More concern for others than for oneself
En la primavera de 2021, un estudio del Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas de España reveló una paradoja profunda: el virus que amenazaba físicamente a los mayores era el que más devastaba psicológicamente a los jóvenes. Los adultos de entre 18 y 24 años no temían tanto a su propia muerte como a convertirse en el puente involuntario hacia la muerte de quienes amaban. En esa inversión del instinto de autopreservación —ese peso moral de proteger al otro— se alojaba una forma de sufrimiento que las estadísticas apenas podían contener.
- Casi uno de cada tres jóvenes españoles de 18 a 24 años sufrió ataques de pánico durante la pandemia, una tasa cuatro veces superior a la de los mayores de 65 años.
- La depresión, el llanto frecuente y la sensación de aislamiento golpearon con más fuerza a los más jóvenes, quienes se sentían cortados del mundo en el momento en que más lo necesitaban para construirse.
- El miedo dominante no era morir, sino contagiar: el 64,8% temía transmitir el virus a otros, frente al 44% que temía contraerlo, revelando una angustia moral más que existencial.
- Entre los jóvenes de 25 a 34 años, el 38% expresó desesperanza ante el futuro con frecuencia, casi el doble que entre los mayores de 55, sugiriendo una herida generacional que no cerrará sola.
- Los expertos advierten que los ataques de pánico no tratados pueden derivar en fobias duraderas, y que la magnitud del daño psicológico en esta generación exigirá intervenciones sostenidas a largo plazo.
A principios de marzo de 2021, el Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas de España publicó uno de los estudios más amplios sobre el impacto psicológico de la pandemia en el país, basado en más de 3.000 entrevistas. Sus conclusiones tenían un filo inesperado: el virus mataba a los ancianos, pero era la mente de los jóvenes la que más estaba quebrando.
Los adultos de entre 18 y 24 años registraron las tasas más altas de ataques de pánico —un 30,3%—, frente al 7,8% entre los mayores de 65. El psicólogo Bonifacio Sandín, uno de los directores del estudio, subrayó que estos episodios no eran menores: podían derivar en fobias y alterar de forma duradera la manera en que los jóvenes habitaban el mundo. A ello se sumaban la tristeza profunda, el llanto frecuente y una sensación de aislamiento más aguda que la reportada por cualquier otra franja de edad.
Pero lo que verdaderamente definía el perfil psicológico de los jóvenes españoles era la naturaleza de sus miedos. Solo el 23,4% temía morir del virus. En cambio, el 68,6% temía perder a alguien cercano, y el 64,8% temía contagiarlo. No se trataba de miedo a la propia muerte, sino del peso de poder ser su causa.
Esa inversión del instinto de autopreservación —la carga de sentirse potencial vector de daño para padres y abuelos— parecía ser el núcleo de su sufrimiento. Los jóvenes no estaban atrapados solo en sus casas; estaban atrapados en una forma de ansiedad moral para la que nadie los había preparado, y que los mayores, quizás más reconciliados con su propia finitud, parecían sobrellevar con más entereza.
Spain's Center for Sociological Research released what may be the most comprehensive accounting yet of how the pandemic has reshaped the mental landscape of the country—more than 3,000 interviews conducted, published in early March 2021. The findings arrived with a counterintuitive edge: while the virus itself hunted the elderly, its psychological weight fell heaviest on the young.
Young adults between 18 and 24 bore the sharpest mental health burden. Nearly a third of them—30.3 percent—reported experiencing panic attacks since the pandemic began, a rate that plummeted to 7.8 percent among those 65 and older. Bonifacio Sandín, a psychology professor at Spain's National Distance Education University and one of the study's directors, noted that these panic episodes were not trivial. They were severe enough to potentially spiral into phobias, reshaping how young people moved through the world.
The emotional toll extended beyond panic. Young adults reported feeling profoundly sad or depressed at high rates: 24 percent said they had felt this way many or quite often, compared to 18.3 percent of those in their mid-forties to early fifties. Nearly 43 percent of the youngest group said they had cried during the pandemic—a higher proportion than any other age bracket. Isolation compounded the damage. Young people reported feeling alone and cut off more acutely than older generations, and they carried a particular dread about what lay ahead. Among those aged 25 to 34, 38 percent expressed hopelessness about the future many or quite often, nearly double the rate of those in their late fifties and early sixties.
What made the psychological profile of young Spaniards distinctive was not what they feared for themselves, but what they feared for others. Only 23.4 percent worried greatly about dying from the virus. But 68.6 percent—nearly three in four—feared losing someone close to them. The gap widened further when researchers asked about transmission. Forty-four percent worried about catching the virus themselves; 64.8 percent worried about giving it to someone else. Sandín distilled the pattern into a single observation: there was more concern for others than for oneself.
This inversion of self-preservation instinct—this weight of responsibility for the vulnerable people around them—seemed to be what was breaking young people psychologically. They were not afraid of death. They were afraid of being the vector of death, of being the one who brought the virus home to a parent or grandparent. They were afraid of loss, of isolation, of a future that felt foreclosed. The pandemic had not just confined them to their homes; it had confined them to a particular kind of moral anxiety, one that older Spaniards, perhaps more accustomed to their own mortality, seemed better equipped to bear.
Notable Quotes
Young people show the highest rates of panic symptoms in general, particularly those aged 18 to 24, who experience panic attacks that can be severe and lead to phobias— Bonifacio Sandín, psychology professor and study director
There is more concern for others than for oneself— Bonifacio Sandín
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why would young people report panic attacks at four times the rate of the elderly, when the virus itself poses less physical danger to them?
Because they're not panicking about themselves. They're panicking about being the person who kills their grandmother. That's a different kind of fear entirely—it's not about your own body, it's about your culpability.
But 44 percent worry about catching it themselves. That's still a significant number.
True. But notice what happens when you ask about transmitting it: 64.8 percent. The gap tells you everything. Young people can live with personal risk. What they can't live with is the idea that they might be the instrument of someone else's death.
The hopelessness about the future—38 percent of 25-to-34-year-olds. Is that about the pandemic specifically, or something deeper?
The pandemic accelerated it, but it's also about what the pandemic revealed. Lockdowns, isolation, the collapse of normal social rituals—these hit young people harder because they're still building their lives. For older people, the structure is already there. For young people, the structure was supposed to be forming right now.
So the mental health crisis isn't really about the virus at all.
It's about what the virus forced them to become: isolated, responsible for others' safety, unable to plan, unable to move. The virus is the container. The crisis is what's inside.