According to ‘Huff Post’, a health and news website, almost a quarter of teens suffer serious mental illnesses all across Australia. In result of a survey the found that teenagers at the age of 16 show signs of severe physiological distress and anxiety, most commonly in females. The levels increased to 28.6% in 2016 and they predict it will continue to increase to over more than 60% in 5 years.
Mission Australia’s CEO, Catherine Yeoman, states towards the federal and states government that “The effects of mental illness at such a young age can be debilitating and incredibly harmful to an individual's quality of life, academic achievement, and social participation both in the short term and long term."
A similar study showed a dramatic rise in the number of teenagers being admitted to
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The survey was taken by 722 students located in NSW and the results were incredibly shocking. In general, 54% of students felt that too much was expected of them to keep up with their grades, other activities outside of school and having a social life and that’s without the pressure of voting and the percentage is already higher than it should be, this displays that adding the pressure of voting would increase 16 year olds anxiety, stress and depression levels massively making the issue an even worse problem that could lead to serious mental issues such as self harm, suicide and severe levels of depression that could affect them for the rest of their lives and at such a young age a life time is even longer. So I ask, the time of exams is already stressful enough isn’t it? Do we need to cause more stress and anxiety? Is it just the stress of exams and school though or could it be the lack of