Since the pandemic, America has put a particular emphasis on addressing an ongoing mental health and loneliness crisis, particularly among teens. But another group's struggles with depression and anxiety are essentially going unnoticed.

'More vulnerable than ever'
Young adulthood could be a "time of great growth and possibility." Still, many young adults say they feel "on edge, lonely, directionless, and that they worry about financial security," said Richard Weissbourd, the faculty director of Making Caring Common, a Harvard Graduate School of Education project. 

His 2023 study found that 36% of people ages 18 to 25 reported experiencing anxiety, and 29% reported experiencing depression, about double the rates among 14-to-17-year-olds on both questions. "Many are 'achieving to achieve' and find little meaning in either school or work," said Weissbourd. 

Young adults are "more vulnerable than ever," said The Atlantic. "But much of American society doesn't see them that way." Other surveys of young adults have "similarly alarming findings" as the Harvard study. When Weissbourd received the study's data, it was "really upsetting," he said to The Atlantic. "What is going on here? And why aren't we talking about it more?"

'Less attention and fewer resources'
The mental health of young adults since the pandemic "hasn't been on our public radar in the way that teens' mental health has," said Milena Batanova, Making Caring Common's director of research and evaluation and a co-author of the report. Overall, the "20-somethings have received less attention and fewer resources," said The Washington Post. 

There's a lot more that needs to be done to "support young adults' mental health and devote more resources to prevention," said Kiran Bhai, MCC's schools and parenting programs director, including "reducing the stressors that young people are facing and helping them develop the skills they need to thrive." Older adults "need to acknowledge this crisis," Faith Hill said at The Atlantic. 

Despite the alarming findings about young adults, there's a silver lining, said MCC faculty director Weissbourd. "For decades, people have suffered silently and terribly who have experienced depression and anxiety, and this is the generation that's talking about it."

In a world of rapidly growing technology, data storing plays an important role in the lives of people and companies. "Data" can refer to anything from business information to photos taken on a cellphone. The problem: Much of this data is used only once before retreating to the archives, where it continues to take up space and resources. 

What is dark data?
Dark data is digital data that's used once and then never again. "This could be your multiple near-identical images held on Google Photos or iCloud, a business' outdated spreadsheets that will never be used again, or data from the internet," said Ian Hodgkinson and Tom Jackson, professors at Britain’s Loughborough University who authored a policy briefing on the environmental impact of dark data, at The Conversation. 

Research has shown that close to 70% of data companies have dark data. People accumulate it in their everyday lives, as well. "One picture isn't going to make a drastic impact. But, of course, if you maybe go into your own phone and you look at all the legacy pictures that you have, cumulatively, that creates quite a big impression in terms of energy consumption," Hodgkinson said to The Guardian. 

Why is it bad for the environment?
Storing data requires an exorbitant amount of energy. The International Energy Agency predicts that data centers will require 1,000 terawatt hours of energy in 2026, which is roughly equivalent to the electricity consumption of Japan. "What governments have failed to look at so far is the carbon footprint of digitalization," Jackson said to Energy Monitor. Many companies are also unaware of the amount of emissions resulting from their data usage. 

The buildup of dark data is an indication of inefficiency within the digital systems. "We are moving on to a society where we have 'plastic knowledge,'" said Jackson. "We go to a search engine, we roughly figure out what we wanted to know or how to do something, and then we discard that information. So, it is kind of like a plastic bag that you use once and then throw away."