Chapter 16: Coping With Issues Of the Mind

Mental health, depression, and anxiety issues dominate Gen Z

Solution: The younger population needs more of mental health rather than physical health support.

While the physical health of Gen Z tracks with previous age-groups, their overall mental health is suffering immensely. Gen Z is likely the most anxious and depressed American generation, as the constant influx of a digital life takes its toll. In past human history, we've suffered from issues of scarcity, like not having enough food and being bored. Now we suffer from issues of abundance like having too many high-fructose foods and stimulation overloads. We've been given everything, so our lack of wanting inevitably leads to a lack of meaning. Viktor Frankl, a concentration camp survivor wrote the most remarkable book on this topic titledMan’s Search for Meaning. He says, “What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.”[1] As Z searches for meaning in an overindulged society, their mental health is deteriorating at an increasingly alarming rate. The military must recognize that the younger population needs more mental rather than physical health support…

[1] Frankl, Viktor E. Man's Search for Meaning. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2014.

Matthew Weiss is currently an Intelligence Officer in the United States Marine Corps. His book, “We Don’t Want You, Uncle Sam: Examining the Military Recruiting Crisis with Generation Z” is available on amazon in paperback, e-book, and audiobook format.