The Anxious Generation: What Career Professionals Need to Know and Do

– By Sharon Graham, Founder and Chair of Career Professionals of Canada –

Young Canadians are entering the workforce carrying unprecedented levels of anxiety, comparison pressure, and digital fatigue.

Jonathan Haidt’s new book, The Anxious Generation shows that depression and self-harm among teens spiked soon after smartphones and social media went mainstream. The multiple Emmy Award winning Netflix docuseries Adolescence puts real faces on this issue, following youth who feel permanently “on display” and chronically anxious. Those same young people are now entering colleges, apprenticeships, and first jobs.

As career practitioners, we can’t treat digital-age anxiety as a side issue. Mental health supports and “real-world” connection are no longer optional. They are foundational for helping emerging talent thrive. Understanding this issue and providing appropriate resources is vital to ensuring the employability and long-term success of this generation.

Core Damages and Career Development Challenges

Here are some of the core damages that occur and how this may manifest in career development:

• Social deprivation: Based on Haidt’s research, face-to-face interactions with friends has decreased by approximately 50 percent since 2012. Limited in-person engagement has resulted in many young job-seekers feeling uncomfortable with eye contact, small talk, and workplace conflict. Essential activities such as collaboration and networking—crucial for hiring and promotion—are perceived as risky rather than beneficial.
• Sleep deprivation: Late-night online scrolling erodes sleep, which fuels depression, anxiety, and cognitive fog. Chronic fatigue shrinks attention spans during interviews, onboarding, and training. Emotional flare-ups can strain relationships with new employers and colleagues.
• Attention fragmentation: Ping-driven multitasking disrupts deep focus, leading to sloppy résumés, rushed applications, and unfocused interview answers. Rapid task-switching at work reduces productivity and learning retention.
• Digital addiction: Apps designed with variable rewards hook users, crowding out time for job research, networking, and skill-building. Restlessness and irritability, including mild withdrawal, often occur during training or early employment.
• Comparison and perfectionism: Social media feeds can magnify self-doubt. Résumé edits may not feel “good enough,” LinkedIn posts may remain in draft status, and interviews can seem far too daunting. Limited willingness to take risks can make cold calls or stretch roles challenging for youth.

Each pattern is a career barrier, but one you can address through purposeful coaching, focused skill-building, and digital-wellness strategies.

Your Evolving Role Supporting Youth

As a career professional, your role is evolving. Today’s young people are navigating a world shaped by constant connectivity, social comparison, and screen-driven fatigue. Many are entering the workforce with rising levels of anxiety, low risk tolerance, and weakened in-person social skills. These challenges are real, but so is your ability to help.

By directly addressing digital-age stressors and intentionally fostering real-world connection, career professionals can guide youth toward greater clarity, confidence, and hope. You can support clients in developing healthy tech habits, improving emotional resilience, and accessing the right tools and resources.

The good news is that you don’t have to reinvent your practice. You can integrate purposeful, evidence-based actions into the work you already do. Whether you are coaching, facilitating workshops, or consulting with employers, your day-to-day decisions can promote mental wellness, reduce digital overload, and empower your clients to thrive online and off.

Open the conversation

• Normalize mental-health check-ins: Start every intake by asking about sleep, screen time, and social connection. Anxiety often hides behind “I’m just tired.” A gentle prompt gives clients permission to name stressors early, letting you tailor supports before they derail a job search.
• Explain the reason for phone-free moments: Before collecting devices during workshops, share research showing that even silent phones drain focus and raise stress hormones. When participants understand the science, they see the rule as a kindness, not a punishment, and you gain true attention for learning activities.

Build real-world skills

• Run low-tech collaboration labs: Use role-plays, speed-networking rounds, or outdoor scavenger hunts where clients must make eye contact, improvise, and negotiate with each other. Practising live interactions restores the “social muscles” employers prize: teamwork, conflict resolution, and rapport-building.
• Assign micro-risks: Over-protected upbringings can result in youth being risk averse. Divide outreach activities into small steps, such as making a request for a brief coffee meeting or writing a LinkedIn post, and evaluate emotions afterward. Conducting these types of minor, guided experiments can help rebuild confidence without causing excessive stress.

Coach healthy tech habits

• Implement focus sprints (25/5 Rule): Young people may encounter difficulties with concentration due to frequent interruptions, potentially resulting in less effective résumé preparation and interview performance. Focus sprints, involving 25 minutes of work followed by a five-minute break, can train the mind for sustained effort. This technique aids in improving attention and productivity, promoting better preparation and performance in professional settings. Consider organizing workshop agendas to include focus sprints to encourage this practice.
• Schedule phone-free work blocks: Advise clients to use browser plug-ins or phone limits during tasks, positioning these boundaries as offering a professional advantage. Digital guardrails preserve productivity, which is essential when motivation is low.

Strengthen digital literacy

• Create purposeful online routines: Encourage set times to check email or social feeds and designate tech-free zones (bedroom, meals). Structured use reduces the “always on” feeling that fuels burnout and gives the brain space to rest and consolidate learning.
• Tackle comparison culture head-on: Endless comparison breeds perfectionism and paralysis. Coach clients to publish the “minimum viable résumé or post,” then praise action over polish, and discuss curated online personas. Reframing “good enough” frees clients to move forward and seize opportunities.

Support body and mind

• Ask a one-line sleep and movement question: “How many hours did you sleep last night?” Pair answers with quick tips on phone-free bedtime routines and daily walks. Sleep deprivation intensifies anxiety and reduces cognitive performance. This simple prompt can reveal a hidden barrier you can tackle immediately.
• Promote active breaks: Suggest walking meetings, stretch pauses, or lunchtime yoga and explain how exercise releases mood-lifting endorphins. Physical activity counteracts screen fatigue, boosts concentration, and signals employers that the client values well-being.

Leverage community supports

• Refer to 24/7 help lines and peer networks: Share Kids Help Phone. Quick access to confidential support can prevent small worries from escalating into crises that stall career momentum.
• Connect clients to in-person services: Recommend YMCA Youth Employment workshops and local mentorship circles. Blending online tools with face-to-face guidance grounds clients in real-world expectations and social accountability.

Engage employers and systems

• Educate hiring managers about Gen Z triggers: Explain how constant messaging and public feedback feeds heighten anxiety; propose phone-free onboarding days and buddy systems. When workplaces reduce early stressors, retention and performance rise, benefiting both employer and employee.
• Champion community policies that foster play and rest: Support later school start times or neighbourhood “play streets.” Systemic changes that boost youth well-being today create a healthier talent pool tomorrow, strengthening Canada’s workforce for the future.

Keep evolving your practice

• Audit your sessions regularly: Ask yourself, “Are we too screen-centric? Do we offer enough movement and peer interaction?” Modelling balanced tech use signals authenticity and reinforces every lesson you teach.
• Share resources often: Post digital-wellness links in newsletters or follow-up emails, and invite mental-health experts to co-host events. Consistent reinforcement turns advice into lasting habits, deepening client resilience and employment success.

Shaping a Healthier, More Resilient Workforce

As Jonathan Haidt and other experts remind us, real-world connection and mental health support are not optional extras. They are foundational for emerging talent to succeed.

Environment shapes behaviour more than willpower. For a more adaptive, creative, and emotionally healthy generation of workers, coaching rooms, classrooms, and workplaces need to support curiosity, collaboration, and healthy risk-taking.

Purposeful kindness in career practice means creating safe, structured spaces (online and in person) where clients can experiment, connect, and grow. By pairing sound career guidance with strategies that reduce screen stress and promote genuine human engagement, you help shape a workforce that is not only skilled but also grounded and resilient.

Career Professionals of Canada’s Certified Work-Life Strategist (CWS) course enables you to empower clients to strengthen mental health, develop life skills, and enhance career management. You’ll learn how to support clients in achieving work-life balance, building resilience, and enhancing personal well-being. You will help clients build the essential and technical skills needed to thrive in the modern workplace.

By layering digital-wellness strategies onto traditional career supports, you will give your clients tools not just to land a job but to flourish in a demanding, fast-moving world.

Further Reading and Supports

• Adolescence: British television psychological crime drama series created by Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham and directed by Philip Barantini and shown on Netflix. A family’s world turns upside down when 13-year-old Jamie Miller is arrested for murdering a schoolmate. A comprehensive look at the developmental phase of adolescence. Outline of the Adolescence TV Series: Detailed insights into the TV series exploring adolescence, highlighting its relevance to youth mental health and societal pressures.
• The Anxious Generation: A valuable resource by Jonathan Haidt that delves into the unique challenges faced by today’s youth, offering insights into the pressures and mental health concerns shaping their experiences. Summary of The Anxious Generation Book: A concise overview of the key themes and findings from the book, designed to provide quick takeaways for understanding generational anxieties.
• Canadian Mental Health Association: Access to a wide range of materials supporting mental health and education.
• The Canadian Work-Life Strategist: Our world of work has changed a lot. This must-have resource will enable you to help your clients create sustainable and resilient careers in our new world of work. The guide provides advice related to wellness, life-skills, and career management.
• jack.org: Youth-led initiatives focusing on mental health advocacy, peer support, and spreading awareness across communities.
• MediaSmarts: A Canadian platform offering guides and tools for digital literacy and wellness, tailored to address the challenges of a tech-driven world.