its wake.

Perhaps most unsettling is the seeming desiccation of feeling among youths today—a bone-chilling absence of empathy that leaves them untouched by the pain they cause. This lack of feeling could be partly a function of the digital age, when contacts are little more than pixels on a computer screen, creating an icy separation. The incessant barrage of violent media can madden minds in youths, inuring them to actual suffering, and making empathy a foreign idea. But the origins go deeper—communities where the emotional ties have frayed, schools that reward grades over conscience, and a culture that promotes self over people all lead to a generation of people who find it difficult to care about other people. If a child has no qualms about hurting his sister, then we need to ask: what happened to empathy? Society prefers a bad guy, and film and social media are favorite year-round pastimes. Trends promoted by viruses provoking unsafe stunts and films glorifying violence of death may inspire naive minds, indeed. But to place all blame for the crisis at these external stimuli's doors is to forget the trees because of the forest. They are multipliers and not originators of conduct—copies of what we have created, imitations of what we're describing. It is simple to hold them at fault, but it sidesteps the harder questions: Why are young people so vulnerable to these influences? What gaps in their lives make them hungry for affirmation with likes or reproduce on-screen violence?

What we lose sight of, in the finger-pointing, is the big picture. Teen mental health treatment is a travesty in too many places—teens with anxiety or despair too often have nowhere to turn, so they medicate with chemicals or lash out in rage. Tough times create desperation; in desperate communities, violence, and drugs are sometimes the only way out. Education is a failure, disgorging exam-takers not well-balanced human beings who can deal with the emotional storms of life. And then there's family and community—the bedrock of any young person's life. With parents stretched thin or absent, with communities lacking cohesion, children are left adrift, exposed to the poison of malign influences. These are the hidden emergencies we ignore in screen-bashing. The state of our young people is a reflection held up by society, and it is not a pretty one. We can't simply wring our hands and accuse the typical suspects. To recapture this generation, we must move aggressively—bolster mental health care so that no child has to suffer in silence, create economic opportunity to exchange despair for hope, and reform education to instruct empathy and strength as well as math and science. Above all, we must rebuild the village—families, neighbors, mentors—that every child needs to thrive. The path is long, but the price of doing nothing is too great. Our children are not lost; they are crying out to us to listen. As the proverb states, "It takes a village to raise a child." It's time for the village to rise.