I think both are true. Therapy will help you get sorted out, you can go once or twice, there's no rule saying it has to be ongoing. Many many people feel the way you do. Covid pushed a lot of people into the darkest moments of their life.

There was a 1 month waitlist to see a new therapist and 2 month to see a psychiatrist. That's in a densely populated state like NJ, usa.

There are many more things today that are able to more easily exhaust your emotional battery. News has gone from click bait to concern baiting in order to keep your attention. Every other news story is "breaking news". It's not.

I have been feeling burned out too and it's more severe than I have felt it in the past. I can't speak about pre 2010, I was too young. But in 2010s it was so much easier to figure out what needed my attention and what didn't.

There have been, what feels like, back to back world changing events. The reality is there always were. Covid is the first one that managed to touch every single person in the world's life. There's state and country level events like the war. The impact of those events spread it out to continents.

But in my lifetime and maybe most people's, there hasn't been a world effecting event like covid since, maybe WWII. Age is a factor for the previous one I think of, it's not the same for everyone.

Phone and content consumption are things that help me make it through the day. Tiktok is seen as "bad" but to me it's nice to spend a half hour watching random people do funny things. My timeline is tuned to show me cute animals and funny videos. No drama, no news, no stress.

My advice to you is find a hobby with a small local community. If you can't, find somewhere to volunteer. For me, there's an archery shooting range that has Friday night shoots at indoor targets. I see people from different age brackets. I can invite a close friend or two to come and hang out and talk about nothing in particular.

Like this lady tried to argue that she had dibs on a specific box of fruit because her hand touched it first. I just gave it to her but it was funny in retrospect. There were 30 other boxes.

I don't care about getting good enough at archery to make be competitive or go hunting. I feel happy about getting 9s and 10s. I don't feel bad about myself if I don't.

I would say go back to some root. Make a book club with your friends, or join the one at the local library. Volunteer at the local senior center or whenever. Get into 3d printing. Local open intramural sport. I know some of my friends do basketball game tournaments.

Do something you have done already so it's not new. Something you put down and forgot about or just didn't have time for.

Video games are decent, especially if you focus on single player games and not online multi-player.

I love my phone. I have friends I stay in touch with across time zones because of my phone. I am in many discords. There's never a moment in time where I can't pick up my phone, find people talking about a show I like or about some tech project I also like and just talk. They're strangers but we start with something in common. Specific communities talk about drama but I just go to a different discord channel.

Having a community you have a shared interest with gives you something to look forward to. I am in the stable diffusion community and it's pretty nice. Interesting projects and technical discussions.

Other people advising you to use your phone less don't understand the root of the issue. Whether or not you get therapy is up to you. Maybe a heart to heart with a friend you really really trust is enough.