First off, I think in the past it was not treated unless someone was suicidal, and there was a huge taboo surrounding suicide. I remember people from my childhood being described as “bluesy” and things of that nature. In retrospect, they were almost certainly depressed.
Yes, I think high school students feel an extraordinary pressure to succeed, to become “extraordinary.” They certainly feel (and not without reason) that just being willing to put in a hard day’s work isn’t always sufficient to hope to support a family. That was definitely a feature in the distant past, but I don’t think there was the idea that there was much that could be done about what economic class you were going to be in. Parents, meanwhile, don’t have this secure situation where you start at a job when you’re young and do that your whole life and fit in with a secure social and work group for your entire working life. That just doesn’t exist any more, not from Wall Street down to the coal miners or those in day labor. Everyone knows their position or even their entire industry could take a fatal downturn any day.
The good side is that the nature of anxiety and depression are more well-understood. There are habits and skills that a person prone to these problems can learn to use. It doesn’t make the world more secure, but it makes one a bit more capable of getting back to a trusting attitude that can focus on the eternal perspective with clarity instead of fear. (And isn’t that the most common command of the Bible? “Fear not!” So to master fears and anxiety and pessimism is a spiritually-beneficial thing to do.)
I think “FOMO” and comparing our own lives to the manufactured lives of others is very much increasing anxiety. We compare ourselves to Insta feeds and Live Tweets.
We are also becoming so isolated, people don’t sit on the front steps and talk to their neighbors anymore, we rush inside as if we are in witness protection.
Yes, there is definitely an atmosphere of competition and a foolish attitude that being average or contented with a life that has boundaries is somehow pathetic. I think it is advertising’s stirring up of the desire to make other people jealous, just more efficient than decades ago. Advertising does use fear and insecurity and, well, avarice to increase sales. Humility and modesty are not popular virtues.
Yes, glamour is in high demand, and we know Who is the world’s great pusher of Glamour (and all its empty promises).
