The answer to that question is interesting, because before the pandemic we did a survey of our youth to ask what issues were most impacting them and what they were concerned about. We talked about poverty and employment, which all came up to the very top. The topmost one at the time was, in fact, mental health. It's a reinforcing circle.
Some of the things you talked about are in fact what we hear from our youth on the reasons why. Before the pandemic, climate change, employment and academic success were contributing significantly to that, as well as what I just talked about earlier about the impact of social media.
Because of the pandemic, we've heard about social isolation and the breakdown of the connectivity, especially for young people. We all need it, but when you are going through the formative, transitional stages of your life, you need that social glue. That was ripped away from them, in some cases for two years, through lockdowns or their inability to connect except through screens, which we've all told them they shouldn't be on in the first place.
On top of that, they are now seeing the impact of an economy that is making their life more expensive or making their families' lives more expensive. They are seeing employment precarity for both themselves and their families. They're seeing that the ability to put food on the table is creating great stress at home.
Now, I think the climate change challenge has come back for them as they witness the impacts of hurricanes and a very hot summer. We know that was causing what I would call an outsized level of distress. It's a shocking level of distress for a lot of young people when they raise it in terms of its actual impact on their mental health.