Why are so many people experiencing such burnout and mental health issues?

Is it comparison driven by social media exposure or rising workplace stress or lonely life style driven by binge watching?

Everyone above me touched on a lot of good points and ultimately I think it’s a combination of many things. One thing I’ll add is I think we all suffer from overstimulation. With the internet and social media, we consume so much all day, everyday. I think it’s had a major effect on our brains. I’ll also add that people’s values/priorities seem to have changed as well (likely due to the internet and social media). Anytime we’re tired of something or someone we can easily move to the next best thing because it’s constantly being forced down our throats. We all suck at communicating because we don’t have to and can just move on to something “better”. There are pros and cons to everything of course (it’s not all bad) but I think it’s created a false sense of reality. I’m a millennial and love to stay up with the times but I do also miss the simpler times we had even 15 years ago. Or maybe I’ve just grown up more and being an adult is hard because of all the things listed above. Who knows.

Social media was supposed to be entertaining. Keeping it in that space like fishbowl let’s it be healthy. Humane nature, clever tech people who took advantage of that to monetize it, and lazy parenting… I don’t know how we fix it now. There is NEVER down time and that’s a huge issue. Truly sad. Wife and I raised our kids well but it seems like that’s the exception.

I work too much too but felt it was critical for my three kids to finish school with no debt. They are all doing great so absolutely worth it. Now I’m scrambling to save enough to retire and maybe travel some with my wife. I may be tired and sometimes burned out but it’s been for a purpose. Maybe that’s what age will provide you younger fishes. But you chose a profession and pace that’s is the definition of money-centered burnout. So…

Think about what is important to you. Maybe take your skills and intellect and find a nice paying job in the nonprofit sector. Only you know what’s best. A lot will be out of your control too. Unless you really are top-1% brilliant and hyper-ambitious, and willing to sacrifice everything, you will not start the next Google or Amazon. You can still do great things and be a great person… and be happy. Do you really aspire to be the next Zappos, or Theranos. Come on folks… there is more to life and you’re smart enough to find a path. And for goodness sake, come to terms with your mistakes because you’ll make LOTS of them. Counseling, especially with your SO sitting with you, can be a very good thing.

Lastly, always keep learning, exercise and eat reasonably well, try to be a servant leader and think of others first as best you can. Your really are going to die one day so think about what you’ll leave behind. What is truly important?

*Old guy steps off his soapbox*

Increased cost of living relative to wages. The current housing market also makes me feel that what my parents had will never be attainable for me and all my work has been for nothing.

It's also worth mentioning that trauma compounds. In the last 20 years alone we've had to deal with multiple "once in a lifetime" events that severely impact our lives in ways we may not clearly see. Some examples include 9/11, the 2008 housing market crash and resulting recession, countless acts of domestic terrorism (I include school shootings in that), intense natural disasters (hurricanes, wildfires, mudslides, earthquakes, etc), literal wars, attacks on civil liberties/violence against BIPOC, a pandemic, another recession... these have affected our economic, environmental, and social realities and they've also affected us mentally/emotionally in ways most people probably have never stopped to process.

C A P I T A L I S M

We are all burn out because we are working too much under too much stress and this is getting worse and worse. I wonder what the limit is but we are being pushed to work more, produce more.

To be honest, this work is incredibly boring.
There is zero rush, zero thrill, zero excitement.
It’s Groundhog Day with decent pay.

This quote pretty much sums it up for me:

“There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.”
- Ernest Hemingway

Lol I've had bipolar, mdd, gad, panic disorder, ptsd, and adhd since long before social media existed 😂😂 but yeah things like parasocial relationships, comparisons/keeping up with the jones', etc are definitely worsened by social media and that can't be good for anyone's mental wellbeing. We also live in a society that values production and money above all else. Add in the panini fundamentally changing a lot of aspects of how we live and work and of course you have a recipe for burnout and mental health issues. Basically if you're not making insane amounts of money and living a made-up dream you can easily classify yourself as "failing."

Living a lonely life so I hide behind being career driven and being “too busy because of work”. And cycle continues of burnout in hopes of some payoff in future

Increasing social polarization. Impending sense of doom from the looming climate apocalypse. Collapse of our financial system. Exacerbated income inequality.

10 and 12 hour days are the norm, not the exception. And it’s all work, no play. Used to take a 2-hour lunch from time to time - or at least a lunch break. I eat at my desk all the time now.

I’m off all social media and don’t have workplace stress but I’m still depressed af

Tell me you are a boomer without telling me you are a boomer.

We work 12-14 hour days, went through a pandemic, there’s threat of war hanging over our heads; but sure, binge watching is the problem.

OP - could it be all of the above? 😬

We all have been through a traumatic experience these last two years. In the military we train our people to look for signs of trauma and stress so we can diagnose it ourselves and see it in our team mates and in our loved ones.

It should be no surprise that many of us are facing burn out and post traumatic stress symptoms after this event that we have “survived”. The difference when compared to many severe traumas (combat, near death experiences, etc) is that our day to day is much the same as what it was like before.

All of us need to be more in tune with the after effects of stress and get better with self care and recognize when we need help. As a society we need to continue to get better with de-stigmatizing mental health issues. Not sure if this fits the OP’s question but it’s something I have been thinking a lot about lately.

All of the above

Add in a global pandemic that created or exacerbated other issues

Here are the top reasons I’m aware of:

1. Not dissing work from home, I work from home now after accepting a new offer to be fully remote. However there’s a big but here, many people have taken on very destructive habits with working from home like how they structure their day. They are living like April 2020 and unfortunately those habits are taking its toll.
2. The world has gone to hell. I mean everywhere you turn something bad is happening whether it be economic, political or social.
3. The great resignation is causing people who stay “loyal” to take on extra work due to colleagues quitting. In some industries and fields this is far more prevalent but it’s at least somewhat prevalent everywhere.
4. Some people who quit their job during the great resignation are realizing the grass isn’t greener on the other side and face resentment.
5. People sometimes feel like they need to be online 24/7 and this sort of goes with point number 1 but it’s so bad it deserves it’s own point. People don’t want to be passed up for promotion and they want their bosses to see the great job they are doing. They also worry about being let go at the drop of a hat in the first sight of any hardship like what happened in 2020

Demands feel to have increased on all fronts, with little compensation to balance ($$, time, etc.). Plus the old guard still holding corporate leadership positions causing most situations to fall back into pre-pandemic norms without learning from the lessons we’ve gleaned. Couple that with rising costs of goods, limited time or outlets to process the pain and events of the last two years, polarizing discourse, and expectations to produce at just as high of a clip as before - recipe for exhaustion.

It’s cause this work is soul sucking and meaningless

Because people don’t talk enough about it, and when they do, there are others who tell them that they have it good and there is nothing to complain about

Classic PwC, two of the three options are ‘it’s your own fault’ or a complete externalisation of the employer.