Are we more anxious because the world is worse, or because we know too much? I’ve been thinking about this question for a while. It often pops up late at night while I’m scrolling through my phone or right after I close Apple News. There’s this strange heaviness I can’t shake. Wars, climate disasters, political chaos, and economic instability. The list goes on. At some point, you start to wonder: has the world always been such a mess, or does it just feel unbearable now because we see everything?
It’s clear our generation is facing a lot. The future seems more uncertain than it probably should. It’s like we’ve accepted that living in constant crisis is normal. But this isn’t new; previous generations faced terrible events as well. They dealt with world wars, famines, pandemics that wiped out large populations, and economic depressions that changed society. Bad times aren’t a modern invention.
What seems different is how we take it all in. For much of human history, information moved slowly. News came from newspapers, radio, and TV, mostly focused on local events. Terrible things happened far away, but they didn’t intrude on our daily lives with the same intensity. There was a physical and emotional distance between us and global disasters.
That distance is gone now.
We receive information instantly and constantly in a way that feels personal. News interrupts us. Phones vibrate with breaking alerts. Our social media feeds mix photos of brunch with footage of destruction from around the world. Algorithms favor intense content, so the scariest and angriest stories get the most attention. We can’t escape it. We’re not just seeing more; we’re seeing it differently. Global suffering feels real. We see faces, names, and personal stories. Every crisis feels close, even if it’s thousands of miles away. This changes how we understand reality. But constant exposure alone doesn’t explain our anxiety.
There’s something else happening: we are becoming adults. As kids, we lived under layers of protection. Adults filtered information for us. They handled the scary stuff, and responsibility was someone else’s to bear. But that protective layer fades. We start to realize the true scale of global problems, and it’s unsettling to see that no one really has them under control. Institutions feel weak, and leadership seems shaky. Solutions look slow, compromised, or ineffective.
Adulthood isn’t just about taking on responsibilities like managing finances or building a career. It’s also about losing certainty. It’s the moment you realize that those in charge are figuring it out as they go, just like everyone else. Regardless of how unsure I am of that, this realization changes how we view the news. Crises stop feeling like far-off events managed by capable leaders. They start feeling like unresolved issues we are set to inherit. That’s where the anxiety grows.
Awareness can feel like responsibility. We’re told, both directly and through social pressure, that our choices matter. Ignoring issues feels irresponsible. Caring becomes less of a choice and more of an obligation. Older generations sometimes dismiss this as oversensitivity, suggesting we can’t handle reality. But that view misses something key: they weren’t expected to process the whole world at once. They didn’t have to form opinions on every geopolitical conflict or social injustice before breakfast. They weren’t constantly hit with visual evidence of suffering outside their communities.
This doesn’t mean ignorance is a virtue or that awareness is harmful. Better access to information has fueled social progress. It has revealed injustices that were once hidden or accepted as normal. It has elevated marginalized voices and ignited real collective action. Many movements for change depend on visibility and shared awareness.
But when every issue feels urgent all the time, nothing seems solvable. This gap between what we can handle and what we see creates a feeling of helplessness. We know more than any previous generation, but knowing doesn’t always lead to action. The result is a tiring cycle: consuming, worrying, and freezing.
So here’s what I keep wondering: are we mixing constant awareness with real engagement?
Staying informed is important. Still, being informed doesn’t require us to be exposed to everything all the time. Caring deeply about issues doesn’t mean we have to bear the weight of the whole world at once. There’s a real difference between being concerned and being emotionally overwhelmed, yet modern media often fails to help us see this distinction.
Learning to navigate that difference may be one of the main challenges of growing up in the digital age. At least it is for me. It means being intentional about when to engage, when to step back, and how to process information without going numb or falling apart. Maybe the world isn’t objectively worse than before. Perhaps the real change lies in how we experience it, raw and unfiltered, without the protective distance previous generations had. Maybe the world isn’t actually louder; maybe we’re just finally listening without barriers. And maybe adulthood isn’t just about finding ways to succeed or survive. It’s about learning how to genuinely care about the world without letting it overwhelm us.