We hear a lot these days about the “mental-health crisis” among college students. It may well be overblown, but it’s not nothing. In today’s Martin Center article, Loretta Breuning argues that colleges push many students into despair with their steady barrage of negativity.
She suggests that colleges should ratchet down the alarmism they beam at their students.
For one thing, there is the rhetoric of environmental apocalypse. Breuning writes that, “The data on planetary collapse come from pyramids of assumptions. Tiny changes in these assumptions produce dramatically different results. Researchers know which results will advance their careers and which will set them back. Without awareness or intent, each brain responds to the reward structure that surrounds it.”
Another source of stress for students is the “cancel culture” that might wreck their lives at any moment should they say or do anything that is unpopular with the woke mob.
And third, students are put under pressure from the idea that life is a race, and they’d better not fall behind.
Breuning says that college should help students take of their “negativity goggles” so they can begin to enjoy life.