Well-Being, Mental Ill-Being, and Today’s Youth

Abstract

In this article, the author argues that the well-being movement currently sweeping Western countries is having the reverse effect of unduly increasing young people’s concern about their mental ill-being. Young people’s concern with mental ill-being seems to be the unintentional effect of the emphasis on well-being in the media and most importantly in social media, from which young people get most of their news and information, and by the well-being programs widely introduced in schools. Furthermore, the author’s longitudinal cohort analysis presented in this article indicates that if the well-being movement is allowed to continue, its deleterious effect on young people’s mental ill-being will increase with every new generation. The well-being movement seems impossible to stop. However, it might be possible to reduce the resulting concern with mental ill-being if the government were to impose a reporting ban on it in the media and on social media, so that the attention paid to it gradually fades. This ban could be achieved under Section 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which allows restriction of free speech if it poses a danger to public health. Also, mental health organizations should advise schools to stop well-being programs and work with parents to prevent school-aged children and teenagers from having smartphones and gaining uncontrolled access to social media.