| _version_ | 1866901182161616896 |
|---|---|
| author | Kaufmann, Eric |
| author_facet | Kaufmann, Eric |
| contents | <p>• The youth mental health crisis is real, with a majority of young people saying they are sad or anxious at least half the time. Among American students, nearly 7 in 10 say they are anxious at least half the time compared to a third of American adults<br>• Young people are considerably more woke than older people. Over 7 in 10 American college students support banning a speaker who claims transgenderism is a mental illness<br>• Being younger is the strongest predictor of mental illness in the population and, next to liberal-conservative ideology, the strongest correlate of woke attitudes<br>• Yet feeling anxious or depressed is far less important than being liberal or conservative in predicting whether someone supports woke ideas like cancel culture or saying their country is racist. Anxious liberals don’t differ much from well-adjusted liberals in their support for such ideas<br>• While liberals are more depressed and anxious than conservatives, mental health and liberal-conservative ideology have largely independent effects on attitudes to speech and Critical Social Justice<br>• The youth mental health crisis therefore does not explain why young people are more woke than their elders. It cannot account for the Great Awokening - even though both trends arose in the mid-2010s<br>• Female students are actually more likely than non-binary students to support no-platforming speakers who oppose transgenderism<br>• Gay, lesbian, bisexual and queer students are considerably more likely than other students to support shouting down, blocking or using violence against offensive speakers<br>• Within the young population, it is women, LGBTQ people, those on the left of the political spectrum and low achievers that are more likely to report poor mental health. Socioeconomic status and achievement matter, but cultural categories are more closely connected to variation in mental health<br>• Lonely students are considerably more likely than those who are not lonely to say they do not have enough time for themselves<br>• Non-binary or individuals who question their gender have worse mental health than cis-gendered men and women, but the effect is smaller than for sexual orientation<br>• Whites report worse mental health than nonwhites in some surveys. Race is not one of the more important predictors of attitudes toward cancel culture or critical race and gender perspectives.<br>• So too for education. And while religion matters for mental health it has no consistent effect on woke attitudes. Rising diversity, education and non-religiosity therefore do little to explain the Great Awokening<br>• It appears that the spread of woke ideas due to the rise of smartphones, social media and a more partisan news media contributed to a rise in youth mental illness, rather than the other way round</p> |
| format | Recurso digital |
| id | zenodo_https___doi_org_10_5281_zenodo_18145524 |
| institution | Zenodo |
| language | eng |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| publisher | Zenodo |
| record_format | zenodo |
| spellingShingle | The Mental Health Crisis Does Not Explain Woke Kaufmann, Eric <p>• The youth mental health crisis is real, with a majority of young people saying they are sad or anxious at least half the time. Among American students, nearly 7 in 10 say they are anxious at least half the time compared to a third of American adults<br>• Young people are considerably more woke than older people. Over 7 in 10 American college students support banning a speaker who claims transgenderism is a mental illness<br>• Being younger is the strongest predictor of mental illness in the population and, next to liberal-conservative ideology, the strongest correlate of woke attitudes<br>• Yet feeling anxious or depressed is far less important than being liberal or conservative in predicting whether someone supports woke ideas like cancel culture or saying their country is racist. Anxious liberals don’t differ much from well-adjusted liberals in their support for such ideas<br>• While liberals are more depressed and anxious than conservatives, mental health and liberal-conservative ideology have largely independent effects on attitudes to speech and Critical Social Justice<br>• The youth mental health crisis therefore does not explain why young people are more woke than their elders. It cannot account for the Great Awokening - even though both trends arose in the mid-2010s<br>• Female students are actually more likely than non-binary students to support no-platforming speakers who oppose transgenderism<br>• Gay, lesbian, bisexual and queer students are considerably more likely than other students to support shouting down, blocking or using violence against offensive speakers<br>• Within the young population, it is women, LGBTQ people, those on the left of the political spectrum and low achievers that are more likely to report poor mental health. Socioeconomic status and achievement matter, but cultural categories are more closely connected to variation in mental health<br>• Lonely students are considerably more likely than those who are not lonely to say they do not have enough time for themselves<br>• Non-binary or individuals who question their gender have worse mental health than cis-gendered men and women, but the effect is smaller than for sexual orientation<br>• Whites report worse mental health than nonwhites in some surveys. Race is not one of the more important predictors of attitudes toward cancel culture or critical race and gender perspectives.<br>• So too for education. And while religion matters for mental health it has no consistent effect on woke attitudes. Rising diversity, education and non-religiosity therefore do little to explain the Great Awokening<br>• It appears that the spread of woke ideas due to the rise of smartphones, social media and a more partisan news media contributed to a rise in youth mental illness, rather than the other way round</p> |
| title | The Mental Health Crisis Does Not Explain Woke |
| url | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18145524 |