In today’s society, many people are struggling with their mental health. Many things can contribute to negatively affecting your mental health. Some of the main factors affecting today’s generation could be the rapid change of less in-person interactions with people due to having to be quarantined, the new introduction of virtual learning, and the unrealistic standards social media puts out.

Having social interactions with people and friends usually tends to make people feel better and happier by them not focusing/thinking too much about the negative things affecting their lives, as they typically would if they were alone. Social interactions could also give out a sense of safety which helps with building trust by opening up about feelings with one another. Expressing the way they are feeling can help them feel a lot better by just having someone they trust to talk to.

Due to Covid-19, the world has drastically changed so much at such a rapid pace, changing everyone’s daily routines and lifestyles, especially with students having to do virtual learning now. Virtual learning is not just harder but more demanding on a student’s mental health. The pressure is a lot more intense due to them getting overloads of work from their classes with such a small amount of time to get it all done without it causing stress and wearing down their energy completely giving them no motivation to do anything or see things through with a positive mindset.

Another main factor that contributes to the deterioration of people’s mental health is social media and the unrealistic standards it puts out. Social media has always been something many people compare themselves to in this generation causing them to think less of themselves due to them not being able to keep up with their unrealistic lifestyles and body images. It could cause people to stray away from society, develop depression, and even self-harm. The majority of young women and men in this generation suffer from body image issues and they are left feeling as if they have to look like the people in the photos they see on social media even though most of the time the photos are photoshopped or edited.

There are so many other things that can harm people’s mental health problems and it is an issue that should be talked about a lot more and normalized so people won’t feel as if they are alone in it.

(Maybe include in the last paragraph that students can talk to the school counselors and how they can contact them if needed)