Veteran Bollywood actress and Rajya Sabha MP Jaya Bachchan has invited new controversy with her remarks regarding mental health and anxiety attacks in today’s generation. In a viral episode of a podcast by her granddaughter Navya Naveli Nanda, Jaya Bachchan discussed how modern lifestyles, especially the lifestyle that is digital, were affecting the mental well-being of young people.
“We never heard of anxiety attacks during our time,” says Jaya Bachchan on Navya’s podcast. Having an open conversation with Navya, Jaya informed us that she and her friends never even heard of anxiety attacks growing up. According to her, the ceaseless search for validation in the digital space is one of the greatest causes of increasing levels of stress among kids today.”.
“There’s this expectation in your generation to respond to every message, to respond to every call. It’s all about the way that you appear, the way that you sound, whether you’re saying the right thing, all for people to approve of you online,” Jaya mentioned in the interview.
When Navya asked whether the internet and mobile phones were putting extra pressure on today’s generation, Jaya did not hold back. “Yes, definitely,” she said. “Nobody in my generation ever talked of anxiety, not at kid age, not even at teenager age. We did not even know what an anxiety attack was.”
Shweta Bachchan disagrees with her mother
While Jaya Bachchan’s version has gone viral on the web, not everyone was on the same page as her daughter Shweta Bachchan Nanda. Shweta offered a different version on the same show saying that issues of mental health such as anxiety were always there they just weren’t being recognized or talked about so freely before.
“Anxiety used to happen even those days. The only thing is that now people talk about it and can recognize it,” Shweta mentioned.
Her remarks are indicative of a change in the idea of mental well-being, and how awareness and free dialogue now make it possible for individuals to approach it more easily.
Role of social pressure in the modern age
The dialogue exchange between the three generations—Jaya, Shweta, and Navya did ring true to a lot of listeners, especially those who are interested in how social media, phone screens, and being connected at all times are shaping the mental health of Gen Z.
While greater awareness of depression, anxiety, and burnout in the social media era made Jaya’s remarks go viral, there were some who were with her in believing that there used to be better times. Others highlighted how stigma around mental illness used to keep so much underground.
Jaya Bachchan’s comment again has revealed her to be a person not hesitant to provide opinions. One may like or dislike her, but her comment and Shweta’s reaction have brought to light how technology is disrupting mental well-being, which is something that needed to be addressed.
With the conversation of mental well-being coming into the limelight, open conversations between generations as these are a must for awareness and understanding.