Can't Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation

by Anne Helen Petersen

Of course, bearing witness takes a toll—especially when the news is structured to emotionally aggravate more than educate. Plus, as Brad Stulberg argues in a piece about breaking digital addiction, it can provide a false illusion of participation: “Instead of worrying about illness you can exercise,” he points out. “Instead of despairing about the political situation and making comments on Facebook you can contact your elected officials. Instead of feeling awful for people in unfortunate circumstances you can volunteer.”6 All of this is true. But those are options for people who aren’t already so exhausted by the rest of their lives, people with the wherewithal for proactiveness instead of the reactive, frantic Band-Aid-applying approach so many of us have settled into. When you’re burnt out, sometimes the best you feel like you can do, as a responsible citizen with an open heart, is try to keep up with the news. But then the heavy, inescapable load of that same news burns you out even more: The world becomes work.