Young men who are online much of the day and have little or no social interaction outside of online activities are most likely to self-report dissatisfaction with their life and poor mental health, according to a
new survey of 1,000 men ages 16 to 28.
Conducted by Cygnal and The Lafayette Company, the survey was presented at the Symposium on Young American Men, held last week in Washington, D.C., in recognition of Men’s Health Awareness Month.
Key survey findings:
- About half of young men said they spend five or more hours a day online streaming, gaming, browsing, and/or using social media.
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Young men were split on whether their life is going the way they expected or envisioned it would go: 50% said yes, while 46% said no.
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Forty percent said they did not have a male mentor or role model.
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Seventeen percent rated mental health as their top priority—the second most popular answer behind financial stability (27%).
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Young men were more likely to rate their own mental health as fair (33%) or poor/very poor (24%) rather than good (26%) or excellent (14%).
What this means:
Cygnal's Alex Tarascio emphasized that it’s the combination of being highly online (six hours a day or more) along with a constellation of other characteristics that correlates with negative feelings such as dissatisfaction with life, lack of direction or optimism about the future, and poor self-reported mental health.
“The man who says his life is not on track plays video games every day, watches YouTube more than four hours, rarely or never exercises, and he has poor mental health and he knows it,” Tarascio said during the symposium. “He doesn’t have a male role model, and when he has problems in life, he figures it out himself.”
In contrast, Tarascio said, “The man who says his life on track is still likely to spend a considerable amount of time [online], but he exercises restraint. He also spends 11 hours or more per week socializing in person with friends, is involved with an organized social group, and exercises regularly. He is religious, though he may not be devout. And crucially, he has a male mentor and role model to turn to about how to be a man.”
(Image: Getty Images/iStock/Javier Zayaz)
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