GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — People born after the mid-1990s are being labeled the ‘anxious generation’ by many mental health experts. 

Mental health advocacy has risen over the last several decades, bringing attention to many struggles that have gone unnoticed in previous generations. 

Dr. David Rzeszutko, the vice president of medical and clinical operations at Priority Health, said there are a variety of factors affecting the mental health of many young adults, including parenting, social media and the widespread use of technology in people’s day-to-day lives. 

“There’s no one smoking gun,” Rzeszutko said. “The ideology is maybe multifaceted. We do think that it has a relation to structure of childhood nowadays, in comparison to prior generations.”

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Rzeszutko noted that technology and how it is consumed is vastly different from prior generations, leading to more screen time.

“So we have a little bit of less face-to-face interactions,” Rzeszutko said. “Less face-to-face, unstructured playtime, as well as the availability of digital information and social media and how children and young ones nowadays consume the world around them, which is very different or different from generations previously.” 

Rzeszutko said making attempts at good nutrition, restorative sleep and encouraging face-to-face interactions are important daily habits.