Stressed-out European youth seeking escapism

The world’s leading marketing and advertising network McCann Worldgroup yesterday released the findings of The Truth About Youth, a quantitative study of 7,000 16-30 year olds across seven global markets, including the UK and Spain within the European region.

The study examined the motivations of young people around the world and sought to uncover what makes them different from every generation that has come before.

In the UK and Spain, out of 16 motivations tested “flight” – the need to release pressure and find tranquility/peace in a fast paced world – ranked very highly, being the first and second most im­portant motivations respectively compared to eighth most important in China and 14th most important in India.

In the UK and Spain, youth are feeling the constant pressure and stress of their current situation, with several factors, including struggling economies, university tuition fee hikes in the UK, and high unemployment rates in Spain having a sobering effect. Fifty seven per cent of young people in the UK strongly agreed that they had “grown up a lot in the last couple of years” – acknowledgement that changing circumstances had forced them to forgo some of the carefree elements of being young.

This pressure has also led to a real need for escapism among youth in the UK and Spain. Given a list of things and told they could only save two, young people in the UK were twice as likely to save their passports versus young people elsewhere, and 54 per cent of Spanish youth strongly agreed that “sometimes it’s nice to escape into a completely different world”.

These findings suggest that within more mature markets like Western Europe, the youth of today are feeling less optimistic about their future, in relation to the job market, the economy, and their overall quality of life.

In other countries, such as India, China and Brazil there is a greater sense of optimism for the future – that these nations’ best days are in front of them, not behind them.

Dean Ashraf, Head of Pulse at McCann London, said: “Our headline findings highlight the impact that unfavourable economic circumstances are having on the young people of Europe.”

Other European findings, uncovered by McCann Worldgroup

• Technology as a fifth sense: While technology has often been referred to in jest as an appendage of today’s youth, over half (53 per cent) of 16-22 year olds said they would rather give up their sense of smell than give up their technology. For this generation, technology is not an add-on. It is a tool that enables them to sense the world and make sense of the world.

• The social economy has replaced the experience economy: In the Experience Economy people became more focused on what they’d seen or done (supposedly valuing memories as much as material possessions). McCann Worldgroup’s research found that for young people today it’s increasingly all about the Social Economy; who you connect with and what you share. As one respondent put it, “if there are no pics, it didn’t happen”.

• Whereas past generations focused on maintaining a small group of friends, relationships between youth today are much more complex. McCann Worldgroup found that 47 per cent of the youth globally want to be remembered for their connections.