This scan was drafted for the Seminar and workshop ‘Enhancing societal resilience through listening and being heard’ on June 5-6, 2025, in Helsinki, Finland.

The scan

On the one hand, Finnish adolescents appear to concentrate increasingly on a smaller, more intimate trust bubble—fewer close friendships, but ones they regard as highly important. This is reflected in both the documented decline in the number of close friends and in adolescents’ strong emphasis on close friendships as their most important aspiration for adulthood. Simultaneously, there is growing disengagement from institutions in which youth are directly involved, such as schools. In the Finnish cultural context—where institutional trust and belonging are traditionally high—widespread indifference or weakening attachment signals an active break from expected norms.

On the other hand, young people seem to compensate for their shrinking direct social belonging with a form of egoistic autonomy grounded in personal values. The dominant value profile among Finnish adolescents is one of self-enhancement and personal focus. This orientation is paired with relatively high levels of self-knowledge and life purpose, and coincides with increased identification with abstract or remote entities—such as international institutions, European identity, and NATO—as well as with abstract values. These developments point to a shift from immediate, embodied forms of belonging toward future-facing, symbolic, or ideational forms.

A clear price for this shift, especially among girls, is a significant deterioration in mental health—rising levels of anxiety, loneliness, and reduced life satisfaction. Additionally, the sharp decline in optimism about the future—down from 83% in 2016 to 61% in 2024—may itself be either a symptom of this psychosocial reconfiguration or one of its costs.

Literature (all accessed between May 29 and 31, 2025)

• Gustafsson, J., Lyyra, N., Jasinskaja-Lahti, I. et al. Mental health profiles of Finnish adolescents before and after the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Child Adolesc Psychiatry Ment Health 17, 54 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13034-023-00591-1
• Helsinki times. Finnish youth feel connected to society but faith in the future is fading. 19.3.2025 https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/26293-finnish-youth-feel-connected-to-society-but-faith-in-the-future-is-fading.html
• Kajastus K. Generalized Anxiety Among Finnish Adolescents – Assessment, correlates, and associations with social anxiety. Tampere University Dissertations 1220. https://trepo.tuni.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/225947/978-952-03-3894-7.pdf
• Kiviruusu O, Haravuori H, Lindgren, Therman S, Marttunen M, Suvisaari J, Aalto-Setälä T. Generalized anxiety among Finnish youth from 2013 to 2021—Trend and the impact of COVID-19. In: Journal of Affective Disorders, Volume 330, 2023, Pages 267-274, ISSN 0165-0327, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2023.03.010
• Kiviruusu O, Ranta K, Lindgren M, Haravuori H, Silén Y, Therman S, Lehtonen J, Sares-Jäske L, Aalto-Setälä T, Marttunen M, Suvisaari J. Mental health after the COVID-19 pandemic among Finnish youth: a repeated, cross-sectional, population-based study. In: Lancet Psychiatry. 2024 Aug;11(8):e10. doi: 10.1016/S2215-0366(24)00213-X. PMID: 38760112.
• Knaappila N, Marttunen M, Fröjd S, Kaltiala R. Changes over time in mental health symptoms among adolescents in Tampere, Finland. May 2021. In: Scandinavian Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology 9(1):96-104 DOI:10.21307/sjcapp-2021-011
• Mannerström R, Hietajärvi L, Kuusisto A, Kallioniemi A. Value Profiles Among Finnish Adolescents and Their Associations With Subjective and Social Well-Being. November 2022. In: Child Indicators Research 16(2) DOI:10.1007/s12187-022-09992-8
• Ranta K, Aalto-Setälä T, Heikkinen T, Kiviruusu O. Social anxiety in Finnish adolescents from 2013 to 2021: change from pre-COVID-19 to COVID-19 era, and mid-pandemic correlates. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol. 2024 Jan;59(1):121-136. doi: 10.1007/s00127-023-02466-4. Epub 2023 Apr 24. PMID: 37095373; PMCID: PMC10125255.
• Read S, Salmela-Aro K, Kiuru N, Helenius J, Junttila N. The cohort trends of social connectedness in secondary school students in Finland between 2017 and 2021. PLoS One. 2024 Oct 28;19(10):e0312579. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0312579. PMID: 39466743; PMCID: PMC11516007.
• Tuominen M, Tikkanen J. Adolescent social capital: An intergenerational resource? In Wiley. 2023 DOI: 10.1002/jad.12215
• Viljanen, M., & Kuusisto, E. (2024). Life purposes of Finnish adolescents. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/00313831.2024.2394394