What I See As The Biggest Challenges Young Adults Face Today

What I See As The Biggest Challenges Young Adults Face Today

[Name of the Writer]

[Name of the Institution]

What I See As The Biggest Challenges Young Adults Face Today

Introduction

You can ask any individual what was their most memorable time in life and they will answer "the youth". This is because youth is full of fun and happiness that turns into memories for the entire life. However, there is a flip side to it added due to increased dependence on technology. The youth today are faced with different significant issues. The reason these issues are significant because youth account for 18% of the global population. Although 18% of the global population might be only 1 billion, the next generation of future leaders will come from that 1 billion. Therefore, it is imperative to understand the biggest issues facing the youth today.

Discussion

There is a long list of issues that the youth are facing today. However, the biggest three challenges are mental illness, drug addiction, and body imaging.

The issue of mental illness among the youth has seen a spike in recent years. According to the figure released by the National Institute of Mental, more than 44 million young adults aged 18 or above are suffering from a mental illness (Hamm et.al, 2015). This number is quite shocking mental illness impedes the critical thinking of youth. Moreover, excessive usage of social media has been linked to numerous mental illnesses. The youth develops depression and anxiety due to their increased dependence on the social. Researchers have termed the depression developed due to increased use of social media as “Facebook Depression” (Hamm et.al, 2015). Though the positive impacts of social media are ample, the negative impacts are quite detrimental considering the amount of youth impacted by it.

Moreover, to cope with the effects of stress, depression and anxiety, the youth today has found a solution. They are relying heavily on drugs to find an escape route from the realities of the world. Usage of drugs is increasing with each passing day. According to the National Institute of Drug Abuse, young adults are increasingly resorting to illicit drugs (Ames et.al, 2017). Another reason underlying the increased dependency on drugs is the socio-economic inequalities. The youth who do not enjoy equal rights and opportunities are more susceptible to get addicted to drugs. Another shocking trend that is increasing every day is that youth are overdosing on prescription drugs. There is little the government can do about this drug abuse because the prescription drugs are not considered illegal and most of them are readily available in drug stores. Due to the use and abuse of drugs, the health of the youth is in jeopardy which will cause additional burden on the national health budget (Ames et.al, 2017).

Another significant issue the youth have been grappling with is body imaging (Grogan et.al, 2016). The issue of body imaging has been on the rise due to the increased promotion of unrealistic body ideals. Social media has once again played its part in cropping up this issue. Since numerous fitness models use Instagram to promote themselves, many of the youth try to compare their bodies with the bodies of the models which leads to depression. Females are particularly more susceptible to becoming anxious than males. Moreover, females, in a bid to imitate the bodies of the models, go to different lengths (Grogan et.al, 2016).

Conclusion

These are just the three issues that I feel are challenging the youth a great deal. However, the list of these challenges is long. None of the issues should be neglected referring it to as insignificant. The youth must be educated through community awareness programs about the detrimental consequences of the challenges facing them.

References

Ames, S. L., Xie, B., Shono, Y., & Stacy, A. W. (2017). Adolescents at risk for drug abuse: A 3‐year dual‐process analysis. Addiction, 112(5), 852-863.

Grogan, S. (2016). Body image: Understanding body dissatisfaction in men, women and children. Routledge.

Hamm, M. P., Newton, A. S., Chisholm, A., Shulhan, J., Milne, A., Sundar, P., ... & Hartling, L. (2015). Prevalence and effect of cyberbullying on children and young people: A scoping review of social media studies. JAMA pediatrics, 169(8), 770-777.