THE GREAT DIVIDE

‘A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP IS MORE APPEALING THAN A BIG NIGHT OUT’ SAYS RONA PERRY, 24, FROM LONDON

“Many of my friends are definitely boisterous and reckless, just like our parents were at our age, but we’re more informed than they were. Alcohol is a good example of this. My parent’s generation (at least ones I know) drink far more than my friends.

“I think that we’re more switched on when it comes to dealing with alcohol, drugs, smoking and sex because it was an integral part of our school education growing up, and I don’t think my parents’ generation had ever had that benefit. But I do think that being labelled ‘sensible’ is a little unfair. I just think that my generation are more informed and make better decisions around our well-being. I do drink (don’t tell Dad!), but since leaving university I’ve dialled it down.

“For me, getting a good night’s sleep is now far more appealing than a night out. I’d much rather have a productive day to tick things off my to-do list than wallow in self-pity after a heavy night. My anxiety also skyrockets when I’m hung-over. ‘ What did I do? Are there pictures on Facebook/ Instagram?’ Navigating social media is like walking a tightrope. There’s little room for error so perfection seems the only option. Even though my friends and I know people’s feeds are curated, the pressure to achieve perfection permeates most aspects of our lives, from the food we eat to the clothes we wear.

“We’re constantly striving to show the best versions of ourselves, and this can have repercussions for our mental health because it fosters unrealistic comparisons and magnifies our insecurities. My generation are also acutely aware how quickly things can go viral on social media; so it’s not just the pressure of your boss seeing a drunken picture, it could also be the entire world! There’s just this constant pressure to ‘get things right’.”

‘ RATHER THAN BEING SENSIBLE, I THINK THEY ARE MORE OPPRESSED’ SAYS RONA’S FATHER, 62-YEAR-OLD CAMPBELL PERRY

“Drink, drugs and smoking might have been considered the markers of good/ bad behaviour for my generation, but times have changed. I think that today’s young adults have learned to conform in those areas via a mixture of better education and societal pressures. But I don’t know whether young adults are generally better behaved nowadays – they simply behave badly in different ways, for example social media bullying, which didn’t exist in my day.

“They are under different kinds of pressures, of course. They find themselves faced with impermanence in every aspect of their lives in a way that their parents were not, from jobs and the welfare state to pensions and the cost of a university education. This, combined with the tyranny of the digital age and social media, demands that young adults conform, which is different from being sensible.

“The world is a much smaller place now owing to the advent of social media, and the upside of that is that it can help to bring young people together in a positive way sometimes. But on the whole, I think that rather than being sensible, today’s young generation may become known as the most oppressed yet, and that cannot be a good thing.”