The caucuses are over and, from all reports, many students actually took the time to take part in the archaic, time-consuming and quintessential Iowan political process.

Some student precincts even saw record-high turnouts, which is impressive but does not mean a new boom of youth interest in politics is at hand.

Let’s be honest, if January had been sweeps month, it would have been a different story.

Students still came out in unprecedented droves. This is worthy of congratulations. It is refreshing to read a story that suggests collegiate political interest continues after student campaigners type up their resumes.

Not to rain on the parade, but Monday night’s high student turnout was profoundly atypical. Students are still not paying attention to politics or anything else happening in their world.

This is not a question that needs deliberation. It is a fact.

Every presidential candidate that stopped on campus for an hour or two in the last several months made it a point to talk about how concerned they are about student political apathy.

They took credit for personally energizing the youth electorate and emphasized the importance of college student input.

The stock answer to explain this indifference to politics and politicians has been, at least for the last few years, some canned quote about how stable our economy is and how growing up in a wonderful world has dulled this generation’s desire for activism.

The experts think college-aged Americans have lived the fat life and have nothing to worry about. We’ve decided not to pay attention until we’re forced.

That seems to be an adequate explanation for our apathy, but it leaves some questions unanswered.

For instance, why did the 34th annual American Freshman Survey find this year’s incoming freshmen are more stressed than ever?

Thirty percent of over 360,000 freshmen taking part in the UCLA survey reported feeling, “frequently overwhelmed by all I have to do,” according to The Associated Press.

In contrast, during the recession of the mid-1980s, half as many students were stressed. The level of stress has been consistently increasing since 1985, when a mere 16 percent of incoming freshmen admitted to being overwhelmed at times.

In other words, as the economy got better students got more worried and less interested in politics.

Well, if the youth are so happy about the economy that they’ve turned a deaf ear to politics, why are they more stressed than 15 years ago when Reaganomics was driving the country off an economic cliff?

This generation is not just sitting around sipping umbrella drinks and thinking, “My, what a great economy. I do believe I’ll take a nap this afternoon.” Youth are stressed about themselves and their world.

Sure, there are other issues driving youth apathy besides high economic times. There’s that gut feeling that nearly every politician is a lying, cheating, self-serving beast who is utterly out of touch with society. There’s pandering to the youth vote followed immediately by a complete lack of interest.

Perhaps there’s a less obvious reason for our political disinterest. Maybe we aren’t just mollified to apathy. Maybe it is a defensive response to the world around us.

As Harold Pruett, director of Student Psychological Services at UCLA, said in the Daily Bruin, “The world is an increasingly more complex place and trends like this among students are big indications that we’re all running ragged.”

During a time when technology is supposed to be connecting us all and making the world smaller, I can not help but feel like we are incapable of processing inconceivable amounts of information that do not bring us closer, do not enlighten us and disenchant us with the very elements of society to which we should be drawn.

Passionate students who might have been politically motivated in another time turn their backs to the system and submerse themselves in their own misery and self-doubt because they feel they cannot change a system grown too big and too intimidating.

Maybe that’s why the student caucus turnout was larger than expected.

There’s something true, real and simple at the root of the caucus: Raise your hand if you like this guy, go stand over there if you like another. A simple idea for a complex time.

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David Roepke is a junior in journalism and mass communications from Aurora. He is a Daily news editor.