Are We Broken, or Did We Forget How to Bend?

The world has not necessarily become more traumatic. Instead, our ability to weather hardship may have been weakened, and the gap between those two realities is where the modern mental health crisis lives.

The modern world often feels emotionally overwhelming. Anxiety disorders are rising, depression rates have climbed sharply, and the language of trauma has become embedded in our everyday conversations. Difficult experiences that previous generations may have considered ordinary hardships are now frequently described through the framework of psychological injury. 

According to data from the National Center for Health Statistics, nearly one in five American adults reported symptoms of anxiety or depression in the years following the COVID-19 pandemic (National Center for Health Statistics, 2024). Among adolescents, rates of depressive episodes nearly doubled between 2009 and 2019, even before the pandemic began (Daly, 2022). These statistics point to a genuine mental health crisis, but they also raise an important question: has the world truly become more traumatic, or has society gradually lost some of the resiliency needed to navigate hardship?

The answer is likely both. Modern life has introduced new forms of psychological strain while simultaneously weakening many of the social and developmental structures that once helped people cope with adversity.

One of the clearest differences between modern life and previous eras is the constant exposure to global suffering. Through smartphones and social media, people witness wars, disasters, violence, and tragedy in real time. Events occurring thousands of miles away are delivered instantly into daily life through endless news feeds and algorithm-driven media platforms. Researchers describe the psychological effects of this exposure as secondary traumatic stress or vicarious trauma, which occurs when individuals experience distress through repeated exposure to the suffering of others rather than through direct experience themselves (Figley, 1995). Recent research on media exposure and war-related content found that individuals who consumed large amounts of distressing media experienced significantly higher levels of anxiety, uncertainty, and fear about the future (Regnoli, Tiano, & De Rosa, 2025). Additional psychological research suggests that excessive news consumption can create a reinforcing cycle in which uncertainty drives media use while exposure to this media simultaneously increases anxiety and emotional distress (Boursier et al., 2025). Humans evolved to process immediate and local threats, yet modern technology now requires people to emotionally absorb suffering on a global scale. In many ways, society is asking individuals to carry more psychological weight than previous generations ever had to.

At the same time, society has become increasingly uncomfortable with hardship itself. In wealthy and industrialized cultures, discomfort is often treated as something that should be eliminated as quickly as possible rather than endured or learned from. This shift has influenced parenting, education, entertainment, and wellness culture. Convenience and emotional relief are prioritized in nearly every aspect of life. While reducing unnecessary suffering is positive, constantly shielding people from manageable challenges may also reduce opportunities to build resiliency.

Psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues in his book The Anxious Generation (2024) that overprotective parenting and the decline of unsupervised play have left many young people less prepared to cope with stress and failure. Haidt suggests that children are meant to be “antifragile,” meaning they grow stronger through manageable adversity rather than through complete protection. Without opportunities to experience risk, boredom, conflict, and independence, young people may enter adulthood without developing the emotional tools necessary to handle inevitable hardships.

Critics of Haidt’s argument note that economic instability, academic pressure, social inequality, and broader structural issues also contribute heavily to rising mental health struggles (Livingstone, Blum-Ross, & Zhang, 2024). These criticisms are important because they recognize that mental health problems are not caused by a single factor. However, the broader idea that resiliency develops through exposure to tolerable difficulty remains strongly supported within peer-reviewed psychological research. Clinical psychologist Marsha Linehan, founder of Dialectical Behavior Therapy, described distress tolerance as the ability to experience painful emotions without immediately trying to escape them (Linehan, 1993). This capacity is not innate; it develops through practice and repeated exposure to manageable discomfort. If people spend much of their lives avoiding discomfort, the nervous system never fully learns how to regulate itself during stress.

Another factor contributing to the mental health crisis is the growing medicalization of ordinary suffering. Mental health care is essential, and conditions such as depression, PTSD, and anxiety disorders deserve serious treatment and support. However, there is a meaningful difference between a clinical mental health condition and the ordinary pain that naturally accompanies life. Sadness after rejection, grief after loss, stress during uncertainty, and fear during difficult transitions are all part of the human experience. Yet modern culture increasingly interprets these experiences through clinical language. When every difficult emotion is framed as pathology or trauma, people may begin to see themselves as fragile rather than capable of enduring hardship.

Research in psychology consistently shows that interpretation shapes emotional experience. Studies on stress appraisal demonstrate that individuals who interpret stress responses as dangerous often experience greater anxiety, while those who view stress as manageable tend to cope more effectively (Jamieson, Nock, & Mendes, 2012). A culture that constantly emphasizes vulnerability without also emphasizing capability may unintentionally weaken people’s confidence in their own resiliency.

Furthermore, loneliness and social isolation have dramatically weakened society’s emotional foundation. In 2023, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy declared loneliness a national epidemic, noting that social isolation is associated with increased risks of depression, cardiovascular disease, dementia, and premature death (Murthy, 2023). Humans evolved within tightly connected communities where stress was processed collectively through family, friendship, and social support systems. Community functioned as an essential form of emotional regulation. However, many of these support structures have deteriorated. People spend less time with friends in person, more individuals live alone, and digital interaction increasingly replaces face-to-face connections.

Research by Primack et al. (2017) found that individuals who spend more than two hours per day on social media are significantly more likely to report feelings of social isolation. While social media creates the appearance of connection, it often fails to provide the deep interpersonal support that human nervous systems rely on during times of stress.

The rise of smartphones has removed another important form of emotional training: boredom. Boredom may seem insignificant, but it teaches people how to tolerate mild discomfort without immediate escape. For most of history, boredom was unavoidable, especially during childhood. Today, however, smartphones provide instant stimulation at nearly every moment. Feelings of loneliness, anxiety, restlessness, or discomfort can be interrupted immediately with scrolling, entertainment, or notifications. While this constant distraction feels harmless, it may gradually reduce people’s ability to tolerate uncomfortable emotions. Haidt argues that the widespread adoption of smartphones around 2012 closely aligns with the dramatic increase in adolescent mental health struggles (Haidt, 2024). The brain adapts to the conditions it experiences repeatedly. If discomfort is always escaped immediately, even small moments of stress may begin to feel intolerable.

Despite these concerns, it would be inaccurate to describe modern people simply as weak or fragile. A more accurate explanation is that many individuals have not been given enough opportunities to develop resiliency. The systems that once built emotional endurance and strong communities through unstructured play, boredom, responsibility, and manageable struggle have been gradually weakened or even disappeared. At the same time, people are exposed to more information, more comparisons, and more global suffering than ever before. In other words, society is carrying heavier emotional burdens while possessing fewer tools to manage them effectively.

The good news is that resiliency can be rebuilt. Research consistently shows that distress tolerance and emotional regulation are skills that can be developed and strengthened over time. Practical ways to support this growth include reducing excessive media consumption, prioritizing face-to-face relationships, allowing children to encounter manageable challenges, and becoming more comfortable with boredom and uncertainty. These are not outdated or nostalgic ideas; they address basic psychological needs that help people cope with adversity.

Ultimately, the world has not necessarily become more traumatic than it has always been. Human history has always included war, loss, disease, uncertainty, and suffering. What has changed is both the scale of psychological exposure and the gradual erosion of the social and developmental structures that once helped people endure hardship. The mental health crisis exists in the gap between those two realities. Society has increased the emotional load while reducing opportunities to build resiliency. Recognizing this distinction matters because it changes how people respond to this crisis. If resiliency is not an inherent trait but a trainable skill, then the current generation is not broken. They are simply underprepared. And what can be learned once can be learned again.

References

Boursier, V., Gioia, F., Musetti, A., & Schimmenti, A. (2025). Impact of media-induced uncertainty on mental health: A narrative-based perspective. Frontiers in Psychology.

Daly, M. (2022). Prevalence of depression among adolescents in the United States, 2009–2019. Journal of Affective Disorders Reports.

Figley, C. R. (1995). Compassion fatigue: Coping with secondary traumatic stress disorder in those who treat the traumatized. Brunner/Mazel.

Haidt, J. (2024). The anxious generation: How the great rewiring of childhood is causing an epidemic of mental illness. Penguin Press.

Jamieson, J. P., Nock, M. K., & Mendes, W. B. (2012). Mind over matter: Reappraising arousal improves cardiovascular and cognitive responses to stress. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 141(3), 417–422.

Linehan, M. M. (1993). Cognitive-behavioral treatment of borderline personality disorder. Guilford Press.

Livingstone, S., Blum-Ross, A., & Zhang, D. (2024). Do smartphones really cause mental illness among adolescents? Ten problems with Haidt’s book. LSE Parenting for a Digital Future.

Murthy, V. H. (2023). Our epidemic of loneliness and isolation: The U.S. Surgeon General’s advisory on the healing effects of social connection and community. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

National Center for Health Statistics. (2024). Symptoms of anxiety and depression among adults: United States, 2019 and 2022. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Primack, B. A., Shensa, A., Sidani, J. E., et al. (2017). Social media use and perceived social isolation among young adults in the U.S. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 53(1), 1–8.

Regnoli, G. M., Tiano, G., & De Rosa, B. (2025). Media exposure and vicarious trauma: Psychological responses to war-related content among young adults. European Journal of Investigation in Health, Psychology and Education.