This month, The Curious Observer conducted an audience survey to prepare for our up-coming project Glimpse.
We've crunched the numbers and tirelessly read over your answers, and here's what we learnt:
By presenting our participants with a wider array of choices when it came to 'class', we found that New Affluent Workers became the largest body of people. We invite you to compare this to usual class systems, whereby you would expect to see a large count of Working-Class.
As part of the project Glimpse, The Curious Observer has proposed a film about finding yourself in a different class to your parents/community and the subtle tensions this can cause... let us know what you think about this idea in the comment section below!
Next up in the line of interesting responses, we present the table of answers detailing which mental health influences our participants experienced.
The first thing to notice here is the number of responses... 106, rather than the total 112. Thats because only 6 people left with no mental health influences to report. We put that into a quick pie chart for you so you can see just what that would look like as a portion of the population:
Not much is it?! Let have a look at some of those figures shall we...
80.2% of people reported themselves as having experienced stress. When we looked into this further, we were surprised to find that this number contained an equal portion of each gender, as well as equal spreading among the class systems, and age groups, suggesting it was not individual types of lives that were stressful, but instead, maybe a larger way of living in our society? or maybe we are just stress driven creatures? One things for sure; we can take comfort in the fact that those around us probably understand how we're feeling on a stressful day, so don't let it make you feel anything less than perfect.
Why do we say this? Well that's because a whopping 80% of people reported feeling less that their peers at some time or another. It would have been interesting to see what everybody's answers would have been, if the question was worded "have you ever felt like your peers are less than you, because they are experiencing a mental health issue?" - we're sure the responses would have looked much different if the person involved was not ourselves!
But what about the other issues people faced? Have the staggering results for stress, skewed the rest of the survey?
Certainly not. A huge 78.4% of people said they experienced some form of anxiety! and that's not all... 65.1% suffered from self-confidence issues at some point in their life.
We tried to narrow down the issues some more, so decided to separate what we call "the big five" from the other issues mentioned. Our big five issues were loneliness, depression, anxiety, stress and self-confidence... all the issues that we've known some people to declare as "not real issues" (we very much disagree!). To prove a point, after removing these issues, we noted that this still left a giant 81% of participants with mental health influences left under their profile. In fact, the average number of mental health influences experienced was 6, with 17% of participants experiencing 10 or more.
Now, to address the elephant in the room. We didn't include it in our "big five" because we hadn't expected the results to be so big when we prepared the survey... yes, it is now time to look at responses to suicidal thoughts. You already know the answer, but lets look at it in chart form, just to soak it in!
A third, Ladies and Gentlemen, yes a THIRD of participants, have felt suicidal at some point in their lives. That's 1/5th of those aged 16-19, 32% of those aged 20-25, 21% of those aged 26-45, and 1/4 of those aged 45 and over. This is not about age, its not about gender or class... everywhere around us people are struggling... whether it be from not being able to sleep, or being fearful to leave the house; when food no longer is a friend, or past memories are attacking their present. There are people struggling with addictions, memory issues or even being able to identify their personality; each person expressed a unique and varied make-up of inner worlds. We at the Curious Observer believe it is time to start noticing!
The most popular response to how we react to sadness, was to wear a mask for the outside world, and to keep the pain to ourselves.
Even more interestingly, when you combine all the responses that suggest that nobody is told about the issues, that number goes up to 61.6%.
Here at the Curious Observer, we believe that communication is everything, so these results got us worrying for the people it isolated. Then, we looked at the response for what made people happier again, and that feeling, unfortunately, did not subdue.
That because 83% of people would feel better after receiving some form of physical contact. We put two and two together, and suggest that if, as a community, we felt more comfortable talking through our problems with others, a significant portion would be able to access the care they need to pick themselves up again. Thats right! YOU could be the light in somebodies day, simply by being there... doesn't sound hard does it.
Now to look at things from a more cheery note. We loved the responses you all gave for "what is happiness?". Here are a few of our favourites:
Happiness is...
Being in the arms of someone who loves you.
When your clothes are so comfortable you can't feel them on your skin anymore.
Laughter
Realising your self worth and the strength it brings you in that moment like sun hitting your face as the storm clouds clear
That one thing that keeps you going
Fleeting Balance My dog being happy to see me when I come home.
being able to live your life in the way that you want to without having to feel guilty or sad about it
Invariably the calm before the storm.
Understandably, our most common response, simply, but beautifully, expressed to need to be loved and to love.
But what did we want to change? Here are just a few of the responses:
Briefly, if you could change one thing about your life, what would it be?
My lazy and unproductive tendancies to do absolutely nothing on my days off
I would like to have a higher tolerance for boredom
I'd like some direction
Be more passionate about stuff, finish things I start or be more productive
Become motivated again. I'm not unhappy I'm just stuck
Be able to deal with my emotions more effectively
Resources
Would have approached things differently.
My outlook on it all
Deal with stress better
Take risks
I would have listened less to other people's opinions in order to have given my dreams a chance of being fulfilled.
My upbringing
Ability to rebuild old friendships and apologize to lost friends
To be more confident/better at social situations
I'd have more time for myself without feeling that I'm letting people and the world down by not helping.
I'd be in a secure long term loving relationship.
I would be wealthy enough to afford therapy
Right now, having money.
i'd like more money so I won't be in debt after graduating
Reduce career related stress
I'd quit my 9-5 job and work remotely full time
Not feel that I HAVE to work if I did't want to (financially)
Whilst these responses were much more varied than the answers for "what is happiness?", there are still some common themes: Regret, Money, Motivation and Self-worth.
Indeed, many of these responses struck a chord with myself, as I imagine they did for some of you. It can be both upsetting to hear, but also comforting to know that others are in the same shoes.
For youtube search responses, we wanted to see if people were more likely to search for things they believed to make them happier, whether that be because they were funny/light-hearted or somewhat distracting, or if they mirrored the issues people faced, suggesting a degree of problem solving in our viewership.
Music overwhelmingly outnumbered any other answers given, but we did receive one particularly creative choice, that we couldn't help but share...
'Goat Parkour'. Are you laughing? We sure are!
Other popular searches tended to focus on animals, make up, funny videos, memes or famous vloggers.
When given a choice of links to pick from, the most popular link, was by far the one in relation to travelling, with over 30% favouring this link to the 7 others available. We at The Curious Observer, more than approve of this choice!
How would you like to see some travel films as part of our project? If so, comment in the box below to let us know if you would prefer documentaries from the perspective of a traveller or from the perspective of the local community. Would you prefer docu-drama's or fiction films? Where are you most interested in? What sort of narratives are you desperate to hear?
Thats all from us for today, but get in touch if you have any comments in relation to this study OR if you have idea's for our upcoming project Glimpse.
We hope that for some of you, this article has given you the strength to seek help or to open up to a friend. We hope that for others you feel less pressure, knowing you are not alone in feeling like you do. ...And for a final few, may you help us with our fight to create a better world, where mental health does not carry the stigma it has today. May we together create art, movements and understanding, to really make a difference.
#mentalhealth #Glimpse #curiousobserver #survey #audience #stress #depression #loneliness #anxiety #selfconfidence #newaffluentworkers #workingclass #middleclass #suicide #suicidalthoughts #peers #selfworth #thebigfive #influences #issues #problems #help #hugs #physicalcontact #pets #charts #tables #analysis #age #gender #class #communication #alone #beingthere #helping #whatishappiness #love #money #wealth #motivation #regret #comfort #community #togetherness #notalone #music #goatparkour #travel #documentary #fiction #jointhefight #care #selfcare #empathy