They are young, but already tired. They sleep poorly, lack energy, cannot concentrate and experience anxiety, stress and low mood. At the same time, they live in a society that offers stimulation around the clock. Perhaps it is time to ask whether the problem exists not only within young people themselves, but also in the environment we have created around them.
As a doctor, I meet young people who are exhausted before adulthood has really even begun.
They tell me about poor sleep, low energy, concentration problems, anxiety and mental health problems. Some struggle to get through an ordinary school day. Others feel that they need caffeine to function.
Of course, there are many reasons why young people struggle. We should neither trivialise mental illness nor explain every problem in terms of lifestyle.
But I believe we are overlooking an obvious question:
What is today’s lifestyle doing to the adolescent brain?
For never before have we subjected the brain – a brain still developing – to so much stimulation.
A brain that never gets any peace. The phone lies beside the bed when the young person wakes up.
Before their feet touch the floor, the brain may already have received the day’s first stream of Snapchat, TikTok, messages, videos and notifications.
Then it continues. Music in their ears. The mobile phone during breaks. The computer at school. An energy drink in their hand. Ultra-processed food on the go. Gaming after school. Series in the evening. The phone back in bed.
We have created an everyday life in which there are almost no breaks.
And in the midst of all this, we find dopamine.
Dopamine is often called a «happiness hormone». That is a simplification. Dopamine is, among other things, central to the brain’s systems for motivation, learning, anticipation and reward.
It is precisely this system that much of the modern attention economy is competing for.
The next video.
The next message.
The next «like».
The next level in the game.
The next sweet taste.
The brain quickly learns: Check one more time. Perhaps something exciting will appear.
It is not because young people lack willpower. The technology is designed to hold our attention.
We have eliminated boredom
Think about how rarely we are bored today.
In the past, we waited for the bus. Looked out of the window. Walked to school. Stood in a queue. Lay in bed before falling asleep.
Today, the phone fills almost every empty moment.
That may sound trivial. I do not think it is.
For what happens when a brain accustomed to rapid and constantly changing stimuli encounters a double period of mathematics? A 300-page book? A workout? Or simply silence?
Reality is suddenly competing with a machine that can deliver something new every single second.
We should therefore not be surprised that concentration can feel difficult.
Energy drinks do not solve sleep deprivation
At the same time, energy drinks have become part of youth culture. Energy is marketed in a can.
But caffeine does not create new energy in the body. Among other things, it blocks the effects of adenosine in the brain and makes us feel less tired.
The body may still need sleep.
The problem arises when caffeine is used to compensate for too little sleep, and the caffeine in turn makes it more difficult to fall asleep.
Then we get a cycle that is difficult to break:
Too little sleep → tiredness → caffeine → falling asleep later → even less sleep → more caffeine.
Add sugar, screen use late in the evening, too little daylight and too little physical activity, and we have constructed an everyday life that almost works against the body’s normal circadian rhythm.
And then we wonder why young people are tired.
Food has also become entertainment
Nor is it accidental how much modern food is made.
Ultra-processed food can be cheap, readily available, soft, crunchy, sweet or salty and very easy to eat. It can be consumed quickly and requires hardly any preparation.
We no longer eat only because we are hungry. We eat in the car. In front of the television. While gaming. When we are bored. When we are stressed.
Food has also become stimulation.
Research finds associations between a high intake of ultra-processed food and a range of adverse health outcomes. The relationship with mental health among children and young people is also being studied.
We should be careful not to turn observational associations into definitive causal explanations. But we should be at least as careful not to pretend that diet is irrelevant to the brain.
The brain is part of the body.
An overstimulated brain and an understimulated body
At the same time, we move less. That is perhaps the greatest paradox.
The brain receives stimuli from morning until evening, while the body may remain still for large parts of the day.
We drive where we used to walk. We sit at school. Sit in front of the computer. Sit with the mobile phone. Sit when we get home.
But the human body is made for movement. Physical activity affects far more than muscles and fitness. It is associated with better sleep and mental health and is important for metabolic health and brain function.
I wish we would stop talking about physical activity merely as a means of combating obesity.
Young people need to move because they have a body and a brain that are made for it.
And what about all the wireless technology?
Children and young people also live in an environment with mobile phones, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and 4G and 5G networks.
Here we must keep a cool head. Research is being conducted into the biological and health effects of radio-frequency electromagnetic fields. It is legitimate to call for further research, particularly because our patterns of exposure have changed rapidly.
But the current body of knowledge does not provide grounds for concluding that 5G within the applicable exposure limits makes young people ill. At the same time, 5G did not arrive in Norway until 2020, so there is much we do not know, and any long-term effects will not become apparent until several years have passed.
What we do know, however, is that the way we use technology can affect sleep, activity and attention. That alone ought to be enough to prompt action.
We do not need to wait for a debate about radiation before asking young people to leave their mobile phones outside the bedroom.
France, Cyprus, Israel and parts of Belgium have introduced laws prohibiting wireless networks in nurseries in order to protect the youngest children.
Perhaps not everything needs a diagnosis
When a young person comes to the doctor with exhaustion, concentration problems or psychological symptoms, illness must of course be considered.
But before we reduce every problem to diagnoses and medication, we should also dare to ask some simple questions:
What time do you go to bed?
How many hours do you spend on your phone?
How much caffeine do you drink?
What do you eat?
How often do you exercise?
When are you outside in daylight?
When was the last time you went without your phone for several hours?
And when was the last time you were properly rested?
These are not questions that are at odds with modern medicine.
This is medicine.
We must make the normal normal again
I do not think young people need yet another app to optimise their lives.
They need something far less sophisticated.
Sleep.
Proper food.
Movement.
Daylight.
Less caffeine.
Less sugar and ultra-processed food.
Phone-free meals.
The mobile phone out of the bedroom.
Time together with other people, face to face.
And perhaps something whose value we have almost forgotten: silence.
Of course, we should use technology. It has given us fantastic opportunities. But technology must be a tool for human beings. Human beings must not be a tool for technology.
For when more and more young people tell us that they are stressed, unable to concentrate and exhausted, our only response cannot be to ask:
«What is wrong with you?»
We must also dare to ask:
«What is wrong with the way we have organised life around you?»
Perhaps young people do not primarily need more stimulation. Perhaps they need less.
King Solomon, who was the wisest man in the Old Testament, writes in Proverbs 4, verse 23: «Guard your heart above all that you guard, for from it flows life.»
We know today that our brain is shaped by what we direct our attention towards, and every day we must make choices, and over time these choices become habits that help shape our lives.
We must build a society that promotes health
We cannot leave responsibility for the health of children and young people to individual families alone. Politicians also bear responsibility for the framework we build around their upbringing.
Konservativt wants a society that is safe, health-promoting and humane – a society that makes it easier to make good choices, not harder.
We want to emphasise the fundamentals: proper food, physical activity, good sleep, less unnecessary screen use and time for family, community and real relationships. Children should be allowed to be children, and young people should be allowed to develop in a society that protects them, not in a society where commercial forces are allowed to compete without restraint for their attention.
Public health is not merely about treating illness once it has arisen. The best health policy is one that prevents people from becoming ill.
At Konservativt, we therefore want to ask a simple question when we formulate policy:
Does this make our people healthier, families stronger and childhood safer?
If more and more young people are being exhausted by the society we have created, the answer is not simply to teach them to tolerate more. Then we must dare to create a society they can tolerate living in.
That is the direction in which Konservativt wants to go for children, for families and for public health.
Back to common sense.
This opinion piece is based on a speech given by Linda Tånevik for Konservativt during Arendalsuka.
