Are we living in the
Age of Anxiety?
The task is to read
an article on increasing anxiety in children, and the challenges that
modern society faces in order to combat this negative tendency.
Crime, AIDS, divorce, unemployment, living
alone, lack of trust, and other changes in the social environment have
produced anxiety levels in children who lived in the 1980s to rival those
of child psychiatric patients of the 1950s, reports psychologist Jean
Twenge.
The increase of social problems and isolation,
coupled with media reports of breaking news events, can produce real or
anticipated threats of physical and mental harm that contribute to this
increase in anxiety.
Anxiety, which many times precedes depression, also
signals that society will have to grapple with other health and societal
problems, such as substance and alcohol abuse which tend to follow
depression and anxiety. Research has found that anxious people have a
higher mortality rate, most likely because anxiety has been linked to
higher occurrences of asthma, irritable bowel syndrome, ulcers,
inflammatory bowel disease, and coronary heart disease.
Extract from BBC Online article:
One in five adolescents in Northern Ireland experience mental health
problems, according to research that will formed the basis of conference
in Belfast in April 2001. Chief Executive of the agency Dr Brian Gaffney,
said the research looked at what young people worried about most and what
they did to cope. He said: "More than two thirds of young people
worry about not having enough money, over half worried about a return to
the Troubles, half of those surveyed worry about the future and almost
half worried about their appearance."
When
asked how they cope with their worries the most popular responses were the
same for both sexes such as, listening to music, talking to friends and
arranging a night out with friends.
