Why are the youth depressed today? There are a lot of valid reasons to examine, but interestingly one of the sentences which immediately came to my mind when prompted by that question was: “Terrorism really works”.
I wouldn't say that it is the main reason behind the ubiquity of depression, I would say it is more so a combination of4
powerlessness from being coerced by school to do meaningless tasks
disembodiment, and thus being alienated from your source of power and truth
the atomization of people
living in a boring, oh so boring world where no adventure happens and everything is predictable
attention hijacking which robs people of their agency and ability to appreciate anything in a deep way.
But terrorism really works, which is of course why it is used. It makes parents obsessed with safety, such that children have less and less liberty, and overall the culture shifts from making sure the kids grow well so they can thrive in the world, to making sure they are constantly safe. As a result, playing outside shifts more and more to being in front of a screen, which makes people disembodied and influenced by all sorts of things they would never be exposed to without a screen, on and on.
The obsession with safety has tons of downstream effects in our culture, and has become so central to the West that it can become the justification for any type of tyranny. Safety is the false god of the modern world, and it is in its name that many values will be sacrificed, which is why terrorism works so well at undermining it.