2021年11月5日
Brian Wong
EJ Insight
On the Mental Health of Our Youth
A recent survey conducted by the Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups found that over a half of secondary school students surveyed showed signs of depression. Teens are finding it hard to concentrate at school, are increasingly easily irritated, and precipitously plagued by insomnia. In short, we're witnessing, as I have repeatedly warned, a mental health pandemic.
And guess what? Perhaps a somewhat radical proposition here – but I'd wager that we just aren't doing enough to serve those who matter. Two years back, in 2019, we saw similar results with the poll, where a significant number of youth surveyed exhibited anxiety and restlessness, in response to the sociopolitical turmoil that rocked our city.
It goes without saying that mental health is a matter of public health. Trivially, it's in the name. But for those whose concern for public issues and items may well be more exclusively restricted to purely domains that ostensibly affect economic productivity – here's the bad news: dilapidated mental health, whether it be the cataclysmic paranoia and bipolarities exhibited by some, or the pervasive Black Dog that afflicts large numbers of our future generations, is highly economically costly. ...
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