Since the 1950s, studies have shown that Americans have been slower and slower to reach the benchmarks of adulthood which, according to a recent article in The Atlantic are widely defined as finishing our education, moving out of the family home, pursuing a career, committing to a partner and having children. In fact, the median age for both men and women to experience these milestones has been rising progressively for years.
Lately, statistics prove that the current generation of individuals in their early to mid-twenties are taking even longer. And while it’s easy to dismiss the cause as laziness or lack of motivation, that’s not necessarily the case. According to a 2022 study cited by Science News, physiologically, their brains have been developing at a notably slower pace, directly influencing the maturing process.
Rodica Damian
Speaking to Science News about the study, psychology professor Rodica Damian of the University of Houston summarized the findings. “You get better as you go through life at being responsible, at coping with emotions and getting along with others. The fact that in these young adults you see the opposite pattern does show stunted development.”
What’s unique to this generation that could account for surprisingly slower growth in brain activity? The most discernible answer of course, is COVID-19.
In reporting on the same study, CNBC noted that a group of over 7,000 participants ages 30 and younger were monitored in the first year of the pandemic, 2020, and subsequently in 2021 and 2022. In 2021 and 2022, the participants showed a “significant increase in neuroticism” as well as a “decrease in agreeableness and conscientiousness.” Angelina Sutin, a professor at Florida State University College of Medicine who co-authored the study, explained to CNBC that while “the pandemic was stressful for everyone, it disrupted the normative tasks of younger adulthood, such as school and the transition into the workforce and being sociable and developing relationships.”
Angelina Sutin
It also affected those even younger. In a separate study covered by The Washington Post, brain scans illustrated that teenage brains, post-lockdown, showed higher levels of stress, anxiety, depression and fear. Ian Gotlib, the lead author of the study and a psychology professor at Stanford University, says the results were more disturbing than expected. “We thought there might be effects similar to what you would find with early adversity; we just didn’t realize how strong they’d be.”
For some young adults, the pandemic also deterred them from the original paths they had planned to follow, like delaying or even opting out of college. “Sometimes, when something happens during a critical development, there is a snowball effect,” Damian explained.
Ian Gotlib
But the pandemic is far from the sole cause, according to experts. In recent years, an unstable economy has also taken a significant toll. In a study conducted by Credit Karma and cited by The New York Times, nearly one-third of Gen-Z adults (people born between 1997 and 2012) are still living at home with no immediate plans to move out due to inflation, student debt and post-education job market insecurity. Robin Marantz Henig, author of the book “What Is It About Twenty-Somethings?” noted to U.S. News & World Report: “They’re suffering under student debt at greater rates than ever before and they’re experiencing unemployment at greater rates than the rest of the population.”
As a result, major life events like parenthood are being prolonged. While a woman’s fertility starts declining after her mid-twenties, Marantz Henig points out that achieving the financial stability to raise a child may not occur until her mid-thirties. In support of this theory, The Atlantic recently pointed to a Pew Research Center study which found that, “lack of financial readiness is a key reason for delaying marriage among young adults today.” Additionally, scientific advances like IVF and other fertility treatments have also factored in. Says Marantz Henig:
“It makes young men and women think that they can wait a very long time before thinking of whom to settle down with, when to start having kids.”
Robin Marantz Henig
Technology is another element with the potential to defer the traditional trajectory of choosing a partner and starting a family. “Internet dating makes it seem clear there’s always an endless-seeming pool of mates,” says Marantz Henig.
On a related note, journalist Nancy Jo Sales, who has done extensive reporting on the topic, says today’s dating app market, “isn’t interested in helping you find love and marriage. What they’re interested in is having you use their platforms and apps. It’s a bad faith proposition because their entire business model is built on usage. They want you to keep scrolling.”
And finally, climate change may be playing a role, with Science News claiming that it has “added mounting uncertainty to the already fraught mix.” In 2021, planet journal The Lancet published a study of 10,000 individuals ages 16-25, the majority of which were worried about climate change, which prompted feelings of sadness, anxiety and fear.
Jeffrey Jensen Arnett
Thanks to all these relatively recent external stressors, Science News remarked that “despair, once reserved for middle age, has, it seems, become the badge of youth.” Mental health specialist Satya Doyle Byock, author of the book “Quarterlife: The Search for Self in Early Adulthood,” concurs. As quoted in The New York Times, she surmises: “Crippling anxiety, depression, anguish and disorientation are effectively the norm.”
How to address such a massive existential crisis affecting an entire generation on a national scale? Many say that it starts with acknowledging the modern-day fears and uncertainties commonly experienced among this age group and allowing more grace for them to take their time. As Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, a senior researcher at Clark University, told The New York Times, “Some people are still locked into the view that you turn into an adult when you’re 18 and you should be all ready to go. I don’t know if that ever made sense, but it certainly doesn’t now.”
As a society, adapting more of an east Asian outlook might also benefit Americans of all ages. Citing a 2021 report in the Journal of Happiness Studies, Science News explains that while Western culture expects the stages of life to progress in a linear, straightforward path, Eastern culture generally accepts the notion of individuals veering off course at various points. In measuring the level of happiness among members of the Japanese population who experienced this kind of “derailment,” researchers found it did not drop nearly to the same extent as Westerners.
Satya Doyle Byock
Marantz Henig even suggests Western cultures start recognizing a new stage in life, which she refers to as “emerging adulthood.” Other experts seem to agree, offering similar advice to those who may be struggling. “We’ve been constrained by this myth that you graduate from college and you start your life,” Dr. Angela Neal-Barnett, a psychology professor at Kent State University who has studied anxiety in young people, was quoted in The New York Times. “Set aside time to be selfish.”
It can also be as simple, developmental psychologist Anthony Burrow of Cornell University told Science News, as taking a beat to ask yourself, “Am I still the same person as I was pre-pandemic?”
Regardless of what it’s called, accepting that at some point, most young adults will experience a period of indecision, pause or experimentation should be the norm and not the exception, with the faith that, for the most part, things eventually have a way of working themselves out. “If I had advice to give,” Marantz Henig’s daughter, Samantha – who was also interviewed for the U.S. News & World Report story while in her mid-twenties – offered, “It would be, ‘Don’t worry. A lot of people are feeling this way and a lot of people in previous generations felt that way too, and they turned out okay.’”
And if the path you intended to take isn’t fulfilling you, it’s all right to change course. “It’s not about choosing labels and being done,” says Byock. “Start to give your own inner life the respect that it’s due.”
