What’s Actually Going On With Young People?
Photo by Vullnet Ademaj on Unsplash
You’ve probably seen the graph from the Financial Times that made the rounds last week. It came with the alarmist headline, The Troubling Decline In Conscientiousness, arguing that this critical life skill is fading - particularly among young people.
The discussion that followed was, as you might expect, a flood of 'Kids These Days' type stuff about smartphones, laziness, and a lack of work ethic.
I'm not going to get into a data fight here. Plenty of people have pointed out that FT relied on statistical sleight of hand, expressing the data in percentiles, and comparing it to the first year of the longitudinal study (2014). If you look instead at the total percentage change in reported conscientiousness among people under 40, the decline is much more modest. And declines in other ‘Big 5’ traits, like neuroticism, anxiety, and depression-proneness, were even smaller.
Here's my point: The way FT framed the story says far more about how we moralize data than it does about young people and what’s going on in their lives.
And, what’s most troubling is how little curiosity there is about why young people feel the way they do, what they’re responding to, and what’s actually going on in their lives.
It’s important to remember that the Understanding America Study cited by FT is based on self-reported personality traits, which makes it particularly vulnerable to response bias. That alone should prompt more questions than answers.
Do younger people have less life experience, and therefore more self-doubt in assessing themselves?
Are they simply more willing to acknowledge mental health struggles than previous generations?
Or, does America’s shifting demographic makeup play a role? The Big 5 framework has long struggled with validity outside of WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Developed) cultural contexts.
I don’t have the answer, but I’m sure you see the issue…
The laziest, least interesting conclusion here is that young people no longer give a f*ck.
Let’s take a step back and interrogate the frame. Because that’s the real issue, and it offers a glimpse into what might actually be at the heart of the data.
Conscientiousness isn’t neutral. It reflects the systems that shape it. In many cultures, it’s tied to discipline, order, and delayed gratification. Those are virtues that make sense when systems are stable and rewards are predictable.
But, what happens when those systems break?
When the rules no longer guarantee safety or success, conscientiousness starts to look less like a virtue and more like a gamble. Why pour yourself into a system that is increasingly proven to not pay off?
What we’re seeing is more adaptation than decline. It’s young people operating on their own terms. Re-imagining and de-colonizing what it means to do what’s right.
The ‘Big 5’ questionnaire asks people to rate their agreement with statements like, “I follow a schedule,” or “I like order”. In other words: Compliance, tidiness, rule-following.
In a world where economic security is fleeting, mental health struggles are algorithmically and systematically reinforced - where the social contract feels broken - why would those be the benchmarks young people measure themselves against?
What we're witnessing isn’t a collapse of conscientiousness. But it is a significant systemic shift.
We should be asking why young people feel like too much is being asked of them, and why too little is being given in return.
There are simply too many things going on here to be ignored. As the good people at Akins have pointed out in their quarantine cohort work, this isn't typical teenage angst. It's the systematic erosion of what makes complex societies viable.
If we care at all about the future, we should be mapping the underlying forces here. And, understanding what that means in terms of how concepts like conscientiousness are being challenged or redefined by younger generations. Then, figuring out how to respond, and how to support the development of healthy young minds.
There's nothing to be gained through dismissive tropes, hurled from ivory towers.