‘Woke’ people more prone to discontent, anxiety, and depression

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Posted 20 March, 2024

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By Sofia Phillips

London, UK

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Through assessing individual commitment to principles of social justice, psychological researchers have uncovered a negative correlation between progressive ideals and levels of happiness.

Do you consider yourself chronically online?

Unless you’re spending less than seven hours on phones or computers every day, it’s likely you fit the bill. As our reliance on screens and social media steadily increases, so too does our anxiety toward global events beyond our control.

Not only are we now privy to the most intimate details of what anyone with a platform is doing at any given moment, but escaping constant influxes of negative news has become impossible.

Regardless of how hard we try to distance ourselves using tools such as screen time limiters, content restrictors, and muting features, it can be a real challenge to log off and stay out of the loop.

‘Young people are the least happy age group,’ writes social affairs correspondent Robert Booth for the Guardian.

pic.twitter.com/hvJpFXQjN5

— Yellow Dot Studios (@weareyellowdot) March 19, 2024

‘This comes amid increasing concern at the impact of rising social media use, income inequalities, the housing crisis, and fears about war and climate change on the happiness of children and young people.’

Of course, for Gen Z, a cohort of young people innately dedicated to causes with the potential to generate change, staying up to date is of great importance.

But what if I told you that this connection to current events – perpetuated by how heavily we rely on our devices – was having a significant impact on our overall wellbeing?

Specifically, ‘being aware of and actively attentive’ to them, as reads the Merriam-Webster definition of ‘woke.’

This is what psychological researchers in Finland are warning of, after they created an assessment to help measure an individual’s commitment to principles of social justice and uncovered a negative correlation between progressive ideals and levels of happiness.

Published in the Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, their findings suggest that woke people more prone to discontent, anxiety, and depression.

More broadly, they found that those who identified as left-wing were most likely to report poor mental health.

‘This debate was largely data-free and it could thus be considered a worthwhile question to study how prevalent these attitudes are,’ says lead author, Oskari Lahtinen.

‘No reliable and valid instrument existed prior to the study to assess the extent and prevalence of these attitudes in different populations, so I set out to develop one.’

According to the study, the emergence of critical social justice, which focuses on recognising and rectifying systemic inequality, has sparked academic, political, and everyday conversations.

I love being ‘woke’. It’s much nicer than being an ignorant fucking twat.

— Kath 💙🙀🇪🇺✊🏾 (@KathyBurke) March 13, 2022

This particular approach, often tied to concepts like intersectionality and antiracism, has garnered praise for acknowledging the hurdles faced by marginalised communities, while also facing criticism for its handling of freedom of speech.

Yet despite the ongoing debate surrounding ‘wokeness,’ there’s been a distinct lack of empirical data regarding its prevalence and repercussions.

Noting this gap, the researchers’ process involved a thorough exploration of feminism, race and queer theory, as well as other relevant disciplines that inform critical social justice.

‘While the critical social justice (or ‘wokeness’) discourse draws mainly from dynamics within American society it has now surfaced in other Western countries as well,’ explains Lahtinen.

‘We must study the prevalence of these attitudes in the countries where they don’t originate from.’

Sofia Phillips

Feature Media Manager & Senior Writer London, UK

Sofia (She/Her) – I’m the Deputy Editor & Media Partnership Manager at Thred, specialising in exclusive articles and live interviews, fashion and beauty with a focus on sustainability, women’s rights, psychedelics, and Latin America. I studied Spanish at the University of Exeter and International Journalism at City, London. Follow me on Twitter, LinkedIn, and drop me some ideas/feedback via email.

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