Adolescents' thoughts and feelings about the local and global environment: a qualitative interview study

Abstract

Background: Despite a recent increase in engagement with environmental issues among young people, their impact upon adolescent mental health and wellbeing is not yet fully understood. Therefore, this study aimed to explore adolescents' thoughts and feelings about current environmental issues. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a convenience sample of 15 UK-based adolescents aged 14-18 years (66.7% female). Transcripts were inductively thematically analysed by the interviewing researcher and two adolescent co-researchers, with priority given to the co-researchers' impressions to strengthen interpretations of the personal experiences of the interviewees. Results: Six themes were identified: the local environment, efficacy, challenging emotions, information, hindrances and perceptions of the future. The local environment was found to affect adolescents positively and negatively. Factors including greenspace and fresh air had a positive impact, and factors including noise and litter had a negative impact. Most participants reported feeling disempowered to personally influence environmental problems but were engaged with them and felt that trying to make a difference was beneficial for their wellbeing. Adolescents largely reported negative expectations about the environment's future. Conclusion: The UK adolescents interviewed appeared to be very engaged and emotionally affected by a perceived lack of care towards the environment, locally and globally. It is therefore imperative to amplify young people's voices and involve them in influencing environmental policy, for the benefit of young people and the planet. Further research should quantify the extent to which environmental issues affect young people's mental health and identify factors that could prevent or alleviate distress. Key Practitioner Message• Young people have shown increasing engagement with environmental problems but the impact upon their wellbeing has not been subject to extensive academic investigation.• Regarding environmental issues, our sample of adolescents from across the UK reported engagement and interest, alongside extensive anxiety and frustration, negative expectations of the future and feelings of powerlessness. Degradation in their local environments was also reported to affect their wellbeing negatively.• Practitioners should be aware of environmental distress in young people and take this potential aspect of their worldview into consideration when working with them.• More research is needed to establish prevalence of, and best practice for, these difficulties.

Commentary: Three tasks for eco‐anxiety research – a commentary on Thompson et al. (2021)

“…In my own research, I have explored the complexity of eco-anxiety and climate anxiety (Pihkala, 2020). That complexity is seen also in the results of Thompson et al (2021), and the following discussion of the three challenges for ecoanxiety research tries to explain some aspects of it.…”

“…Indeed, one of the constructive ways to channel eco-anxiety is to research the subject more; that is one of the anxiety governance methods of researchers. Based on years of interdisciplinary research about eco-anxiety, the author discusses here the new research article by Thompson et al (2021) and depicts three major challenges for ecoanxiety research.…”

“…The article 'Adolescents' thoughts and feelings about the local and global environment: a qualitative interview study' (Thompson et al, 2021) provides important information, even though its empirical material is related only to a small number of British adolescents. Interviews enable scholarly observations about the complexities of contemporary people's reactions towards environmental issues.…”

“…This dimension of 'practical anxiety' is part of the phenomenon of ecoanxiety (Pihkala, 2020), but scales and measures usually focus on stronger distress. The new study by Thompson et al (2021) displays this multifaceted character of eco-anxiety among British adolescents: they wanted to make environmental issues better, which shows the motivational and adaptive side of eco-anxiety, but they often felt powerlessness and the future seemed threatening, which increased the intensity of anxiety. This is linked with the second challenge: the need to know about the coping skills of the person and the social group.…”

“…Numerous empirical studies, including Thompson et al (2021), have noticed feelings of climate sadness and grief among people. It seems that a significant challenge for eco-anxiety research is to find ways to differentiate between complicated grief and normal but heavy grief.…”