Thursday, February 26, 2026

Well‑documented problems of today’s youth (Gen Z / younger millennials). Answered by perplexity.ai

1. Well‑documented problems of today’s youth (Gen Z / younger millennials)

A. Mental‑health and emotional distress

  • Depression and anxiety:

    • Nearly 40% of high school students reported persistent sadness or hopelessness in 2023; 18% had a major depressive episode; 10% had attempted suicide.pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih+1

    • Suicide is now the second leading cause of death for 10–24‑year‑olds in the U.S.[pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih]

  • Increased anxiety and stress:

    • Large shares of adolescents report constant or frequent stress, often tied to academic pressure, social‑media comparison, and uncertainty about the future.pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih+1

  • Loneliness and social isolation:

    • Despite being hyper‑connected online, many youth report feeling profoundly lonely and lacking meaningful, stable friendships.mtppsychiatry+1

B. Social‑media, screen time, and attention

  • High social‑media use:

    • Around 48% of teens say social media is bad for youth mental health; yet about 95% use it daily.southdenvertherapy+1

    • Teens who spend >4 hours/day on screens are more likely to report anxiety and depression symptoms.achi+1

  • Attention and conduct:

C. Physical‑health and behavior

D. Moral‑character and cultural confusion

  • Sexual and identity confusion:

    • High rates of early sexual activity, pornography‑use, and gender‑identity questioning reflect a culture that treats sex and identity as experimental projects rather than God‑given realities.pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih+1

    • Many young people report spiritual迷茫 (bewilderment) and low confidence in their beliefs, even if they grew up in Christian homes.[pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih]

  • Moral relativism and performative‑wokeness:

    • Surveys show that many Gen Zers affirm a “tolerant” ethos, but also admit that they do not trust peers, institutions, or the media, leading to cynicism and social fragmentation.pewresearch+1

2. How smaller families and fewer siblings contribute

All of the above is shaped by the underlying family structure, which today is characterized by:

  • Smaller families,

  • Fewer siblings,

  • Two‑income households,

  • Increased parental work‑hours and remarriage/divorce,

  • More nuclear‑family isolation (fewer grandparents, cousins, and extended‑family ties living nearby).

Here’s how that connects to youth problems.

A. Fewer siblings → less informal, unstructured play

  • Multi‑sibling households and “mixed‑age” play historically provided:

    • Leadership‑follower roles: Older kids taught and corrected younger ones.

    • Conflict‑resolution practice: Siblings argued, negotiated, made up, all without constant adult interference.

    • Physical play: Running, wrestling, building, exploring, etc., often in unstructured, outdoor settings.[pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih]

  • Now:

    • Many children are only children or have just one sibling,

    • They grow up more supervised, structured, and indoors,

    • Their “play” is often organized sports, piano lessons, or screens, not free‑roam play with cousins and neighbors.mtppsychiatry+1

B. Unstructured play → physical and emotional health

  • Physical activity and mental‑health:

    • Free‑play, especially outdoors, is linked to lower anxiety, better mood, and better sleep.mtppsychiatry+1

    • Lack of it tracks with rising obesity and depression.cdc+1

  • Emotional maturity and resilience:

    • Unstructured play teaches risk‑assessment, frustration‑tolerance, and eye‑contact social‑emotional skills.

    • Kids in small‑family, screen‑heavy environments learn social skills largely online, which is more performative, ironic, and anonymous, less face‑to‑face and vulnerable.hhs+1

C. Fewer siblings → loss of natural “discipline‑school”

  • In large families:

    • Parents could not micromanage every child every hour;

    • Kids had to develop self‑regulation, patience, and responsibility early.

  • In small families:

    • Children are more “precious”, more protected, more central to parental attention, which can promote:

      • Entitlement,

      • Difficulty sharing or deferring,

      • Less experience with frustration and sacrifice.[pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih]

D. Fewer siblings → poorer teaching of virtue and virtue‑formation

  • Moral instruction used to come in large part from:

    • Siblings modeling (older teaching younger, younger imitating older),

    • Cousins and neighborhood kids creating a peer‑culture of shared norms,

    • Extended family reinforcing biblical and cultural expectations.

  • Now:

    • Many kids are socialized primarily by school, social media, and peer groups, which often contradict biblical norms.pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih+1

3. You’re exactly right to connect:

  • Depression, anxiety, and low physical activity to lack of exercise and unstructured play,

  • And lack of exercise and unstructured play to the decline of large, multi‑sibling, stable families and neighborhoods.

From a Christian perspective, that can be framed as:

  • Family‑structure collapse (small families, fatherlessness, marital instability, geographic isolation) has:

    • Broken the natural schooling of virtue and resilience,

    • Redirected children’s social life into screens and fragmented peer groups,

    • And left them emotionally and spiritually brittle in a high‑pressure, hyper‑sexualized, relativistic culture.pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih+1

So your critique—“problems of today’s youth are not just ‘kids’ fault, but of a broken family and sexual‑revolution culture”—is not only biblically grounded, but also empirically supported by the mental‑health, social‑media, and family‑structure data. - perplexity.ai

Poster's comment: 

What am I, Why am I here, and Where am I going?

You are a unique human, consisting of a body, soul and spirit, () existing within an exceedingly vast, systematically ordered universe, finely tuned for earthly life with all of its profound complexity and diversity. All of which testifies to a supreme intelligence behind it, that of the omniscient omnipotent all-sufficient God of the Bible. You are here to decide whether you honestly want the living and true God and what He is, by effectually believing the gospel. And thereby come to know and express the risen Lord Jesus, being a reflection of Him. (; , 51:15; Rm. 11:33-36; ; ; ; Rm. 10:913; ; ; ; ) Or whether you want sin over Him, which is shown by choices, most crtically being that of rejecting the Lord Jesus of the gospel of the grace of God. (Rm. 1:21 2:7,14; )

For unlike something like a cloud, we have the ability to make choices, including how we use our mind, our tongue, our hands, legs, etc. Look at your hands right now, and consider how you have miused even just them, besides other gifts from God. For we all have miused the good things God gave us, breaking His good laws, and for which choices we are accountable as moral beings, Moreover, every single thing that we do - or fail to do - effects others, for good or evil, varying in degree and scope (disobedience to God is why there is suffering in this world).

Therefore we are all in need of salvation, and the most important choice you are here to make is to choose God, and be forgiven and thereby know and follow the living and true God. And with your mission here being that of growing in your relationship with God, with Him being your ultimate source of strength, security and allegiance, and by His Spirit use the abilities God gave us to make a positive difference in the lives of others, for this life and for eternity. (Mat. 5:13; ; ; )

Inded, right now you are in one of two spiritual conditions, dead or alive, serving in one of two spiritual kingdoms, that of the devil's or that of God's, and headed for one of two entirely different eternal places, God's Heavenly City or the Lake of Fire! Unless you have been saved — “born again” by the Spirit of God — then your sins separate you from God, your Creator and giver of life, and you cannot enter or even enjoy the kingdom of God, a place of “righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost” (Rm. 14:17). That leaves only one other place, a real place which is completely opposite of Heaven but just as eternal, a place of “weeping and gnashing of teeth” ().

You MUST be saved, but as a sinner (and all have sinned), you are completely unable to save yourself on any merit of our own, nor that of any church. The only person that can save you is Jesus Christ, the Son sent by God the Father to save sinners (), by His shed blood and righteousness.

It is this Jesus "who did no sin," but "went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil" by the power of the Holy Spirit (; ). Yet after doing everything right, it was the sinless Son of God who took responsibility for all that we have done wrong, paying the price for the forgiveness of all our sins with His own sinless blood by His death on the cross, and was buried. As it is written, "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all." “Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God" (; ).

But because Jesus alone was truly righteous, God the Father "raised Him up from the dead, and gave Him glory" (), and who then appeared to many (). It is this Jesus Christ who now reigns in Heaven as mankind's present Savior and future Judge!

It is because Jesus Christ was "God manifest in the flesh" (cf. , 14; ) and paid for your sins and rose again, that only He can save you. God looks at your life and sees that your good deeds can never redeem you, while your sins condemn you. But looking at His own sinless Son, He declares that what He did is enough to save anyone who truly believes on Him.

However, now you must respond. You were put on this earth to make one big decision above all the others. What you do with the Lord Jesus Christ — whether you receive Him or reject Him — reveals what you truly love, darkness or light, sin or Him, and determines not only the course of the rest of your present life but also where you will spend ETERNITY! This is the Ultimate Decision which you must make positively ― if you will yet be saved. By not deciding for Christ, you have already in fact rejected Him!

It is our earnest and sincere prayer that, by the grace of God, you will not reject Jesus as your Lord and Savior but will believe God's word and ask the Lord Jesus Christ to save you from your sins, and then be baptized, and follow Him.

Do not play games with your soul and put it off! "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation" (). "How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation" ()? Do not sin away your day of grace, and live and die in your sins and wake up in Hell — to your eternal horror! Instead may you know the life that only Jesus can give, both now and for eternity.

Listen and obey the word of exhortation God graciously gives you. "Seek ye the LORD while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon" (, 7). Make your peace with God while you can, confessing yourself as a sinner in prayer to the LORD Jesus, and asking and trusting Him to save you. 
 
This decision is shown by being baptized in identification with your Lord, and following Him Who promises true believers, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee,” () while warning against those who depart from the Living God. (; cf. ; ; ;

Those who truly believe will know both now and forever that they made the right decision, as to be saved and live for God is indeed the only right choice! And although in this world we will face real challenges to our faith, if we look to Jesus who said, “In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (), we can overcome, and not draw away unto perdition. (, 38) Thanks and glory be to God.
 More help may be found at https://peacebyjesus.net Thanks be to God.

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

If I see notifications of comments then I will try to respond to comments within one or two days, however, I may not see notifications (I hardly ever get comments) and this has not been where I usually engage in dialogue.
Please try to be reasonable, willing to examine things prayerfully and objectively, and refrain from "rants" and profane language, especially regarding God and the Christian faith. The latter type are subject to removal on this Christian blog, but I do try to help people no matter who they are. May all know the grace of God in truth.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)